Twitip

by Anthony Crognale – Follow him @pluble.

One of the most exciting features of Twitter is the ability to be able to search every possible tweet in the public timeline and be shown while you’re searching if a new tweet comes through. Now most Twitter users wouldn’t think that being able to search Twitter updates is a very needed or even useful function. For the business or professional user, this tool can be essential. Why is it so essential you might ask? Because the opportunities are endless. Let me run some through for you:

1. You can find work. I was literally shocked to find out that employers are now starting to tweet when they have an open position or when they need a temporary or contract position. This is amazing for me as I’m a freelance writer in addition to doing Internet marketing and still being a student. I’m going to explain later on in this post about how I find jobs as soon as they become available allowing me to be one of the first to respond.
2. You can find business opportunities. Are you currently looking for your next joint venture project or looking for another like minded professional to go on a tour with? Twitter has your answer for that as you can simply search something as simple as “Looking to start JV” and you can find other Twitter users who you can reach out and connect with on which I’ll also be explaining later in this post.

Let’s look at the first opportunity and see just how I currently am using it and how you can use it to. I use TweetDeck for all 99% of my Twitter usage which allows me to keep everything nice and separated within its own little sub window. One of the extra windows I’ve added is a Twitter search for the phrase “looking for writer”. What this allows is for TweetDeck to keep updating that search so when a new Tweet comes along, I can quickly go see what the Tweet says and if possible, reach out and connect with the other user who needs the writing done.

The next thing I’d like to discuss is using Twitter to find business opportunities. Let me start off by saying that if you are an established name in your industry, business opportunities will flock to you. All you have to do is ask. Ask by asking in a tweet, just say “Anyone want to JV?”. This gets the ball rolling and you can now reach out and connect with other users who are interested and as you learn more about each of them, you can make your decision. The best part about this, is that they’re coming to you. You don’t have to take time out of your schedule to go find them. If you’re looking for business opportunities though, you might want to use search.twitter.com as well, as you can find people looking to start businesses by simply typing in “Looking to start business”.

Here are some key points about reaching out and connecting with other users that you should be implementing in order to get the full advantage of using Twitter Search.

1. Introduce yourself personally. You might think that it’s best to send out the same canned response to everyone, but it’s not. Far from it entirely, in fact. What you should be doing is using there name when you respond to them and include a fact you found out about them. How will you find that fact? You need to research them. Go to their website, check out their blog, whatever they have, read it.
2. Make sure you have your contact details listed. This is quite frustration for me at times as the other user won’t have their email or website listed and having a tweet simply saying “Looking for a writer, DM me.” Well I obviously can’t DM them if they aren’t following me. Solution: Make yourself available and actually have a custom twitter background with your contact details on it.
3. Be friendly. Last of all, just be friendly. If you’re friendly, good things shall come.