Believe it or not, Google's internal data shows that almost 40% of Gen Z now prefer to use Instagram and TikTok for search instead of Google.
However, with the sheer volume of data on these platforms, it's no wonder that finding the needle in the haystack can be a Herculean task.
To add to the challenge, every social media network has its own unique search algorithms, making it even more challenging to find relevant information accurately and at the earliest.
In this article, we will delve deeper into the best tips and tools that will equip you with everything you need to conquer the ever-expanding world of social media search. Get ready to uncover the secrets of social media search!
Table Of Contents:
- Why Is Social Media Search Important For Your Business?
- 9 Advanced Tips To Master Social Media Search
- How To Perform Social Media Search Natively?
- 4 Social Media Search Tools For Advanced Search
- Navigating Social Just Got Easier
You can directly jump to a section of your choice or keep scrolling.
Why Is Social Media Search Important For Your Business?
Here are the important benefits of conducting social media searches:
Campaign Planning & Execution Insights
Your current and future customers are actively sharing their thoughts, opinions, needs, behaviors, and experiences on social media every single day. Businesses can extract these valuable insights and use them to guide the planning and execution of their marketing campaigns for maximum effectiveness.
Capture The Product Development Insights
Social media search can be a valuable asset for businesses to explore their customers' minds when planning to develop new products or services. By analyzing your social audience's behavioral signals, you will understand where your brand and product proposition fits in the current market lot.
Attract New Customers
Businesses can communicate more effectively with their leads and prospects by gaining insights into their opinions, lifestyles, habits, and interests using social media. You can then reach out and attract new customers through social media who may not have heard of the brand before.
Enhance Customer Service
Monitoring social media can help businesses anticipate customer questions and complaints, even reaching customers who may have discussed their brand without directly mentioning them. This can lead to a better customer experience and improved customer service.
Identify Micro-Influencers
Using social media search, businesses can identify more influential micro-influencers within their community than larger influencers without a niche or targeted audience. Businesses can leverage their advocacy for their products or services by building relationships with relevant micro-influencers.
Do Competitor Analysis
Social media search can give businesses a high-level overview of how their competitors approach specific topics and themes. By understanding their approach, businesses can find ways to reach their audience more effectively.
Manage Brand Reputation
An in-depth social media search can help businesses understand how their brand's online reputation has been established. This can be a starting point for developing a new communication strategy or adjusting the current one to align with their audience's needs.
Crisis Planning & Management
By gaining insights into their audience through social media searches, businesses can pre-prepare for crises by identifying brewing ones and crafting a response plan in case the worst happens.
Measuring Consumer Sentiment
With the help of AI-enabled username, you can gain insights into how your audience perceives your brand and the sentiment around your brand mentions. This analysis can help you track your brand health over time and understand how it stacks up against your competitors.
Find Contacts
Social media can help you find contact information for the right person within an organization. By searching for the company and keywords related to the position you are targeting, you may be able to find social media profiles of employees, including their email addresses or other contact information.
9 Advanced Tips To Master Social Media Search
- Use advanced search operators: Social media platforms like Twitter offer advanced search options that allow you to refine your search results. These can include Boolean operators like AND, OR, and NOT and more specific search parameters like hashtags, mentions, and location. Use these search operators to the maximum to finely refine your search results.
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Leverage social listening tools: Social listening tools can help you monitor social media conversations and track brand mentions, hashtags, and keywords in real-time. This can give you a more comprehensive view of your brand's online presence and help you identify new opportunities or potential issues.
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Look for patterns in user behavior: You can uncover new insights or identify emerging trends by analyzing patterns in user behavior. For example, if you notice that specific types of content consistently receive more engagement from your target audience or that users tend to engage with specific hashtags more frequently, you can adjust your social media strategy accordingly to gather maximum engagement on the platform.
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Use relevant keywords: A very common yet under-utilized tip for social searches is to use relevant keywords when performing the search. These could be brand names, products, events, or any other topic you want to research. Try to gather the keywords that your audience uses when communicating on social media. If you use the same keywords when communicating with them, they will resonate more with what you are trying to convey.
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Narrow down your search: With billions of posts and conversations happening daily, the search results can be overwhelming without filters. Filters help refine the search and find relevant information more efficiently.
By using filters such as date range, location, language, and other criteria, users can narrow down their search to specific timeframes, geographic areas, or languages, making it easier to find the necessary information. This saves time and ensures that the information found is relevant to the search query.
- Monitor hashtags: Keeping an eye on hashtags relevant to your business, industry, product, or service will help you stay up-to-date on trends in your space and the top conversations taking place on social media about your brand.
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Follow relevant accounts: Following accounts relevant to your business or industry’s thought leader will help you stay informed about the latest news and developments in your field. By following the accounts of your competitors, you can also spy on them and get to what they are up to.
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Engage with your audience: Conversations on social media are two-way. Engage with your audience by responding to comments and messages and participating in relevant conversations. This way, you can build meaningful relationships with your audience and gain valuable insights into their needs and preferences.
How To Perform Social Media Search Natively?
Twitter search operators allow users to conduct advanced searches on the platform. You can quickly filter and find the exact information you are looking for on Twitter just by using specific operators and keywords. You can create highly targeted searches by combining multiple operators.
To perform a search on Facebook, you can use the search bar at the top of the page. Type in a keyword or phrase related to what you are looking for in the search bar at the top of any Facebook page. Use the filters on the left-hand side of the page to narrow down your results by post type, date posted, location, and more. Here is a list of filters available on Facebook:
- Posts
- People
- Photos
- Videos
- Marketplace
- Pages
- Places
- Groups
- Events
Instagram allows you to perform the following searches:
- Keyword search: Search for accounts, posts, or hashtags by using a keyword in the search bar.
- Hashtag Search: Search for posts or accounts using specific hashtags in the search bar.
- Location Search: Search for posts or accounts tagged with a specific location by entering the location in the search bar.
- Account Search: Search for specific Instagram accounts by entering their username in the search bar.
- Explore Tab: Explore new content on Instagram by clicking on the "Explore" tab, which suggests posts and accounts based on your interests and activity on the platform.
YouTube
YouTube allows you to search for videos, channels, playlists, or specific users on the platform. Here are some search operators offered by YouTube:
- Use quotation marks to search for an exact phrase. For example, "how to bake a cake".
- Use a minus sign (-) before a keyword to exclude videos that contain that keyword. For example, cake -chocolate.
- Use the pipe symbol (|) to search for videos that contain either of two keywords. For example, cake | pie.
- Use the "in:" operator to search for videos that were uploaded within a specific time frame. For example, cake in: last month.
- Use the "channel:" operator to search for videos from a specific channel. For example, cake channel: Tasty.
4 Social Media Search Tools For Advanced Search
Statusbrew
Native searches don’t offer filters that allow for specific searches based on location, sentiment, and content categorization. That’s where a social media management tool like Statusbrew solves this issue. Statusbrew offers a variety of features to help businesses manage their social media presence. It helps to monitor mentions across your favorite social platforms, including Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.
You can track your brand mentions and monitor conversations through its unified inbox. Not just that, Statusbrew even offers advanced filters to easily navigate between several conversations on different social profiles.
Filter grouping options to combine multiple filters in Engage using 'and'/'or' operators. Here is an example of a filter for Facebook Ad Comments in the Spanish language with positive sentiment is Positive.
Here are the different filters you can apply to search in between conversations and your brand mentions within Statusbrew's unified inbox:
- Conversation Type
- Profile
- Conversation Assigned To
- Conversation Priority
- Sentiment
- Language
- Tag
- Star Ratings
- Last Replied
- Date
Get your finger on the pulse of your community with Statusbrew's Brand Keywords features. Keep tabs on your branded hashtags, track all activity in real-time, and engage with a dynamic visual experience that pulls content from beyond your account.
Request a free demo today and take the first step towards mastering social media search.
Brand24
Brand24 tracks your brand mentions from all across the web, including reviews, news outlets, blogs, forums, and podcasts. It instantly notifies you of any negative brand mentions so that you can quickly respond to negative conversations before it snowballs into larger issues.
It even allows you to engage with your customers, respond to reviews, and comment on social media posts. And lastly, Brand24 helps to create extensive reports and supercharge your PR and marketing campaigns.
Mention
Mention includes advanced listening and monitoring features to help you track mentions of your own brand and your competitors. Using Mention, you can track mentions from over 1 billion sources every day and compile them neatly in an easy-to-view dashboard.
Monitor also helps you track mentions on high-level news and blog sites in addition to social media platforms. Its listen feature helps you gain more insights about your audience based on social media mentions.
Talkwalker
Talkwalker is a consumer intelligence tool that is used to track social media mentions and conversations. It gives you real-time insight into conversations on major social media platforms and the web.
Talkwalker’s Social Intelligence tool doesn’t just track comments; it can also be used to track social images, videos, and logos.
It helps to plan a video marketing or YouTube campaign effectively by tracking what people say about your brand on video platforms. Talkwalker also uses AI-powered sentiment analysis to provide key insights about your social media performance.
Navigating Social Just Got Easier
Don't let the overwhelming amount of data on social media discourage you from finding what you are looking for. With the right tools and techniques in your arsenal, you can easily navigate the world of social media search.
The right tool for the job can make all the difference. With these tips and tools, you will be able to find the information you need faster and more efficiently than ever before.
Ready to see how Statusbrew can give you refined search results using its advanced features? Sign up for a free demo today.
Statusbrew is an all-in-one social media management tool that supports Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, and even Google My Business.
FAQs (Frequently Asked Questions)
Here are some commonly asked questions about social media searches:
How do you do a social media search?
Social media search can be performed on native social channels by entering keywords or hashtags relevant to your search in the search bar. The filters can be used to drill down your search.
Social media management tools like Statusbrew can be used to perform social media searches across multiple platforms simultaneously, using advanced search operators, filters, and sentiment analysis.
Which are the best free social media search tools?
The best free social media search tools are native searches, TweekDeck, and Social Mention.
Which are the best social media search tool?
The top 3 best social media search tools are:
- Statusbrew
- Awario
- Brand24
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