Advanced Queries

A couple of weeks ago we published a blog post on Publishing a Paper.li. Afterwards I received numerous requests to highlight best practices in searches and queries for Twitter based paper, and there was a clear trend in users requesting assistance on contextual searches. In other words, searches that would make their content more relevant to their viewers.

Structured and well thought-out queries will help you to get the most relevant content for your audience.

Queries for Context

Mastering queries in order to add contextual relevance can take some time. But they pay off. More effort = better end result.

The #tag is used to give context to a tweet. In terms of Twitter search and the creation of a Custom Paper with a focus, take the time to get familiar with the way users are expressing themselves around a topic and understand the context before creating your paper.

This can be done by searching Twitter for a topic that you are interested in and viewing what key words, #tags and other @users comes up around it. From there you can begin to learn the language around your topic and narrow your search.

Example: Education

• #education. I am interested in the topic of education in general. I start a search on Twitter with one word to see what it brings back.

• I have found a few key words that are standard in the general conversation, and I build stronger queries: #education OR #schools OR #teachers or #education OR #schools OR #teachers -#students

• I have discovered a query that I really like, and now I want to localize.I add a location: #education OR #schools + #teachers near:"california"

• I decided I want to know exactly what is happening around education, educators and schools –not involving students, in San Francisco:#education OR #schools OR #teachers OR -#students near:"san francisco" within:15mi

Note:

The first three queries have been performed with Twitter search . If you create an OR statement, or an + (this means "and") statement, with the standard search feature, you will need to insert either OR, or, + between the words.

Query number four was performed with Twitter Advanced Search. Here you do not need to add the OR, or ,+ in between key words. Once you feel comfortable with your topic, the Advanced Search option works very well.

Character limit: A custom paper focus will only support 200 characters.

Let us know how your query goes. Good publishing!