How to use Twitter Search

Twitter is a fabulous business research tool. To understand the basics of using the information available on Twitter here are a few ideas:

• Market Research - You can research what your target market are talking about
• Competitor Analysis - You can research what your competitors are talking about.
• Enhancing your Expertise - You can search for the most relevant topics that just you’re interested in and differentiate yourself from other businesses.

Searching by your Keywords

• With any industry there will be a long list of keywords that might be relevant to you. I would think about 7 or 8 hot topics that are relevant to the products/services you offer and do a regular/daily search to see what people are talking about locally.
• You can search on popular topics in your industry, latest news, legislative updates, software updates, politics, offers and promotions, job openings, etc.
• Once you've found people who have something worthwhile to contribute, follow them. You want to follow people who are actively participating in Twitter conversations on your key topics.

Searching for the right people to Follow

• First you need to be clear who your target market is. Build up a customer profile for their likes, dislikes, where they hang out, who they follow and admire, what information is relevant and interesting to them.
• You can follow your clients and prospects, but also follow people that your target market like – so you’re building a similar ‘Following profile to them’ this way you may appear in their recommendations on who to follow.
• Reflect your own personality, develop yourself as a thought leader for your industry or specialism. To do this you need to follow people you admire, respect, leaders in your field etc. Also consider governing bodies and best practice organisations.

Searching for Competitors

• Don't obsess about what your competitors are doing, invest more time developing your own strategies, promotions and content. But it won't do any harm checking out who you're competing with locally and what they are talking about.
  

What are Twitter Trends?

Twitter's Trending Topics algorithm identifies topics that are immediately popular, rather than topics that have been popular for a while or on a daily basis, to help people discover the "most breaking" news stories from across the world. We think that trending topics which capture the hottest emerging trends and topics of discussion on Twitter are the most interesting.

About Twitter's Trending Topics

• To see a quick snapshot of the most tweeted-about topics on Twitter, look to the sidebar on the right of your homepage. You can also see trends in many of our mobile clients and on the mobile web.

• From news stories to the latest buzz about movies, music and more, the trending topics reflect what new or newsworthy topics are occupying most people's attention on Twitter at any one time.

Note: You may notice that some topics come with a number sign "#" before the word or phrase. This is called a hashtag and was put there specifically to mark it as a topic so that people can follow the conversation in search.

Localise

Twitter can either show you topics that are trending worldwide or those that are trending in one of more than 100 cities and countries.

To change views:

1. Click change next to your location name in the sidebar. A pop-up menu will appear, displaying a list of countries.

2. Click on the country of your choice. If that country has specific cities as an option, you’ll be able to choose a specific city.

- Clicking a location will automatically update your home sidebar and display topics from your chosen locale.

- The green checkmark signals your chosen location. Click on the X to close the location window.

3. You can switch locations at any point by clicking on change to bring up the full list of options again.

Please note:

• If you don't see your country or city, it means there aren't enough Tweets from that geographical area to create a quality list. Locations are not manually selected, but rather displayed dynamically based on tweet volume.

• When you click a topic listed under your local area, you will be shown the overall search results for that trending topic, not the local search results for that topic - to get an overview of the local Tweets on a local trending topic, use advanced Twitter Search operators.

These are just a few tips on how to use Twitter Search. This forms just part of your overall Twitter strategy which is what we'll be discussing in our next Blog.

If you're interested in learning more about why we think Twitter works well for business, sign up for our Understanding Twitter Workshop - just £25

How to create the best Twitter Profile

Summary - Creating the right first impression is important when doing any kind of business networking, so this blog will concentrate on getting the right look for your Twitter Account or Profile page.

Your Twitter Profile

The building blocks of any social network are user pages known as profiles. It’s a good idea to do whatever you can to reflect your personality and personal/company brand, without going over the top with bold colours that might put some followers off!

• If you work for a large organisation you can create a company Twitter Profile, using your company logo and information.
• If your company has a recognisable spokesperson, you can create a profile for them.
• If you are the owner of a SME, self-employed, freelance or a consultant it might be best to use a combination or your logo and personal information.
• Personal accounts. You can use Twitter to communicate with your friends and family.
• Multiple accounts. You can have more than one account. So it might be appropriate to have a personal and business account and make sure you’re logged into the right one when you’re telling all your friends what your plans are for the weekend!

What's an Avatar?

People will read your Tweets next to a small avatar 48 x 48 pixcel square image, this is called your Avatar.

For a Personal Twitter Account your avatar = Your photo

For a Business Twitter Account your avatar = Your logo

How to change your Avatar:

1. Log in to www.twitter.com

2. Click Settings.

3. Click on Profile on the fifth tab of your navigation bar.

4. Click the Browse button next to your profile image.

5. Choose which file to load.

6. After selecting the file, click Save at the bottom of the page.

2. Your Twitter Bio

You have just 160 characters to explain who you are. Having a Bio means you will have more followers on average. If you Bio contains the words, Official, Founder or Expert again you can expect above average number of followers.

3. Your Twitter Background

We recommend changing your Twitter background to reflect your corporate branding, this is what you need to do:

1. Log in to www.twitter.com
2. In the top navigation bar, click Settings (or go to http://twitter.com/account/settings)
3. Click the furthest tab on the right, labelled Design
4. Select a template by clicking on it, or upload your own background image by clicking "Change background image." (figure 1)
5. Save your changes when done
6. If you want to customise the sidebar and font colours of your page, click "Change design colours"
7. Click any of the boxes to change your colours; click Done when you're finished. (figure 2)

The standard background image dimensions for Twitter are:

• File Dimensions: 960 px by 720 px
• Horizontal position: 20 px from the left (to give yourself some padding).
• Vertical position: 14 px from the top (will line up your graphic with the top of the twitter logo. Our eyes like symmetry).

Note: Whilst these haven’t been officially documented by Twitter, but have been unofficially documented all over the web between graphic designers and the social network community.

Creating the right first impression is important when doing any kind of business networking, so once you've got the basics right, you'll be ready to start using Twitter yourself and making the right connections - which we'll discuss in my next Blog!

If you would like to learn more about Twitter Best Practise for Business, sign up to our Taster Workshop today, prices start from just £25/session.