Twitter Search: the Beginnings of the New Face of Search!

For a long time now I’ve said that Twitter and other social media apps such as Facebook will be the new face of search. And it’s happening. Searching Twitter is taking on epidemic proportions. Everyone’s doing it, but for very different reasons.

Some are searching twitter:

• to see who’s talking about them (vanity)
• to see who’s talking about them (branding purposes)
• to see who’s talking about their competition (rivalry)
• to see what they need to write about on their blog for maximum interest (smart)
• for market research purposes to see if there’s a need for a particular service or product
• to find interesting people to network with
• to get the latest news on an issue of importance
• to track events

There are probably more reasons, but I think I’ve covered all the main bases here.

A selection of Twitter Search Tools

So how do they search? There are dozens of ways to search Twitter, but here’s a quick rundown of some of the great programs we now have at our disposal:

Trendistic helps you monitor trends effectively on Twitter. With those neat little graphs, if you’re watching carefully, you’ll see exactly when you need to chime in to ride the crest of the wave in a trending topic.

Next we have WhattheTrend which helps us monitor hashtags precisely.

One of my favorites tools to search Twitter in real time is SearchTwitter. It’s really simple, but I like it.

Twitscoop will appeal to those who want to watch trending topics as well as be able to search Twitter in real time.

Tips on How to Search Twitter

If you need some tips on how to use these tools to search Twitter, I’ve found a few great ones. Chris Brogan can always be relied upon to give us the goods and here he is talking about using Twitter search.

And here’s an oldy but a goody: an article on advanced Twitter search from Search Engine Journal.

..and how to make the most of Twitter

Twitter continues to grow dramatically in popularity, contrary to so many people’s expectations. Predictably over the past 24 months Twitter has suffered its fair share of spammers and hackers, and this has resulted in the Twitter admin team taking various steps to curb that development.

If anything, Twitter users in general are less inclined than most to suffer hackers or spammers. If you follow someone and show any inclination whatsoever to spam or otherwise take advantage of your networking relationship you will be hastily blocked. Just lately you run an increasing risk of getting banned completely by Twitter too.

A list of stuff you shouldn’t do and things you should know if you use Twitter (or any other social media site):

1. Don’t use the auto DM feature: It may seem harmless to you but scores of Twitter users unfollow if they receive even one auto DM from you.
2. No personal attacks. Twitter is generally a friendly, welcoming place. If you don’t like what someone is saying simply unfollow them and end of story. Personal attacks will not only cause a mass unfollowing, they could quite easily get you banned or blocked.
3. If you block someone it will also negatively affect your twitter score, and if you are blocked by someone it will negatively affect your twitter score (such as on Twitter Grader).
4. There are lots of programs that promise you 1000s of followers in days or even hours: don’t go for it. One of the finest features of Twitter is that it allows you to build a network one person at a time, with people who you can build mutually beneficial relationships with. I’m not talking about selling here: I’m talking about hints, tips, support and a whole lot more that make Twitter priceless to so many who work or play online. Also, if you show up as having gained 1000s of followers in a very short space of time you will likely be branded as a spammer as that’s typical spamming behavior. It may even affect the website you link to from your Twitter profile: not a pleasant thought if you’ve been nurturing it lovingly for years.
5. Retweeting what someone else says helps them by boosting their Twitter score. It also encourages other people to retweet what you say: what goes around comes around on Twitter.
6. Stealing what someone else says and passing it off as your own content, is unethical, sleazy, and it could get you unfollowed, blocked or banned. Don’t do it.
7. Spreading viruses or malware via Twitter is a serious matter. It is actually cybercrime. If you do it you could be (again) unfollowed, blocked or banned, and you may also be opening yourself up to legal processes that could end in a prison term.
8. It’s quite acceptable on Twitter to buzz your blogpost or anything else a few times over a couple of days, but if you bang it out every hour on the hour for a week you are asking for trouble. Don’t expect people to like something you wouldn’t like if it happened to you!
9. Using an obscene or objectionable avatar or personal picture might seem cool, but it will turn people off and it may damage your online brand permanently (depending on what you do for a living of course).
10. Finally, if you want to make the most of Twitter and avoid ticking other users off, use the many Twitter search tools to find people who are interested in similar things to you. It’s the best way of ensuring you have fun on Twitter and that you actually make the most of your time there.

So much is going on right now in the world of social media that it’s really hard to pinpoint a particular area to write about.

Social Media: Good or Bad?

There is still a fairly strong opinion that social media has facilitated an online crimewave by making it easy for predators to get private information. But I’d like to make an observation that, just like anything else, social media can be used for good or bad purposes. There are a multitude of examples, just like this news item where a British woman tracked down her attacker on Facebook after police failed to do so.

Social media applications that are hot or up-and-coming include:

Google Wave
Posterous
Twitter (of course–remains #1)
Facebook

Google Wave is fairly new, and you need an invitation. If you’d like one try searching Twitter. I’ve seen lots of people offering Google Wave invites and that’s how I got mine.

And if, like me, you’re in the market for an application that will help you monitor all your social media activity from one place, you might want to test drive HootSuite just like I am right now. It’s too early to tell you what I think about it because I’m still finding my way around. Stay tuned.

Meanwhile, the conversation heats up about what type of social media use is more successful: direct sell or conversation. I’m a purist, and Jason Falls recently made the claim that we won’t last. What do you think?

A humorous look at what could be coming next when we get tired of Twitter (will we? really?)

Today, Biz Stone blogged that Twitter is upgrading its terms of service.

I can’t say that this was unexpected. In light of the recent flurry of activity surrounding the advent of ads on Twitter, and also in light of a series of hack attacks on Twitter and its admin team, it was only a matter of time.

If you’d like to take a look at the new terms of service you may do so here.

Anyone for Pizza?

All the time we’re seeing more and more testimonials from people who have seen very real returns on their efforts to promote their business through Twitter.

Interestingly, those who have had the most success are the most creative. Well, I suppose that’s not really so surprising.

I found this Advertising Age article on how Twitter is being used to promote local businesses particularly interesting, and I think you will too. It doesn’t take a genius to see how these strategies can be adapted to fit any number of small businesses. Now all you need to do is get creative!

Interest in using Twitter for business is at an all-time high since so many are claiming huge success. I discovered this superb video on just that subject and thought it was just too good not to post it for you.

Borrowed from ZNet Blogs

In response to a guest post I did over at Search Engine People, a few people expressed opinions that Twitter is a flash-in-the-pan and won’t stick around like Google.

As Barry Welford rightly pointed out: We remember very clearly that when Google was new it was heralded as a flash-in-the-pan too. But I knew instinctively (OK let’s call it women’s intuition here) that Google was going to be big. I predicted it at the time, but sadly there are none of my web pages around from that time to prove it.

I’m predicting that Twitter will be even bigger than Google. NOTE TO TWITTER ADMIN: get ready for what’s coming now. You need to fix yourselves up so you can cope with the traffic and get some serious search algos in place. Don’t tell us that we didn’t warn you!

Just take a look at these Twitter stats. And it’s still really early days yet.

Today marks the birth of another brand new Twitter application: Twitition though, is a new concept so far.

I declare it the first-ever application that allows you to create, sign and submit petitions through Twitter. It’s a truly original idea that I think will go far. If you’re interested in receiving updates about petitions on Twitter, follow Twitition.

More and more online businesses are getting wind of the fact that an increasing number of successful entrepreneurs are singing the praises of Twitter. But still they’re not sure what it is or how to go about utilizing it.

So every day we get asked ‘what is Twitter?’

Essentially, as Twitter says itself, it is a microblogging application. This means that users are invited to register free of charge and post regular micro blogs or ‘tweets’ of 140 characters or less. To get you started Twitter invites you to tell everyone what you’re doing. Those who follow that advice usually fail miserably at a meteoric rate within the Twitter Village.

Those who go on to accrue a considerable following and to create their own vibrant little Twitter communities are those who realize that, for the most part, people aren’t interested in exactly what you’re doing. But if you Tweet about your latest discoveries online such as resources that everyone can use, or if you give away free niche advice that is useful to your followers, you’ll quickly make a name for yourself, and more importantly you can use Twitter successfully to build your business.

Mark that well, for if you want to unlock Twitter’s many benefits, you must first give to the community. Once you’re trusted you will be able to:

• Keep track of latest industry developments
• Follow what’s being said about you or your clients
• Get the word out about your goods and services (as long as you do it subtly and not in an aggressively promotional way)
• Get traffic for your website
• Learn about products, services and applications that will help your business

Why has Twitter been so successful? Because it’s so versatile. Twitter can, essentially, be anything you want it to be online as long as you bear in mind the guidelines above. It’s useful for just about any community online and it can be used across a wide selection of platforms, including iPhone and SMS. To add to its ease of use and popularity, literally thousands of applications have been created to make your use of Twitter more effective and more enjoyable.

Next we’ll take a look at some of those applications.

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