Written by Phyllis Zimbler Miller, Twitter Marketing Expert

One of the most important advantages Twitter has over Facebook and LinkedIn for connecting with potential customers/clientele is using Twitter search functions.

Because Twitter is so open – everything is open to everyone except for the minority of people who lock their Twitter updates, Twitter search functions and third-party search functions can return very robust results.

The FIND PEOPLE Twitter Search Function

Let’s say you’re looking for someone with a common name, such as Jane Smith.  If you go to the tab FIND PEOPLE on your Twitter account and then to FIND ON TWITTER to search on Jane Smith, Twitter will return results for every person whose real name (not username) is Jane Smith or has Jane Smith as part of her real name.

Then even if you are not following these people on Twitter, you can click on the different Jane Smith profiles in your quest for the Jane Smith you want.

An important note about this search function and one that I only recently learned:  In the name field in your account settings you must have Jane Smith (with the space between first and last name) even if your username is JaneSmith.  Without the space between the first and last name, Twitter can’t search, find and return your profile for the Jane Smith search.

I had to change my own real name field to enable people to search for me, and now I’ve been sending DMs to people who follow me when I notice that they are making this same error.  (This is just one example of how tiny, tiny things in the online world can affect your ability to get known on the web.)

The FIND PEOPLE tab has three other options besides FIND ON TWITTER:

FIND ON OTHER NETWORKS

INVITE BY EMAIL

SUGGESTED USERS

Other Twitter Search Functions

Then there are all kinds of third-party Twitter applications that allow you to search in different ways throughout the Twitter universe.  In fact, there are so many Twitter third-party applications that it is impossible to keep up with all of them.

Check out this Wikipedia list of Twitter services and applications to see which ones appeal to you: http://budurl.com/TwitterWikipedia

Twitter Search Function on Your Twitter Home Page

And perhaps the easiest Twitter search function is the search box on the right-hand sidebar of your Twitter home page.  You simply put in topics that relate to your brand, book or business:

You can use the hashtag (#) in front of the topic, but it is not necessary.  For example, you can enter #homedecor or homedecor in the search box.  Yet if you enter home décor with a space between the two words, your search will yield different results.  Thus, if this term is important to you, search both ways.

In conclusion, different applications appeal to different people, and new applications are added all the time.  For most of us, though, it’s not important to try out all the applications. It’s only important to use search functions as part of our Twitter outreach strategy.