Everything You Need to Know About Twitter Advanced Search

Are you familiar with Twitter Advanced Search? If not, you aren’t alone. This is one of those features that not many users are aware of. And those that do know about it often don’t take full advantage of what it has to offer.

In this post, I’ll be sharing what the Advanced Search feature is, as well as a few ways you can put it to use for yourself.

What is Twitter Advanced Search?

Using the basic search box on Twitter can often feel rather limiting. Should you be looking for a specific user or want to see the most recent posts on a topic, it’ll work just fine. However, you aren’t able to go any deeper than that unless you use the Twitter Advanced Search feature.

This grants you the ability to do more in-depth searches around specific words and accounts. You can also use different filters to narrow down the kind of content your search yields. And you can even select a certain timeframe so you only see tweets posted within that window. It provides you with much more control over your searches so you get exactly what you’re looking for from the start.

Before we dive into the different ways you can use Twitter Advanced Search, there are two ways to access it. Here’s how to do it:

• Visit the direct link for the Advanced Search page.
• Conduct a regular search on Twitter and locate the “Search filters” box on the right-hand side. There’s a link to access Advanced Search from there. You’ll see this below.

5 Ways to Use Advanced Search

Here’s an overview of the different ways you can use Twitter Advanced Search to find exactly the content you’re looking for:

1. Words

To make sure your searches return content focused on the specific topic you’re targeting, this section allows you to do the following:

• Search for all of the mentioned words, an exact phrase, or for any of the mentioned words.
• Exclude certain words from the results.
  Pull up tweets that have used specific hashtags.

For instance, let’s say you wanted to find all mentions of “social media marketing” from the #TwitterSmarter chat. You could do this by typing “social media marketing” to the field that says, “This exact phrase.” Then, add the chat hashtag to the field that says, “These hashtags.”

2. Accounts

Next, you can use Twitter Advanced Search to show you relevant posts from specific accounts. So, if you’re looking for posts a certain user shared on a topic, this would be a great way to do it. This section give you options to:

• Search for posts from specific accounts.
• See posts made in reply to an account.
• And search for mentions of an account.

Going off our previous example, you could search for all the times I mentioned “social media marketing” during #TwitterSmarter by following the steps above. Then, you’d simply need to add my username in the “From these accounts” field.

3. Filters

You can also choose what kind of content your search returns. Here are some filters you can toggle on and off for the best results:

• Replies: You have the ability to include replies and original tweets in your search or only show replies.
• Links: You can include tweets with links in your searches or choose to see only tweets that contain links.

This is great for narrowing down the types of tweets you see so it’s easier to find what you’re looking for. So, if you only wanted to see original tweets about social media marketing from my account, you could do that by turning off replies.

4. Engagement

If you’re looking for popular tweets that have gained a lot of traction, there is a way to narrow it down. Twitter Advanced Search gives you the ability to find tweets that have had a certain level of engagement. Here’s how:

• Search by minimum replies.
• Find tweets with a minimum number of likes.
  And search for tweets with a minimum number of retweets.

For example, if you wanted to see only tweets that had a minimum of 10 retweets, you could add that here. Then, it would give you a good idea of the type of content people are sharing with their own followers.

5. Dates

Finally, you don’t need your search to return tweets dating back to when Twitter was first launched. (Unless that’s what you’re looking for, of course.) Instead, you can limit your search to a certain window of time by adding a month, day, and year.

Going back to the example using my Twitter account… Let’s say you wanted to find all of my mentions of social media marketing from a single month. You’d simply need to add the first and last day of the month into their respective fields. Then, you’ll see only content I posted matching that criteria during your given timeframe. Easy!

Overall, Twitter Advanced Search offers powerful control over your searches. That’s something not all platforms have to offer. Next time you’re searching for something in particular, use the Advanced Search feature to narrow down your results. It’ll make it much faster to find what you’re looking for.