This week’s #SocialMediaMinute will cover how to use Twitter Advanced Search to find new connections to follow, relevant conversations to engage with and how to search for prospects.

While there’s so much more to Twitter advanced search than I could possibly explain in a minute long video, once you understand how to use the tool I can guarantee you’ll begin to think of different applications and uses for Twitter advanced search for your business.

I’m ready! You ready!? Let’s do this! Ps: I have no idea why I’m so orange in the video! LOL!

See Also: How to Schedule Tweets with Images Using Twitter

Video Tutorial

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Use Advanced Search to:

Find connections to follow: Twitter advanced search makes it easy to find the right people to follow, in the right areas, and at the right time, in hopes of them following you back. Regardless, it’s always a good idea to follow your target market.

We can do so by inserting keywords into the Words Section as well as relevant hashtags into the specific search fields.

To broaden the search even more you can use the People Section to include users who mention a specific industry related Twitter handle.

Performing the search, Twitter will populate a stream of users including their tweets giving you the opportunity to choose those you would like to follow.

Find relevant conversations: Engaging in conversations taking place regarding your industry is not only great for building brand awareness, but also showcasing your industry knowledge to network or attract new followers.

Now this is where you’d use the Places, Dates and Sentiment Sections to narrow in on relevant conversations.

Find prospects and create leads: One of the best ways to find prospects for your business is to find users who are asking questions containing your keywords or phrases that you could provide answers to.

A good way to start this form of advanced search is to first use the “Exact Phrase” search field, “Any of these words” field, which would be your keywords, and finally, scroll down to the “other” option and select Question.

This search will then generate users questions that you can then scan to see if you could provide them an answer.

While I wouldn’t recommend pitching your services right away, providing a valuable answer and being seen as a resource could prompt the user to start initiating conversation with your business to build trust that may ultimately lead into a sale.

Bonus: Use Advanced Search Against Your Competition

Use Twitter advanced search to find tweets mentioning your competitor that are questions or with negative sentiment. If they’re being ignored, it’s a great opportunity to introduce yourself.

Yeah….powerful stuff!

Takeaway

As Twitter Advanced Search is tucked away and not initially noticeable when performing a basic search, I feel many marketers have no idea this option exists.

Remember that this tool is only as useful as you make it.

The more refined you make your search the better and the ability to exclude certain words from tweets will filter out unnecessary noise, especially during events, conferences, or holidays.

What are some other ways to use Twitter Advanced Search that I missed? How else can you use this feature to your advantage? Let me know in the comments below and make sure to come back next week for more social media tutorials.