Demystifying Twitter is easy. Yes, it’s updates and conversations that take place online in under 140 characters. But, better said, Twitter is real-time conversations about what people are thinking, feeling, experiencing and even reviewing, anytime and anywhere. It’s also where people ask their peers for recommendations.

Using Twitter to find potential customers is simple, simple, simple. You only need to do the background work once and you will be automatically notified when new opportunities, that meet your criteria, come up in conversation.

How To Find Potential Customers:

1. Go to Twitter’s search page and click on the “Advanced Search” link

2. Input your search criteria. In this example, I’ve searched for a (1) caterer who is querying twitterers (2) looking, in need of, looking for recommendations, searching, wanting, and looking to find a caterer within (3) 500 miles of NYC. You can also specify twitter user names, dates, etc – so play around with the queries to get the results you’re looking for.

3. Click “Search”. Et voila! The real-time results for your query.

Saving your results

To save in TweetDeck

1. Copy the query code that appears within the search box

2. Open Tweetdeck

3. Click on the Twitter Search Icon (magnifying glass) and paste the search code into the search box

4. Now a new column will be added to Tweetdeck. It will show the latest search results every time you log in!

Update: As per the note below from Jason, TweetDeck does not allow this function yet.

To save in Google Reader

1. Click on “Feed for this query” in your Twitter advanced search results page.

2. Copy the feed address in your web address bar.

3. Go to Google Reader

4. Click on “Add Subscription”

5. Paste copied search feed in the blank field & click “Add”.

6. Now your real-time search results will appear in your reader under “Subscriptions”

To save in Twitter.com

1. Copy the query code that appears within the search box

2. Log in to your Twitter.com account.

3. Insert the search query code you copied into the search bar in Twitter.com and hit Enter.

4. Click on “Save this search” to save it on your profile page. Now you can click on the link any time you’d like to see your real-time search results.

There are many smart businesses already using this technique. Yes, we’ve probably all heard about Comcast’s highly publicized use of Twitter search to solve their customer’s woes. But even small businesses are realizing the benefit of Twitter Search. One of my favorite examples is Sullivan Tire:

Basically, @PatBrough tweeted that he was looking for Tires. Because Sullivan was monitoring search terms on Twitter, they found the tweet. After a very short exchange, @SullivanTire turned someone who didn’t have the Sullivan brand in their consideration set into a potential customer looking for a quote. Amazing what a few seconds and some proactivity can garner!

I hope you learned something. Happy tweeting!

Helping smart businesses attract more customers
(289) 937.0141 . hello@ready2spark.com

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