How do you sort through the clutter and find the conversations that matter to you on social media? For social media managers, it’s particularly important to isolate Tweets that contain customer questions in order to use their social media channels to achieve the most important goal—quick and helpful interaction with customers. With Hootsuite Pro’s advanced Twitter search capabilities, you can save both time and energy when it comes to your social media management. Use these advanced Twitter search tips to increase customer engagement for your business.

Increase customer engagement with these 5 advanced Twitter search tips

Tip #1: Start the conversation with custom search streams 

Whether you are running a contest, campaign or actively using a branded hashtag, you can set up advanced Twitter search streams on your Hootsuite dashboard to find the right conversations. Not only can advanced Twitter searches help you zoom in on valuable conversations, but these search streams can offer you opportunities to build your online community. Twitter search streams allow you to search for a hashtag, keyword, phrase or even a Twitter handle.

For example, when hosting an event, make sure to promote a unique hashtag for attendees to use in social media discussions. Even though they may not have used your brand’s official Twitter handle, you will able to discover any event-related conversations via a hashtag Twitter search. Hootsuite makes it easy to start the 2-way conversation by simply hovering over any Tweet from which you can reply, retweet, direct message (if applicable) and favorite. With Twitter, often times all it takes is a simple “favorite” to enhance customer engagement.

Tip #2: Localize the conversation

Take advantage of Hootsuite’s geo-located Twitter Search features to find the conversations in your neighborhood. Preparing for an upcoming networking conference? Use Google maps along with Hootsuite to geo-locate conversations about the event and start networking before you attend! Use this advanced Twitter search tip as a preliminary stage to introduce yourself to key influencers, industry professionals and prospective leads that may be attending this particular event.

In addition, if you run a local brick-and-mortar business, the ability to search Twitter by location allows business owners to find the conversations in their area and get those prospective leads into the store.

Tip #3: Discover Key Social Media Influencers

With Hootsuite Pro’s advanced searching capabilities, you can source social media influencers as well as high-profile competitors in your field. After setting up an advanced Twitter search stream for an industry keyword or hashtag, you can use Hootsuite Pro’s filter feature to find open-ended questions and identify key influencers. The first option, Keyword, will allow you to set a filter for your search term. For example, by including a ‘?’ you can discover if anyone is asking questions about your search term —an opportunity for you to engage in a conversation. Alternatively, when applying the Klout score filter (a measure of someone’s social influence), you can now locate those Twitter handles that are more influential. These are the types of handles you may want to align with, follow, and even engage with to leverage your brand influence.

Tip #4: Twitter Lists

Now that you have found your key influencers, prospective clients and perhaps competitors, how do you keep track of them all? Take advantage of Twitter liststo group these various Twitter handles together by category or relevance to your business. Create a new list via Hootsuite and click-drag-and-drop the handles from your search streams into the appropriate list. Want to monitor a group of competitors? A Social Media Coach tip is to keep the list private, so you can monitor them and stay under the radar. Now you no longer have to spend time monitoring your Twitter newsfeed as you have everyone where you need them to be.

Tip #5: Take Hootsuite with you on the web

Quickly and easily start the 2-way Twitter conversation with the Hootsuite extension, Hootlet. With Hootlet, you can find targeted conversations using Google, Google Maps and Yelp and reply or retweet right from your browser window.

Utilize Google search to discover conversations on a brand or keyword. Use this tip to kick-start a company audit or monitor what people are saying about your competitors

Never miss a conversation happening around your business by searching for your company on Google Maps. Once located, Hootlet will provide you with the conversations happening in your neighborhood (searching by a radius ranging from 500m to 25km), allowing you to respond in real time.

Finally, a special tip for those running a brick-and-mortar business: when you search your business on Yelp, Hootlet will provide you with the Tweets happening in and around your business. Never miss a conversation and surprise a potential customer by tweeting them back!

Whether you’re managing a branded hashtag, searching for influencers, or monitoring a competitor, advanced Twitter search streams are an effective tool to have in your pocket, a.k.a. the Hootsuite dashboard. You would never ignore a conversation in person and Twitter conversations are no different. So head to your Hootsuite dashboard, set up a search stream or two, and surprise a potential customer with an engaging Tweet!