Navigating Twitter to find individuals with shared interests can be quite challenging. While Facebook and LinkedIn offer “People You May Know” features, Twitter lacks such a functionality. Many users sign up, post a tweet, and then find themselves pondering, “What next?” To identify an initial group of tweeters pertinent to your business, you can utilize a specialized Google search, crafted by me personally. By incorporating the “site:” operator, you can refine your search to exclusively include pages from twitter.com, excluding those from the Twitter mobile site.
The “intitle:” string further refines the search by filtering profile pages from individual tweets. This is due to Twitter appending “on Twitter” to the end of every profile page’s title: . To execute this search, simply copy and paste the following into your Google search bar: site:twitter.com -site:m.twitter.com intitle:”on Twitter” keyword, replacing “keyword” with your specific topic. Instantly, you’ll obtain a list of profiles that are particularly relevant to your area of interest.
Consider a search for “office furniture” on both Twitter and Google. Twitter’s search will present you with a myriad of users discussing office furniture in the moment, yet there’s no guarantee they consistently tweet about office furniture: . However, our custom Google search yields a selection of profiles that mention office furniture, predominantly within the title: . By clicking on the first result, we can verify its relevance: . Indeed, it’s all about office furniture, with the tweeter’s name being “Office Furniture.” Impressive, isn’t it?
It’s important to note that this Google trick does not provide real-time profile search results; it relies on the latest version of the profile page as downloaded by Google, which could be up to a month old. Nonetheless, it leverages Google’s search technology to present the most significant Twitter profiles for your chosen topic. Unlike Twitter search, it eliminates any random tweets that merely mention your keyword in passing. While not always flawless, you’ll need to visit the profiles to confirm their relevance. Nonetheless, it serves as an excellent starting point!
