The Simple, Effective Way to Track What’s Said About You on the Internet

So everyone knows by now that
Twitter
is getting big. Really big. One of the most important things to figure out
with Twitter, both for beginners and experts alike, is how to find
interesting people that share your interests.

The challenge is that you don’t want to just follow people indiscriminately
because it gets noisy in a hurry, but at the same time you want to expose
yourself to new inputs.

Here’s a simple technique that will help immensely:

Using
Twitter Search, perform a number of queries for specialized terms relating to your
topics of interest, and follow people that are discussing these things
intelligently.

Examples

So let’s say you’re like me and are in the
Information Security
field. Try some queries for:

• “pci qsa”

• “risk controls”

• “static analysis”

The results show a good amount of promise. In fact, I ended up finding
@risktical
in this test query, and he’s someone I follow already due to our similar
interests. That’s a win for the technique.

Or perhaps you’re into Graphics and Design:

• “xhtml logo”

• “typography best”

• “css design”

In both cases the queries returned people in the midst of conversation on
the very topics that we enjoy, and sampling this interaction is an excellent
way to evaluate someone’s value as a follow.

So in other words, don’t search for value-add people directly. Instead,
sneak up from the side by finding those engaged in the types of
conversations that you’d like to be part of, and follow the people that are
participating. ::

Related

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When to Blog vs. Tweet | danielmiessler.com
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Why Twitter Works | danielmiessler.com
]