Twitter search isn’t perfect and anyone who has used it at least once can attest to that. It often doesn’t bring you the results you want right away — instead, it buries who and what you were actually looking for underneath irrelevant users.
It also lacks the ability to analyze data that can be useful for Twitter users who want to grow their account’s outreach.
The shortcomings of the default search have led to the emergence of several third-party websites, each looking to fill the gap for search-hungry Twitter users. Some websites get creative and specific: for example, TwitJobSearch serves as a job search engine using Twitter. Others, like Topsy, are more traditional, bringing you relevant information based on your keywords and pulling data from other social media networks. Both tools are limited to strictly providing information with search.
Options also exist for users who want in-depth analytics into a specific Twitter user. After logging in, Twittercounter pulls different data from your account (such as following to follower ratio) to give you recommendations on how to improve your popularity on the platform. Followerwonk has the capability to compare different Twitter users or analyze one specific account; it can study the user’s followers and/or the people a user is following. Both Twittercounter and Followerwonk are limited to only analytics.
Twtrland offers users both analytics and keyword search; it also lets you search for Twitter users based on name, skill, or location. After finding the user(s) you are looking for, it presents you with an attractive interface displaying unique information. Twtrland’s search engine – combined with analytics – is effective at searching among people you already know, as well as looking for people you don’t know (but might want to connect with).
Looking at The Realtime Report’s Twitter account, you can see the average tweets per day, average number of retweets per 100 tweets, and average replies per 100 tweets. Twtrland then goes deeper into an account by showing information on your followers’ demographics.
Aside from users you are already aware of, Twtrland also helps you find people you’re interested in. The tool lets you calibrate your results through their filter, allowing you to sort through location, skills, gender, age estimation, and “starpower” (celebrity, power users, casual and novice.) While the formula that determines who is a celebrity, power user, or otherwise is not made available to users, it’s an interesting feature to experiment with.
For example, let’s say you’re a small business in need of a digital marketer. You can go into the search and type “digital marketing” with proper filters chosen; the search results will include a number of Twitter users who fit your description (a background in digital marketing) and your filter criteria. You can then choose to engage them in conversation however you’d like.
Twtrland is free, but also offers a premium version at $19.99/month. Upgrading to a premium account enables you to view up to 5x more results (compared to the free version) for a search by location, and 7x the amount of results for search by skill. The premium account also allows up to 8 search filters. The more notable addition to premium accounts is the ability save reports and lists (with export) as well as a tracker for measuring your brand’s outreach on Twitter.
Twitter’s search feature leaves a lot to be desired, but with third-party applications like Twtrland, Topsy, Twittercounter, and TwitJobSearch, the mass amount of data in Twitter can still be easily accessed and organized. Are you using any of these tools?
