7 Twitter Search Basics…A Primer

Sometimes the mechanics of search on Twitter can seem like a real conudrum. Maybe not as big as “How does Santa get down the chimney”? But, vexing never the less. You don’t always have to know how to put together a Boolean search string (like I know what that is). Here are some basic search methods you can use in the Twitter search box or your Twitter client search box and the results you can expect to see:

 

twitter failwhale

    Finds text containing twitter AND failwhale

“i want an iphone”

    Tweets with the EXACT phrase “i want an iphone”

Twitter OR pownce

    Find tweets containing EITHER twitter OR pownce

django –reinhart

    Returns tweets containing django but NOT Reinhardt

#python

    Find tweets with the hashtag python

@mikemorawski

    Find tweets referencing the user mikemorawski (me)

iphone filter:links

    Find tweets about iphone that contain links.

 

Now let’s use an example and show all of us left-brained people how this can be put to practical use. In your search box type:

 

photography rfp

 

MMMM…not much. Sometimes you have to be a little creative. This time try:

 

photo rfp

 

Ok there’s a few there to work with that we didn’t know about.

 

Now for the agency new biz people try typing:

 

agency rfp

 

On the day I did this search this was the first tweet that came up!

 

"namechanged: Putting out an RFP for LA area web agency. What details are most important to scope out a site build? 21 minutes ago from Tweetdeck "

 

Wouldn’t you like to know about this opportunity? Wouldn’t you like to establish a relationship with this person/company?  Sure would be nice to be able to follow them. Twitter search can help.

 

Mike Morawski

Chief Instigation Officer

Comments

[Paula Mecca]

Good basic info for someone who doesn't tweet, only Facebooks....now that I see what some of the mechanics are...I'm more likely to give it a whirl..