Twitter Tools And Techniques To Power Your Marketing

2. Use Advanced Search

Most people don't think of Twitter as a search tool. But you can get a lot done by a few simple commands via the Advanced Search function.

You can figure out some good stuff:

  • Find the top trending topics, only the most current or all of it, and just pictures, too.
  • If someone is mentioning you, without the @ symbol, you can see that via this advanced search option.
  • You can track multiple profiles
  • Eavesdrop on your competitors
  • Follow links from certain people

For example, you can search a topic with or without links that people retweet by checking the box at the bottom of the advanced search form.  You can read Twitter's guide to advanced search.

4. Hash Tag Tracking

The beauty of hashtags is you can add a simple term along with the hash mark # and easily track the conversation.

Here's another article for American Express OPEN Forum on how to use hashtags.

Simply append #SmallBusiness or whatever term you want to track. No space after the hash mark and your term, though.

Hashtags.org lets you quickly jump to trending hashtags on its site.

6. Tweet Archivist

This powerhouse web service (also available as a desktop application) allows you to search for a Twitter user, a keyword, or phrase. It states you can find, analyze, and archive your tweets.

That's the key: Archive. It lets you download the search as a spreadsheet. For this sample search, I looked up “small business” as a term and it returned almost 1,500 tweets and the usernames of who tweeted it, the tweet itself, and other details.

Pretty useful if you are searching for people to follow or potential clients, perhaps.

Another part that I liked: When I searched for my name without the @ symbol, it showed me tweets where my name was not mentioned in the tweet itself, but the underlying post or link contained my name. Pretty savvy.

Tweet Archivist is one to use.

8. Tweriod

Tweriod wants to help you understand the best time to send your tweets. It works in conjunction with Buffer (an app where you upload your tweets and they parse them out at an even interval, or at least not in a rapid fire procession, which is generally considered better form).

Tweriod reveals the best times when your tweet will get the most exposure, based on your followers and when they are online.

10. TwitterMap

TwitterMap is exactly what you'd expect from the name.

Enter Twitter Search Terms, and visualize tweets by a user's location on a map. It is a super simple app that just gives you an idea of where a topic is more popular geographically. It is leveraging Google Maps combined with Twitter data. It takes a little while to populate the map, so do a search, then stop back in a few minutes.

When you hover over the red pushpin, it reveals the actual tweet at the top of the screen.

12. Topsy

Topsy is a real-time social search engine. They recently started offering a pro analytics account that I tested, but haven't posted on yet. But just using their search engine you can find new users to follow, and dig deeper into a topic.

I like that it gives you the stats (on the left side column) of how many times a term has been shared or mentioned over different time periods.

So, in this example, “entrepreneur” is mentioned 73,000 times over the last 30 days.