Twitter Advanced Search is an effective tool that can help you find in-depth information on any topic on the platform X, formerly known as Twitter.
In this blog, Mady Lewellyn, Social Media Manager will go into how advanced Twitter search works and give you some guidance on how to use it to help your business.
What You’ll Learn:
- What Is Twitter Advanced Search?
- How to Use Twitter Advanced Search on Desktop, Mobile, and App Versions
- Specialized Search Techniques
- Removing Profiles or Keywords from Your Search
- 12 Unique Ways to Use Twitter Advanced Search to Grow Your Business
- Common Issues With Twitter Advanced Search
- FAQs About Twitter Advanced Search
Expert Opinion on Advanced Twitter Search
If you want to keep track of brand mentions, get ideas for content, find influencers for potential partnerships, or otherwise take full advantage of X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, Twitter advanced search is one of the most effective (and simple) tools you can use.
This cool feature is easy to use and can help you get the most from your Twitter marketing efforts, as you can search for all types of topics, posts, and profiles to give you a complete picture of what’s happening on the platform.
Let’s take a deeper look into advanced search on Twitter and explore the different ways you can use it for marketing and other potential applications.
What Is Twitter Advanced Search?
Twitter advanced search is a feature available on X that allows you to conduct highly targeted searches on the platform. Using an advanced Twitter search, you can refine the results by applying various filters that narrow them down.
While basic search allows you to search a specific word, phrase, or hashtag, advanced search on Twitter goes beyond that, allowing you to specify searches with filters such as:
- Accounts
- Language
- Exact phrases or a list of words
- Mentions
- Replies
- Links
- Minimum engagement metrics
- Dates
There are many benefits to advanced Twitter search for different users, including:
- Businesses and Marketers: Companies and marketing professionals can use this function to find brand mentions and determine their reputation, find customers who need help or want to engage, locate trending topics and hashtags that can give ideas for content, monitor their current X campaigns, and much more.
- Researchers and Journalists: Many reporters and researchers pursue X with the Twitter advanced search feature to conduct research into a particular topic and people’s thoughts. For example, a journalist writing an article about the public’s opinion on a particular celebrity might look for mentions of this personality in a certain context.
- Casual Users: Regular users could also easily use this feature to find all types of content. In one case, a user might want to locate tweets covering a particular topic to see what people are saying about it, such as a movie they’re trying to determine is worth seeing. In another, a user might want to look for a past tweet they saw using an exact phrase.
How to Use Twitter Advanced Search on Desktop, Mobile, and App Versions
With a better idea of what this function is, let’s get into how to use Twitter advanced search on various devices.
Twitter Advanced Search on Desktop
Want to use advanced search on Twitter using your desktop browser? Take the following steps:
1. Log onto X and go to your home screen. Then, conduct an initial search by entering a term in the search bar in the upper right.
2. Next, you’ll see results on the next screen, where you’ll also see the “Advanced search” link in the upper right corner.
2. Click on the link to take you to the Twitter advanced search pop-up screen.
3. Choose the filters you want to include, including a phrase containing certain words, an exact sequence of words, hashtags, and more. You can access more filters as you scroll down the window.
4. Once you’ve selected the filters you want, you can click on search in the upper right of the window, and X will bring you a list of relevant results.
For instance, here we looked for specific brand mentions with some positive terms to see what people had to say about it:
As of 2024, advanced search on Twitter offers even more enhanced search capabilities on desktop and other versions, including the ability to search for images, videos, and news. Subsequently, you can make even more comprehensive searches.
Twitter Advanced Search on Mobile
You can also use Twitter advanced search on mobile devices on x.com using mobile browsers, including smartphones and tablets.
Here are the steps for mobile access:
1. First, log into x.com on your mobile browser and conduct an initial search by tapping on the magnifying glass icon at the bottom of the page.
2. You can then tap on the three dots to the right of the search bar.
3. Select “Advanced search” from the menu that appears.
4. Choose the same filters you want to include as you would on the desktop version, including keywords, hashtags, accounts, dates, engagement, and more.
Advanced Search on Twitter App
While you can access Twitter advanced search on mobile devices with the browser, you cannot currently get advanced search on the Twitter app. This may change in the future, but X hasn’t released any recent updates on the matter.
Specialized Search Techniques
Here are some brief guides to help you make full use of Twitter search, including basic and advanced search functions:
How to Search a Twitter Profile for Keywords
Want to determine how to search a Twitter profile for keywords? You might want to do so if you’re looking for specific posts or want to see what an account has to say about a certain topic.
Take the following basic steps with Twitter advanced search to locate keywords within a profile:
- Log into and access advanced search on Twitter.
- Choose the specific phrases, topics, or terms you would like to look for in the Words section of the advanced search window.
- Scroll down to the Accounts section and enter the designated profile in the “From these accounts” field, using the X handle.
- Click Search and see posts from that target profile featuring the words you entered.
How to Do a Twitter Video Search
You can also refine searches to conduct a Twitter video search on the platform. To find videos on X with a general search, take these key steps:
1. Log into X and conduct a search for a particular topic.
2. Look in the “Media” tab in results to find videos, which are notably different from images in that they include a runtime in the lower left corner.
3. Further refine your search for strictly video content by adding “,video” to your search.
Using Twitter Advanced Search Without Login
If you want to use Twitter advanced search without a login, you are currently unable to do so. However, you can quickly set up a temporary account to conduct a search and use the platform if you don’t wish to create a permanent account.
How to Use Twitter Search Operators
To help you conduct an advanced Twitter search, consider X’s search operators and how they affect the algorithm’s behavior. Using these operators, you can conduct advanced searches via the basic search bar.
There are many operators you can use to influence your search, including:
- Quotes: Use quotes (“) around search terms to indicate an exact phrase search (e.g., “now watching” or “needle in a haystack”)
- OR searches: Enter two terms with “OR” in the middle to find terms containing one or both (e.g., happy OR sad)
- Negative dashes: Add a “-” in front of a term you don’t want to include in your search (e.g., beer -root)
- Hashtags: Include a “#” in front of a term to find a hashtag for it.
- From searches: Add “from:” before an X account name to find posts from that profile (e.g., from:profilename)
- Mentions searches: To find posts mentioning a particular account, include “@” and a profile name (e.g., @accountname)
- Media searches: To find different types of media for search, enter the term followed by “:media,” “:images,” “:native_video,” or other related terms that X lists. (e.g., happy dogs:native_video)
Examples of Search Combinations
Use different search combinations to refine your searches.
For instance, you might want to find posts about a certain topic posted on a specific day, in which case you would enter the terms you want in the advanced search function’s Words section and a specific date range in the Dates section.
Meanwhile, another search could entail looking for a certain term while omitting irrelevant searches. An example here could include a search for “funny cat videos” while excluding the word “dogs,” which you would put in the “None of these words” field.
Ultimately, Twitter advanced search makes it easy to find exactly what you’re looking for on the platform.
Removing Profiles or Keywords from Your Search
When conducting a search, you might wonder how to remove someone on Twitter that you’ve searched. In other cases, you might want to prevent some keywords from showing up in your results.
At this time, X doesn’t allow you to directly conceal profiles from searches. However, there is one workaround: You can clear your Twitter’s search history via your web browser, which will keep profiles and other searches from appearing in your history.
You can also use a specific search operator to keep certain keywords from showing up in results. For instance, you might not want posts with a specific sports team or player to appear in a search for another. Here, you would either add the players or team names into the “None of these words” field in advanced search, or you could add “-” before terms you don’t want to include in basic search, which would look something like “sports player -sports team.”
12 Unique Ways to Use Twitter Advanced Search to Grow Your Business
How you use advanced search will differ based on the information you’re trying to find, but there are several neat techniques that you can use to help you get the most out of Twitter’s advanced search system:
1. Create a Saved Search
Saved searches are useful because they save you time and effort.
If you develop a complex query that helps you keep track of comments and shares, then saving that search to use it again later down the line is an ideal solution.
Similarly, if you managed to get the geocode for your city and want to know about tweets within the area that mention your Twitter handle, saving that tweet will save you from having to go through the steps all over again.
To save a search, you will need to log into Twitter. Once you’ve typed a search you want to save, tap the three-dot icon, and tap Save.
To access later, just tap the search box, and Twitter will display your saved searches in a dropdown.
Twitter allows you to save up to 25 searches on your account.
2. Find the Most Popular Tweets About a Subject
Finding out what’s trending on Twitter allows you to create marketing around popular hashtags and causes.
Top Tweets, as previously stated, are a measure of the popularity of a particular tweet. However, if you’re looking at a specific topic, you can enter the search term in the standard search bar and use the operator min_retweets:[value] or min_faves:[value] to get the most popular and engaging content manually.
The results you get from this type of search can be a bit more reliable than those thrown at you by Twitter’s algorithm.
3. Find Your Most Popular Tweets
You can also use Advanced Search to find your most popular tweets.
This is especially helpful when you’re reviewing your company’s social media strategy. You can see what your audience reacted to and what they may not have enjoyed as much.
This helps you build your strategy around the likes and dislikes of your customers. Doing this will ensure that you’re putting out content that catches your audience’s attention and makes them want to interact with you and your brand.
4. Find Leads
People tend to use Twitter to say what’s on their minds.
For marketing, this makes it an ideal medium for gaining insight into what the average consumer is thinking or feeling about a particular brand or industry. It can also point you in the direction of people who are looking for what your business is offering.
We call this social listening, and by employing social listening through search terms, you can find what people are looking for advice or information on.
Terms including “can someone recommend” or “advice about” can be indications to offer products or services that the purchaser would be looking for, and can be more authentic than using a bot to throw advertising at people and hope it sticks.
5. Find Happy or Unhappy Customers
Word of mouth can have a huge impact in any industry, so it’s important to monitor social media to see how happy your current customers are.
Using Advanced Search, include sentiment filters that will show you only positive or negative tweets mentioning your company’s name or product. Twitter makes this simple for you. Just tick the relevant box on the search page or add a happy or unhappy emoticon at the end of your search term, e.g. “happy 🙂” or “sad 🙁.”
You can also use Advanced Search to find your interactions with other Twitter accounts.
It can be hard to remember every handle of every account you interact with on your business account. Advanced Search can help you find past interactions so that you can follow up accordingly and continue building a relationship with your customer.
6. Find News About Your Company
Do you know how to use Twitter’s Advanced Search to keep you updated on what the world is saying about your brand? If not, you should! You can use the “All of these words” function to monitor your brand’s mentions in other people’s Tweets.
After running your search, use the dropdown menu to select “News”. This will filter the results to show what news is coming up about your company. Knowing what news is at the forefront of your customers’ minds is imperative to always be ahead of the ball on your public relations.
7. Find News About Your Competitors
If you’re looking for ways to beat your competition, you have to know what they’re up to first! Using Twitter’s Advanced Search will keep you up-to-date on their marketing programs, how their customers are responding to them, and more.
To find this news, you’ll search as though you’re searching for your own company. Just switch out your name for the competitor you want information about.
8. Stay Up-To-Date on Industry Terms
Especially if you work in digital marketing, it is imperative that you stay up-to-date on what is happening in the industry around you. Using Advanced Search to find out what is trending and what users are talking about it s a great way to stay a step ahead of the curve.
9. Identify Blog Post Ideas
Running low on blog post inspiration? Twitter is a great place to find some! Use Advanced Search to see what topics are trending for your particular industry. Then take a few of the top results and turn them into blog posts. People are obviously talking about these topics, so why shouldn’t you do the same?
10. Filter Tweets By Location
Trying to increase your local SEO? Why not tap into what people in a particular location are talking about? Filtering tweets by location will help you learn what is going on around you and what those consumers are interested in purchasing or learning more about.
11. Discover Influencer Marketing Opportunities
For help with your influencer marketing strategy, consider using Twitter advanced search to find influencers on X. You can look for certain industry topics and see who’s posting about it to locate an influencer.
One example might be an ecommerce brand looking for an influencer to help showcase a product. In this instance, marketers might look for review posts for similar products. Using advanced search, marketers could also look for posts with minimum numbers of likes or other engagement to identify profiles with larger followings who count as influencers.
12. Analyze Your Campaigns
One last use case for advanced search on Twitter is the analysis of marketing campaigns. By tracking specific hashtags and keywords you use within your campaigns, you can gauge their performance and determine how well your efforts are working.
In your analysis, you can determine if the metrics you’re tracking via X and other marketing tools are truly meaningful based on the visible performance of campaigns on the actual platform. You can then determine which steps to take for further improvement.
Common Issues With Twitter Advanced Search
There are a couple of key issues you might experience with advanced search on Twitter, such as:
- Twitter Advanced Search Not Working: If the Twitter advanced search function is not working the way you want or isn’t working at all, you may be able to get around this issue. If the feature isn’t functioning, you can use basic search with operators to achieve many of the same results. If you’re unhappy with the results you’re getting, try refining your searches further to optimize the results.
- Inaccurate Search Results: If you’re not able to get accurate search results, try entering different terms or parameters. Maybe you’re searching for something too broadly and need to narrow down your search, or maybe you need to find content from specific dates or locations.
FAQs About Twitter Advanced Search
1. How do I search for tweets on Twitter?
There are two ways to search for tweets on Twitter. You can either do a simple search using the search bar or you can use the Advanced Search to filter your results.
2. How do I open Twitter Advanced Search?
You can only open Twitter’s Advanced Search using the Twitter web application. It is not an available option on the iOs or Android apps. You can go to twitter.com/search_advanced or, if you’re already on a standard search results page, you can click the More Options menu and select Advanced Search at the bottom of the dropdown menu.
3. Can my Twitter followers see what I search on Twitter?
No. Your followers can only see your Tweets and send you private conversations. They cannot see your search results.
4. What is Twitter’s Advanced Search Function?
Twitter’s Advanced Search Function is a tool you can use to search Twitter to find information that you’re looking for. It lets you break down your search to its key elements and filters out any irrelevant or unrelated results.
5. Do I need to know how to code to use Twitter’s Advanced Search Function?
Nope! Twitter does all of the heavy liftings by producing the code for you.
6. Can I save my searches to go back to them later?
Yes! To save a search, just log into Twitter, type the search you want to perform, tap the three-dot icon to the right of the search bar, and click “Save search.” To access it later, just click on the search box. Twitter will display your saved searches in the dropdown. You can save up to 25 searches on your account at one time.
7. Is Advanced Search available on desktop and the Twitter mobile app?
Nope. Unfortunately, Advanced Search is only available on your desktop.
8. How can I improve search functionality using the Twitter mobile app if Advanced Search is not available?
Even though Advanced Search isn’t technically available on the mobile app, there are still ways that you can limit your search and instruct Twitter to only return the results you’re looking for. A little bit further up in this article, we listed out all of the codes you can use to narrow down your search.
Meet Your Twitter Marketing Needs With Ignite Visibility
Want to use advanced Twitter search and other features to your advantage on the platform? With a better idea of how to use Twitter advanced search, Ignite Visibility can help you get the most from it with complete social media marketing solutions based on your business’s specific needs.
When you work with our experts, you get:
- Assistance with building full-scale Twitter/X campaigns
- Access to Twitter advanced search and other tools to get the most from this platform
- Analytics and reporting to measure the results of Twitter marketing
- Help building social media marketing campaigns on other relevant channels
- And much more!
To discover what all we can do for your business through Twitter and other digital marketing efforts, contact us today and we’ll connect you with a member of our team.
