If you are new to Twitter and would like to find tweets on a subject that interests you, there are a few different ways to find them. This article will cover searching with hashtags or keywords and saving those searches for future use. The next article on this subject will explore using an alerts service to have interesting tweets pushed to you via email.

Search (with or without hashtags)

Type a term that interests you into the search box in the right column of the Twitter home page.

Twitter Search Box

If you like the results that the search has provided, you can save the search by clicking the Save This Search button toward the top of the screen.

Save Twitter Search Results

In the future, when you want to see what has recently been posted on this topic, your saved search is in your right side navigation bar.

Saved Twitter Searches in Right Navigation Bar

So, what’s a hashtag?

When a person posts a tweet, they may include a hashtag. A hashtag is a keyword that is prefaced by a pound sign (or hash sign, as our European friends and programmers would call it). For example, people who are posting about elearning may include this hashtag as part of their tweet; #elearning.  This is a way of identifying that the post is about the subject of elearning. This is more specific than searching for the word elearning – which might have been included in a post while not being the main subject of a post. For a list of suggested hastags that learning and training professionals may like to use, see this page.

Do you have a Twitter tip or trick to share with our community of learning and training professionals? Post a comment below.

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