What is Twitter Saying About Your Employees (or Friends)?

Some people are making great use of the search features on Twitter. Many will at least have a search for their company name, and maybe a few important industry keywords, or keywords of interest to them. The question here is whether you are really “in the know” about what others are saying about your boss, your employees, or your friends? It does not take much to find out, and you don’t need any fancy software or the latest hot Web application.

Keeping an eye on others’ use of Twitter is such a simple thing to do, but then, sometimes the simplest of tasks are the ones that remain overlooked.

If you don’t monitor your social media channels carefully, you are only getting a very small piece of the potential value. So, here is just a small tip to help you:

Add a search for every employee (or friend, and etcetera)!

Sure, you can create groups using Twitter, and the many available 3rd party applications like Seesmic and TweetDeck to help you monitor others’ communications. This is a good way to measure what they are saying, but what about keeping an eye on things people send to them as a separate monitor altogether?

Maybe an employee is not following up with a question from a potential customer, or maybe somebody is sending them angry tweets. If they do not respond, you may never know about it. If I am the guy in charge of monitoring social media, I want to know this information. More importantly, it can provide a more interactive way to communicate as a group. Most larger or social media savvy companies know this, but I still find many companies and individuals who overlook the possibilities.

Let’s say for example somebody sends something to your employee (or boss, friend, or etcetera) but you know they will not be able to answer for a little while. Wouldn’t you be the greatest if you responded with assistance?

You don’t have to make it complicated!

There are a lot of services focused on Twitter searches, such as Monitter, and of course Twitter’s advanced search. There is a Web application for nearly anything you want to do with Twitter. In this case, you do not have to sign up, log in, or anything so difficult at all.

Here is an example search for a company I like, so I will use their blog contributors. If I want to keep an eye on what people are saying to HubSpot, I simply add a search to my desktop application (I use Seesmic) that looks like this:

OR @bhalligan OR @prashantkaw OR @onstartups OR @mvolpe OR @shaxxon OR @rickburnes OR @pc4media OR @repcor OR @jeannehopkins OR @pamelump

Note that the search begins with “OR” and it continues with “OR @username”. The limit is 140 characters, but of course you can add multiple searches.

Since I am already using my desktop application, it is a handy place to save and monitor the search. You can also save the search on Twitter’s Website if you don’t use a desktop application.