30 Twitter tips hath September: Looking? Good. Using Twitter Search.
September 21, 2009
In September, we’re offering a Twitter tip a day. Send us your thoughts and suggestions.
[Tweet this tip]
Day 21: Use http://search.twitter.com
to find interesting people, data.
The Twitter search tool is one of its most powerful resources. And it’s free. And you don’t even need a Twitter account to use it. Anyone can access this data from any Web browser.
Plus, with each search, you can bookmark it or save it as an RSS feed.
Play around with it, and use it to …
- Find interesting people. Then follow them, or @message them.
- Find interesting events. For example, so many events are popping in Birmingham this fall. Searching for them in real time is easy.
- Find interesting data. What were people saying about last night’s concert or this weekend’s new movie release? Search and see.
Learning to use the search is the first step in harnessing the wealth of info hiding within the Twitterverse.
Below are the standard Twitter search operators. Try them out!
| Operator | Finds tweets… |
|---|---|
| twitter search | containing both “twitter” and “search”. This is the default operator. |
| “Larry Langford” | containing the exact phrase “Larry Langford”. |
| bham OR bhm | containing either “bham” or “bhm” (or both). |
| birmingham –england | containing “birmingham” but not “england”. |
| #haiku | containing the hashtag “haiku”. |
| from:WadeOnTweets | sent from person “WadeOnTweets”. |
| to:bhamterminal | sent to person “bhamterminal”. |
| @Birmingham_News | referencing person “Birmingham_News”. |
| “happy hour” near:“bessemer” | containing the exact phrase “happy hour” and sent near “bessemer”. |
| near:Gardendale within:5mi | sent within 55 miles of “gardendale”. |
| vulcan since:2009-09-20 | containing “vulcan” and sent since date “2009-09-20” (year-month-day). |
| ftw until:2009-09-20 | containing “ftw” and sent up to date “2009-09-20”. |
| movie -scary 🙂 | containing “movie”, but not “scary”, and with a positive attitude. |
| flight 😦 | containing “flight” and with a negative attitude. |
| traffic ? | containing “traffic” and asking a question. |
| hilarious filter:links | containing “hilarious” and linking to URLs. |
| news source:twitterfeed | containing “news” and entered via TwitterFeed |
Follow @WadeOnTweets for more Twitter fun.
30 Twitter tips hath September
Birmingham Blogging Academy 
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