Thread by @drewcoffman

Does everyone know that Twitter is the world’s best search engine, way better than Google at giving you highly personalized results for whatever you’re looking for? This is a thread on how to use Twitter search to the fullest:

First off, here’s why I use Twitter as a search engine: When you search on Google, you’re looking at the same results as everyone else. There’s two problems with this.

1) Finding ‘unique’ information is hard
2) You’re forced to assume that Google’s results are accurate

Google’s accuracy problem is evident when you look at Featured Snippets. Typing “How many colors are there in a rainbow” gives you an answer. That’s good! However, typing “How many rainbows does it take to jump from Hawaii to seventeen” ALSO gives you an answer. That’s bad.

Google relies on popularity to understand the web and create its rankings, but I don’t want to understand the web through that lens. Not only is it untrustworthy, it’s also boring. I want to find the hidden gems!!

Which leads us to Twitter 🔍🐥🔍

The first pro-tip to get the most out of Twitter search: Use the ‘People You Follow’ toggle (or type “filter:follows”). Anytime you look something up you’ll only see results from the people you’ve already ‘vetted’ as credible sources of information. This is HUGE!

I follow a lot more accounts than the average Twitter user (around ~1,000) because I view each of them as a potential ‘search source’ in the future. When I find someone that is an expert in their field, I follow them and look for their name when searching.

Search the tweets of a single user by typing ‘from:[username]’. This can be helpful if you’re trying to reference someone’s tweet you vaguely remember OR if you want to search your own history. I use this to find older tweets of mine and continue the thread 🧵

Sometimes popularity CAN be helpful when searching, in order to filter out junk. In those cases you can use ‘min_faves:[number]’ or ‘min_retweets:[number]’ to only see tweets that have hit a certain threshold.

Currently California is battling multiple wildfires, and it can be challenging to see up-to-the-minute news. I use the fire’s hashtag and the min_faves filter together to see the latest reputable tweets. A bummer of an example, but it’s an important one.

On a lighter note, it’s interesting to go back through your own tweets and see which have been the most popular through the years. Searching “from:drewcoffman min_faves:50” lets me see my greatest hits! A fun walk down memory lane.

Twitter weirdly obscures quote tweets but you can use search to see when you’ve been referenced! Use “-from:[username] twitter . com/[username]” to filter your own tweets out and only see people who’ve referenced you. This also works with whatever user you want!

Do a retro search by using “since:[yyyy]-[mm]-[dd]” and “until:[yyyy]-[mm]-[dd]”. Here’s a look at Twitter circa 2007. Simpler times.

These are just the search features I use most often on Twitter, but there’s plenty more. Use Twitter’s slightly hidden ‘Advanced Search’ page to experiment with some of them, and send me your favorite use cases!! twitter.com/search-advance…

Here’s some INCREDIBLE Twitter search documentation from @IgorBrigadir! A few that could be particularly useful…

Search any user’s public list with ‘list:user/list-slug’
See quote tweets with ‘filter:quotes'
Create a maximum amount of likes by reversing ‘min_faves'

So cool!

https://twitter.com/IgorBrigadir/status/1296849614558171136

Here’s a unique use of Twitter search from @visakanv: Combine “-from:[username]” and “twitter . com/[username]” to see only quote tweets. It’s a neat way to see when you’ve been quoted, which for some reason doesn’t always seem to surface?

https://twitter.com/visakanv/status/1269454324138049537

Did you know there’s a way to see only top tweets from the people you follow AND keep them sorted in chronological order? Ditch the algorithmic feed and run this search: ‘filter:follows min_faves:10’