It’s hard to believe that Twitter has only been around since 2006, especially because it is now such a huge part of many of our daily lives. The Washington Post reported in March that there are over 400 million tweets sent per day. StatisticBrain reports that as of May 2013, there were over 555 million Twitter accounts around the world, with 125,000 new accounts being created each day.
Recent efforts by social search engine Topsy have been committed to indexing these billions of tweets that have been sent via Twitter for the past seven years. Topsy allows users to find key influencers, build reports, and get instant results via their social media search engine.
Twitter Index Search Parameters
As mentioned by Marketing Land, Cyprus North has a great post about the available search parameters to search Topsy’s indexed tweets. These include common Google search parameters, like OR and using quotation marks for exact phrases, as well as a hashtag and from:user search.
screenshot taken 9/4/2013Topsy currently allows users to view basic data from their search results for free, including tweets per day and a user’s sentiment score. However, to view more analytics and data, including instant keyword counts, URL virality statistics, and key influencers via industry or keyword, a Topsy Pro account is required.
By using social search data, users are able to compare tweets around the same time last year or the overall sentiment toward a specific brand or product. This can help marketers craft new initiatives or respond to feedback about their organization.
Featured photo credit: Thomas Hawk via photopin cc
