Twitter Advanced Search: How to Unlock the Power of Hidden Customer Needs

Wouldn't it be great to find the words your customers use, then your messaging will speak directly to them?

TL;DR - You're about to learn how to do an advanced search on twitter.

Using the language of your customers is vitally important to how you position your product in the minds of your customer. This applies from the moment potential customers/leads see your ads, arrive at your website or landing pages, receive emails from you etc - in all cases you want messaging that will resonate in the minds of customers or leads.

[Twitter Advanced Search](https://twitter.com/search-advanced" target="_blank) is a treasure trove where you can learn what your potential customers asking your competition, or search for phrases including keywords that relate to the problem your business solves.

This post shows you 3 quick ways to uncover keywords and even competitor sentiment using [Twitter Advanced Search](https://twitter.com/search-advanced" target="_blank).

How do you do an advanced search on twitter?

Twitter advanced search literally gives you customer mind reading SuperPowers!

Twitter advanced search literally gives you customer mind reading SuperPowers! You can use the power of Twitter advanced search to discover the hidden words your customers already use when they describe your product, or the problem you solve, or your competitors' product, and with this knowledge of your customer minds, your messaging will be able speak directly to them.

You can then use those same words across all your communications, including:

landing page headlines subtext, and
landing page subtext, and
advertising headline text
advertising call to action text
website messaging (general)
communication emails

Advanced Search Query 1 - Uncover Customer's Words

So, how do you find the words your customers say using Twitter Advanced Search? You can search for questions and sentiment on competition’s twitter account, or for questions like:

“How do I …?“
“Can anyone recommend …?” + a keyword.

Let's take a trivial example to see how this works. Suppose you have a new hair product (yes cheesy, I know, but its just an example, ok? feel free to replace with something relevant to "cool SaaS product or cool 2 sided marketplace or cool app") and you wanted to know what potential customers were already saying about shampoo:

SEARCH: "can anyone recommend" shampoo

(Here is that actual search [result](https://twitter.com/search?q="can anyone recommend" shampoo" target="_blank)).

SEARCH: "how do i" shampoo

(Here is that actual search [result](https://twitter.com/search?q="how do i" shampoo" target="_blank)).

Advanced Search Query 2 - Research Competitor Sentiment

You can also research your competition by sentiment. Let's find what people that are unhappy with the competition actually say:

SEARCH: Competition, Negative Sentiment: @loreal :(

(Here is that actual search [result](https://twitter.com/search?q=%40loreal %3A" target="_blank)).)

TIP: These people could become customers - you could reach out and maybe you'll win a new customer for your competition?

Advanced Search Query 3 - for Competitor by Keyword

You can also research your competition by keyword. This could be helpful to look at an aspect of a specific product:

SEARCH: Competition, Keyword: @loreal shampoo

(Here is that actual search [result](https://twitter.com/search?q=%40loreal shampoo" target="_blank)).

SEARCH: Competition, Keyword: @loreal conditioner

(Here is that actual search [result](https://twitter.com/search?q=%40loreal conditioner" target="_blank)).

Advanced Search Query 4 - Combined Competitor, Keyword and Sentiment

You can combine queries to get more detailed results. Often you'll learn their specific problems, and what they were unhappy about. And that's powerful information for you and your product positioning, right?

Here's how to find customer that's unhappy with your competitor's shampoo product.

SEARCH: Competition, Keyword: @loreal shampoo :(

(Here is that actual search [result](https://twitter.com/search?q=%40loreal shampoo %3A" target="_blank)).

SEO Bonus: What customers type directly into Search

These words are the same words customers will also be entering into Google Search, and so can help your SEO efforts, especially for long tail terms. You can quickly check your list of words for monthly search volume in [Google Keywords Planner](https://adwords.google.com/KeywordPlanner" target="_blank)

Advanced Search Queries

So for, I've given you just a few key searches to get you started. There's a lot more cool stuff you can do in Twitter Advanced Search, including:

Exact phrases
Any of these words
Excluded words
Specific hashtags
Written in a specific language
From specific accounts
To specific accounts
Mentioning specific accounts
Places
Dates Range
Positive :)
Negative :(
Question ?
Include retweets

Let's take a look at some more examples, like: How to search for a hashtag on twitter, or how do you look up which hashtags are relevant, or how to search for specific people on twitter?

How do you look up hashtags?

How do you search for a hashtag on twitter?

It's easier than you think to identify and compare popular and relevant tags hashtags used on Twitter. Lets start with the searches we already look at. If you go back over them, you'll notice people adding hashtags to those comments. That's a great starting point because,again, those are the actual hashtags being used by your potential customers.

To search for more hashtags, enter one hashtag into the Twitter search box and you will see a list of tweets that are using that tag. Scan those tweets for ideas on related hashtags being used.

SEARCH: Hashtag '#shampoo': #shampoo

(Here is that actual search [result](https://twitter.com/search?q=%23shampoo" target="_blank)).

Immediately you'll see related hashtags, like #conditioner #hairtips #keratin #haircare that you can start exploring.

Hashtagify.me: A Popular Twitter Hashtag Search Tool

I love Hashtagify.me for getting more hashtag ideas.

SEARCH: Hashtag '#shampoo': #shampoo

Here's a search for Top 10 hashtags related to shampoo. You'll discover #hair #beauty and #organic. (There are also some less expected popular hashtags, like #dogs!)

How do you look up hashtags?

Once you know which hashtags you are interested in, you can combine them do some great advanced searches on twitter.

For example: #shampoo #dogs #organic would unlock conversations specifically about the niche of organic shampoo for dogs.

SEARCH: Hashtags #shampoo AND #dogs AND #organic': #shampoo #dogs #organic

(Here is that actual search [result](https://twitter.com/search?q=%23shampoo %23dogs %23organic" target="_blank)).

How do you search for people on twitter?

from:neilpatel sent from person "neilpatel" (Neil Patel).
to:randfish sent to person "randfish" (Rand Fishkin).
@andrewchen referencing person "andrewchen" (Andrew Chen).

The same principle applies if you want to search for companies on Twitter.

If you want to go deeper and start building more detailed search queries, I'd recommend you check out [this article](https://zapier.com/blog/twitter-advanced-search-guide/" target="_blank) from the nice guys at Zapier.

A/B Test your Messaging

Lastly, remember to A/B Test your messaging!

Once you have a list of phrases the customers are using you can [run experiments to A/B Test](GHOST_URL/marketing-experiments-as-a-strategy-for-growth/" target="_blank) them - for example using Google Adwords and on your landing pages to see which words convert best. Things to look at specifically would be Headline text, Subtext, and Call to Action text.

Was this post helpful? How do you develop and test your product messaging? Please let me know your thoughts in the comments section below.

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