Targeting Using Twitter
Reaching a specific audience is extremely important for marketing, and also for friendship. Finding others with specific interests and in specific locations has never been easier. Twitter provides great benefit to those seeking a targeted group, if you know how to use it. Here are some tips for reaching the people you seek.
Geotargeting Using Twitter
Using Twitter advanced search features, you can find what people are tweeting about by location. If you took my tip on using a desktop client such as Seesmic Desktop or TweetDeck, try entering a search like the following:
near:KansasCity within:10mi grilling OR cooking ?
This search will return results for tweets within 10 miles of Kansas City with the words grilling or cooking and asking a question. If you were operating a cooking school, cookware store, or grocery, this may give you a great opportunity to help somebody with their cooking questions. If you run a tire shop, you could search for flat tires, or a restaurant may search for hungry OR dinner. You get the idea, right?
People like helpful people, and they may just remember it the next time they need your help. When you enter this in your desktop client, you will be constantly updated with new results.
Another handy tool is Nearby Tweets (http://nearbytweets.com), which provides a similar function from a Web-based tool. With all of the many available tools, and let’s not forget the advanced search functions at Twitter.com (http://search.twitter.com/advanced), any concerns of reaching people based on geography should be overcome right now.
Demographic Targeting Using Twitter
Similar to geotargeting, it should be simple for you to reach any target demographic using Twitter. In my experience, searching specific terms to find people tweeting about a topic will lead you to an even more focused audience than expected. Using multiple search terms and being creative with your searches will take some practice, but you can quickly find just what you are looking for. It will also allow you to find people who are talking about a topic right now, meaning that you are not reaching a cold audience.
Although much is still speculative as to the overall demographics of Twitter users, largely due to the extreme growth figures, you may find very interesting estimates of Twitter user demographics by visiting Quantcast.com (http://quantcast.com/twitter.com).
Reaching a specific audience is extremely important for marketing, and also for friendship. Finding others with specific interests and in specific locations has never been easier. Twitter provides great benefit to those seeking a targeted group, if you know how to use it. Here are some tips for reaching the people you seek.
Geotargeting Using Twitter
Using Twitter advanced search features, you can find what people are tweeting about by location. If you take my tip on using a desktop client such as Seesmic Desktop or TweetDeck, try entering a search like the following:
near:KansasCity within:10mi grilling OR cooking ?
This search will return results for tweets within 10 miles of Kansas City with the words grilling or cooking and asking a question. If you were operating a cooking school, cookware store, or grocery, this may give you a great opportunity to help somebody with their cooking questions. If you run a tire shop, you could search for flat tires, or a restaurant may search for hungry OR dinner. You get the idea, right?
People like helpful people, and they may just remember it the next time they need your help. When you enter this in your desktop client such as Seesmic Desktop or TweetDeck, you will be constantly updated with new results.
Another handy tool is Nearby Tweets, which provides a similar function from a Web-based tool.
Demographic Targeting Using Twitter
Similar to geotargeting, it should be simple for you to reach any target demographic using Twitter. In my experience, searching specific terms to find people tweeting about a topic will lead you to an even more focused audience than expected. Using multiple search terms and being creative with your searches will take some practice, but you can quickly find just what you are looking for. It will also allow you to find people who are talking about a topic right now, meaning that you are not reaching a cold audience.
Although much is still speculative as to the overall demographics of Twitter users, largely due to the extreme growth figures, you may find very interesting estimates of Twitter user demographics by visiting Quantcast.com.
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Love your site, very talented, great respect!
-AprilSpr
Comment by April Spragins — July 30, 2009 @ 5:56 pm