How To Search The Entire Twitter Archive

Tweets are almost like listening to the NPR in your car while you're commuting. Something really interesting might be broadcasted, but once you've heard it, it's gone. Worse, if you don't have the radio on, you might miss the conversation completely. There's no way to go back. Same with tweets; once they're posted, they're gone.

Except now they're not. Social analytics company Topsy now has a new search tool that allows you to search the entire Twitter history going back to when the company first began in 2006. That's 435 billion tweets!

Not only that, you can now search all social history of a person or topic, or just the links, photos, videos and influencers. All you do is go to Topsy and put your keywords in the search box, and you'll have numerous views of the results.

Why would you want to do that? Although you might already use Google Alerts to tell you when you, your band, or a topic is mentioned online, Topsy shows you a much more intricate picture of how the keyword was used. It's great for doing research on just about any topic, including who mentioned you their posts.

Want to know what your fans really think about you? Just put your band's name in search box. How about the response to an album or video? How about a gig? Research about a venue? How about a hashtag? You can find out a lot from this great research tool.

Topsy also offers more advanced analytics and more precise search with their Pro version, but don't underestimate the power of the free search tool.

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Follow me on Forbes for some insights on the new music business.

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Check out my Big Picture blog for discussion on common music, engineering and production tips and tricks.

3 Twitter Hashtag Secrets

If you've been reading this blog for a while you know that I'm a big proponent using Twitter as a promotional tool. The key to using Twitter that way is by including hashtags in your tweets, or the # symbol before a keyword (like "#musicmarketing" which I'll be using when I tweet about this blog). This is one of the ways that people can find your tweet when they do a such for a particular topic.

If you're using them already and you don't find your followers increasing, check out the following "secrets:"

1. Don't be ironic. I know that it's the cheeky thing to post something like #badcupofcoffee or #rudepeople, but that doesn't help you reach the people that you want to reach. To find the right keyword, go to search.twitter.com, plug in the keyword that you think will work, then check out how popular it is and what some of the other keywords that people are using.

2. Limit the number. It's been proven that using more than 2 hashtags in a tweet is counterproductive. It just confuses people reading the tweet. Stick to only 1 or 2.

3. Target your audience. Once again, do a search to find which hashtags fit for the audience that you're trying to reach. I have a list of about 20 that I can mix and match depending upon the nature of the tweet and which audience might like it more. For instance, the list is different for the tweets from this blog, which is about the music business, than for my Big Picture blog, which is about music production. To narrow it down further on that blog, I have a list that's targeted to musicians (#drums, #drummers, #guitars, etc.) or recording (#recording, #producers, etc.).

Using hashtags isn't hard and they can bring results beyond anything you might expect. All you have to do is use them correctly.

By the way, today is the last day of social media maven's Ariel Hyatt's crowdfunding campaign. I've contributed a few rewards to her various tiers, so be sure to take a look.

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Help support this blog. Any purchases made through our Amazon links help support this website with no cost to you.

You should follow me on Twitter for daily news and updates on production and the music business.

Check out my Big Picture blog for discussion on common music, engineering and production tips and tricks.

4 Twitter Search Alternatives

Last week in a post I touched on the importance of hashtags (placing a # before a keyword) in your tweets as well as the using Twitter searches to find the proper keywords. One of the sites that I use and like, hashtags.org, has shut down (too bad), so let's look at some alternatives.

1) search.twitter.com is more of an all-purpose Twitter search site. If you're looking for any keywords related to hashtags, be sure to place one in front of your search term (like #keyword). If you select "advanced search" you can make your search even more granular.

2) Twellow is a Twitter yellow pages directory. It's interesting in that if you search for a keyword, you'll get the profiles of users with that keyword in their profile based on who has the most tweets.

3) Tweetstats and Tweetstats Trends are a good way to look at not only what your personal stats are, but also the latest trends on Twitter.

4) Trendistic is another Twitter tool that will show you the hottest trends of the day, week or month, as well as how any particular keywords are trending.

I hate to say it, but that's about it. Search.twitter.com is the closest thing to hashtags.org, but you have to remember to insert the hashtag before your keyword. Remember that a quick look at both the searches and trends before you select a keyword can make a difference in your Twitter traffic and ultimate attraction to new followers.

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Follow me on Twitter for daily news and updates on production and the music business.

Check out my Big Picture blog for discussion on common music, engineering and production tips and tricks.