When Twitter first started, the Public Timeline flowed at a manageable pace. I never spent much time monitoring it, but if you were a reasonably quick reader, you could keep up with it. Now the flow of the Public Timeline is so fast, it would be unsafe to raft down. You’d disappear beyond the horizon in seconds and would never be seen again.

The big buzz, the sound of the greater Twitter conversation, is impossible to follow. There’s too much going on. Too much being said (in some cases way too much is being said).

This is why we follow specific people; it allows us to narrow the flow and filter the sources of the rushing torrent of tweets. “I’ll read what you have to say, and these other two hundred or so people—but that’s about all I can manage.”

But…what if there’s someone you don’t follow that you really should?

What if there is someone out there with the same interests as you, the same passions, the same sense of humor in a different timezone and, possibly a different country.

One of the great things about Twitter is that it allows you to discover these people.

An easy way to do this is through saved searches. Saved searches allow you to be alerted to people you don’t know and don’t follow when they tweet about something that is of interest to you.

The link in the previous paragraph takes you to Twitter’s own page on how to create a saved search¹ but I would like to spend some time explaining why you’d want to do such a thing and tricks for applying saved searches in special situations.

Search smart

Once you get a search that is returning great results, saving it (by clicking Save This Search) allows you to come back and check on it. Many Twitter clients² allow you to follow your saved searches like a Twitter stream unto themselves. But first you have to get the search to return those good results.

You have to be clever.

Do a search for “Star Trek” and you will find another flood of tweets too torrential to take in. But do a search for “Star Trek DS9” or ““Star Trek” Spock” and you’ll find just the tweets that talk about that specific show or that show and one specific character. A slightly more manageable stream.

Another example is a saved search I keep going; I dig Mac computers. The problem is, there are a lot of people who dig Mac Cosmetics, Mack Trucks, Mac & Cheese and various other Macs that aren’t made by Apple Inc. and interest me far less. For this reason, I have to tweak my search criteria with “-truck -cosmetics -cheese -Freddie” just to make it easier to find the tweets of people who dig what I dig.³

Search for people “in the mood”

You can also search by mood. And, no, Twitter doesn’t have some crazy biorhythmic technology that can read users’ emotions as they type.⁴ How do you tell your followers that your tweet is meant to be taken tongue-in-cheek? You add a “; )”—well, so does everyone else and that is searchable! Search for : ) , : ( , >:^O or any other emoticon you can think of.

Got answers? Search for questions.

Add a “?” to your search and you’ll get nothing but people asking questions… questions you can possibly save the day by answering. Social media gurus⁵ always talk about “adding value”, well answering someone’s question is the easiest way to do this.

Search for links… or don’t… totally your call

Quite often you want to search for tweets with or without links in them. Maybe you want to find the videos that are going viral right now. Or maybe you’d like to see if Guy Kawasaki ever tweets anything that doesn’t link somewhere else. ((I know this technique works, but the sheer volume of linked tweets from Guy causes this search to fail)) Easy to do. Add filter: “links” to see links and “-filter:links” to exclude them. There’s also a tab in #newtwitter to look at only link tweets more easily.

These tricks use what are called search operators and there are a few dozen handy ones right here.

MOST IMPORTANT: Search for your fans

If you’re in business and represent a brand (especially if that brand is you), this isn’t just helpful, it’s mandatory—start saved searches for your brand, your name, your company and your products and give attention to the people who are talking about your bread and butter. You can thank those that speak well of you and reward them for their positive testimonials and lend aid to those who speak badly of your product and win them back.

If your brand is you, you’re looking for your fans. How amazing do you think it would feel to be @ing with your friends on Twitter talking about your favorite musician…not using his @username (maybe you don’t even realize he’s on Twitter…and you call yourself a fan!) and then suddenly some stranger jumps in to the conversation—and it’s HIM!!

It’s nice enough getting an @reply from someone you admire when you @mention them directly, but it’s crazy exciting getting a reply when you didn’t know that person cares to listen in. It’s amazing. If your fan seems nice and doesn’t trip your stalker alarm and want to put the cherry on it—follow them.

You can do this without hardly any effort with a saved search.

1. basically, you do a search on Twitter and then look for and click the Save This Search button
2. programs that run on your desktop computer or mobile devices
3. I still get people talking about Big Macs, but this does help filter a bit of the noise
4. not yet anyway
5. ì ɑʍ not ɑ ʂoϲìɑӀ ʍҽdìɑ guɾu… but I will help you with it, if you like

The following is a series of tweets issued by writer/director Kevin Smith earlier today after being removed from a Southwest Airlines jet due to his weight shortly after having been seated. Keep in mind, these messages went out to Mr. Smith’s 1,637,505 Twitter followers as the events unfolded. Be warned, the language is strong¹ . Lesson to be learned: the age of treating customers (any customers) unfairly has come to an end—the injustices you have whispered to someone behind closed doors will be tweeted (and retweeted) from the rooftops—everybody has a platform.²

Dear @SouthwestAir – I know I’m fat, but was Captain Leysath really justified in throwing me off a flight for which I was already seated?

Dear @SouthwestAir, I flew out in one seat, but right after issuing me a standby ticket, Oakland Southwest attendant Suzanne (wouldn’t give

last name) told me Captain Leysath deemed me a “safety risk”. Again: I’m way fat… But I’m not THERE just yet. But if I am, why wait til my

bag is up, and I’m seated WITH ARM RESTS DOWN. In front of a packed plane with a bunch of folks who’d already I.d.ed me as “Silent Bob.”

So, @SouthwestAir, go fuck yourself. I broke no regulation, offered no “safety risk” (what, was I gonna roll on a fellow passenger?). I was

wrongly ejected from the flight (even Suzanne eventually agreed). And fuck your apologetic $100 voucher, @SouthwestAir. Thank God I don’t

embarrass easily (bless you, JERSEY GIRL training). But I don’t sulk off either: so everyday, some new fuck-you Tweets for @SouthwestAir.

Wanna tell me I’m too wide for the sky? Totally cool. But fair warning, folks: IF YOU LOOK LIKE ME, YOU MAY BE EJECTED FROM @SOUTHWESTAIR.

Via @byrneification “save the anger for SModcast” Believe it, Son. @SouthwestAir? You fucked with the wrong sedentary processed-foods eater!

(1/2) @pigz “I know several people bigger then u who have flown on other airlines” I saw someone bigger than me on THAT flight! But I wasn’t

(2/2) about to throw a fellow Fatty under the plane as I’m being profiled. But he & I made eye contact, & he was like “Please don’t tell…”

Dear @SouthwestAir, I’m on another one of your planes, safely seated & buckled-in again, waiting to be dragged off in front of the normies.

And, hey? @SouthwestAir? I didn’t even need a seat belt extender to buckle up. Somehow, that shit fit over my “safety concern”-creating gut.

Via @bogo_lode “Maybe you should organize a boycott” A boycott of one. This is my last Southwest flight. Hopefully by choice.

Hey @SouthwestAir! Look how fat I am on your plane! Quick! Throw me off! http://twitpic.com/1340gw

Hey @SouthwestAir! Sometimes, the arm rests are up because THE PEOPLE SITTING THERE ALREADY PUT THEM UP; NOT BECAUSE THEY “CAN’T GO DOWN.”

The @SouthwestAir Diet. How it works: you’re publicly shamed into a slimmer figure. Crying the weight right off has never been easier!

Via @mmm_cereal “my dad’s bigger than you & flies southwest all the time. some1 just wanted to say they were a dick to a celeb” Celeb? Me?!

Hey @SouthwestAir! I’ve landed in Burbank. Don’t worry: wall of the plane was opened & I was airlifted out while Richard Simmons supervised.

(1/2) Hey @SouthwestAir? Fuck making it right for me just ’cause I have a platform. I sat next to a big girl who was chastised for not buy-

(2/2) ing an extra ticket because “all passengers deserve their space.” Fucking flight wasn’t even full! Fuck your size-ist policy. Rude…

Southwest Airlines’ tweeter has kept up with Kevin, and here are a few of the posts found at @SouthwestAir:

@ThatKevinSmith hey Kevin! I’m so sorry for your experience tonight! Hopefully we can make things right, please follow so we may DM!

Hey folks – trust me, I saw the tweets from @ThatKevinSmith I’ll get all the details and handle accordingly! Thanks for your concerns!

@jdickey no, unfortunately…this is the real deal. Silent Bob is striking back.

I read every single tweet that comes into this account, and take every tweet seriously. We’ll handle @thatkevinsmith issue asap.

I’ve read the tweets all night from @thatkevinsmith – He’ll be getting a call at home from our Customer Relations VP tonight.

I have every confidence that this situation will work out amicably but it does go to show you how fast a bad customer service move can do serious damage with the connectivity of social networking…wildfire.

1. but tame by Kevin Smith standards
2. and if they don’t, they probably know somebody who does

I hadn’t seen @loadedlola in about a month and, when I last saw her, I had persuaded her to look into Twitter. Obviously she did or I wouldn’t be able to link her page here, but she posted only 5 times and then drifted away. I think that’s probably pretty common. When I saw her today, I asked her about it.

She explained that no one she knows is on Twitter and she doesn’t really watch TV or follow celebrities, so she wasn’t sure what she was supposed to do. That got me to thinking. I see this as my fault; I pushed her to the gates of Twitter and expected that she’d be able to find its awesomeness on her own without a map or any guidance. How soon I forgot how I got started with Twitter.

So what should someone like @loadedlola do when no one (beside me) is following her and she really isn’t all that interested in what @TaylorSWift13 wore on her recent flight?

My first answer is,

“There are celebrities, and there are celebrities.”

There are people like @AlySSa_miLAno¹ who are famous from TV and movies—those are the people the paparazzi stalk around Hollywood. But every field of endeavor has its own celebrities who are well known and loved by the others in their category, but are not household names anywhere else. I follow bloggers, artists, scientists, magicians, fictional characters, cartoonists, software developers, journalists, and all kinds of other types of celebrities. Try to think of the heroes of your favorite subject. There’s a good chance many of these people are probably on Twitter too—search for their names—find them—follow them.

Once you find a few interesting people to follow, be patient, watch to see who they @mention and have a look at each of their follow lists. You’ll want to read these with a mind to follow more people. You’re following your heroes; now follow your hero’s heroes. Soon you’ll have quite an impressive collection of people whose tweets will enrich your Twitter experience by tailoring its content to your interests. You don’t have to read every post like an email in your inbox that requires a response before your life can be complete. Relax and enjoy what you do read and let the rest slide by. This a place where you may have that “a ha” moment and have an inkling of why Twitter is so meaningful to people.

But how do you get more people to follow you? It’s all fun reading about what other people are doing and thinking, but when do you get a chance to let your voice be heard? How do you get to the place where you can tweet out something profound and 5 people will retweet it and another 7 or so will @mention you in reply?

For this I have another truism:

“Nobody cares how much you know until they know how much you care.”

In other words, spend some time retweeting and @mentioning the people you follow when they post something worthy of comment.

If you consider the word “remarkable,” it means exactly what it should mean; something or someone worthy of mention. When someone you follow says something remarkable, make a remark and make sure you format the tweet so that you include their @username or that you format your retweet properly. Also, if someone you follow is having a problem and needs an answer to a question they’ve tweeted out, try to answer it. @mentions and retweets are gold on Twitter and will mean a lot to the person you honor with them.

Once you’ve spend some time giving to your community in the form of conversational participation, @mentions and retweets, you will become well known within that circle and people will begin to follow you because you’ve proven to be remarkable yourself.

1. @AlySSa_miLAno is an awesome Twitter citizen by the way

The conventional wisdom is to put on your best face and make your way in the world. I always recommend that if you are going to promote yourself online, use your real name and your real face. This wisdom I preach but don’t always practice. Unfortunately some wisdom comes as a result of trial and error rather than success. Too late now, I’m stuck with the handle “RickMacMerc” which I have to explain and spell everywhere I go.

With regard to Twitter avatars, I have yet to find a picture of me that looks both like the “me” my friends see and the “me” I imagine myself to be. This may be a never ending battle, my friends.

So allow me to preach a bit of what I do not practice with the understanding that I do believe what I’m about to share applies to me, but I’m working on it…slowly.

So, best face; this means that if you’re going to be you and promote you online, you should go get a professional headshot taken of yourself or at least a photo that will pass as professional when viewed at 48 x 48 pixels¹ . Look nice. Look happy. Look friendly. Look like you would want to look if you were trying to make a good impression on someone you were meeting for the first time.

This is, as I said, the conventional wisdom, but sometimes there are very real benefits to using a webcam snap as your profile picture. Why? Well, imagine you’re a celebrity joining Twitter for the first time. It may take a while for the folks at Twitter to bestow a “verified” badge to your sidebar and, in the meantime, people are going to wonder if you’re really you.

Have a look here. Without checking their Twitter page to see if they’re verified or checking their timeline for telltale content, which one of these is more likely to be the real deal?

The first one is the Twitter avatar of @danny_DeVito the other is that of @johncusack. Neither picture is particularly professional. If I was unfamiliar with their work and saw either one of those photos paperclipped to a resume in my inbox, both would be quickly roundfiled.

It is actually the most candid and unprofessional of the two shots that is most useful to fans of this particular actor/producer/director because no one attempting to pose as Danny DeVito would be able to get that shot nor would they be likely to use it if they could access it. The John Cusack² picture would only take a few seconds searching on Google to trackdown—it’s from a movie—it’s not him, it’s a character he played.

Worse yet is when a celebrity uses a professional headshot. Wait! Didn’t I say you should get a professional headshot just a few paragraphs back? Yes, you should, if you’re trying to establish yourself online, but if you’ve already established yourself elsewhere, using your headshot might actually be the less preferred approach. Anyone can post your headshot to a Twitter account and claim to be you! Heck, there’s a guy claiming to be Darth Vader on Twitter but, even though his tweets are very entertaining, I don’t believe it is actually the Dark Lord of the Sith thumb-typing on Twitterrific.

So there you have it; the exception to the rule. If you need to supply extra proof to your fans that your Twitter stream is really and truly coming from you and not an impostor, fire up your webcam as soon as you get out of bed tomorrow morning and snap a quick and unflattering picture of yourself that can not be found anywhere else on the internet. No one will ever question that your Twitter stream is your own³ .

1. Or have a portrait drawn of you
2. the real John Cusack is on Twitter hiding under the username @ShockoZulu …I’ll write about why I think that’s a mistake some other time
3. unless you look that unrecognizable when you first wake up in the morning