A step-by-step tutorial on how to find new followers in your niche using Advanced Twitter Search
The problem that some publishers have with Twitter is that they see it as place to obnoxiously tell everyone what you’re doing and where you’re going. Yes, Twitter is filled with noise, but once you realize it’s full potential, you’ll learn how to tune out the noise; Or better yet – you’ll learn how to turn that noise into revenue. Do you remember when Neo starts to see the code for the first time in The Matrix? It’s kinda like that.
Twitter is an excellent audience development tool. What do I mean by that? People are asking questions all the time on Twitter. When you start finding that other people’s “noise” is really your opportunity to come in and comment, or answer an open question, you might be more inclined to listen, rather than judge.
I’m willing to bet that you have a few answers to some of the questions that that openly inquired about on Twitter. In fact, I’m going to go ahead and prove it to you by breaking out a new Mequoda screencast. Click the play button below to be dazzled by the power of Advanced Twitter Search.
For a better view, click Full Screen mode.
To recap the video, you’ll first want to check out Search.Twitter.com. This is Twitter’s very own search page and your first place to start finding folks that are asking questions. You’ll want to start by searching for questions that are common in your niche. If you’re feeling up for it, try using the some of the advanced twitter search operators right in the search box. Here is a link to a list of Twitter Search Operators for all you search engine ninjas.
Moving on to the advanced Twitter search, I pretended that I’m a gardening magazine with a new free special report on Hydrangeas. Since I want to get the word out about it, I’m going to start looking for people asking questions using the word “hydrangea”. With the help of advanced Twitter search, I can select the “Asking a question ?” checkbox, because I want to search for people tweeting about hydrangeas with a question mark somewhere in the tweet. As a side note, I also made sure that the tweets that showed up in the results page were in English.
From here, we can see all the folks who are tweeting about their Hydrangeas, asking questions etc. We can also see other companies, like @HomeDepot who is already out there using this exact method to find their customers and respond to their questions. With the people and questions we find using this tool, we can begin responding using our own expertise. If our new Hydrangea special report answers their question about Pruning, we can send them a link. If they just want to know what people think about their blossoming buds, we can tell them they’re beautiful.
Have any other tricks you use in your own business with Twitter Advanced Search? There are tons and this is only the tip of an iceberg I’m going to get into in the future of Mequoda screencasts, so please share them in the comments.
