Our intrepid intern Lindsey!

I’m very pleased to turn the blog over to our incredible summer intern Lindsey. Lindsey has been with us for a couple of weeks, but she’s already becoming quite the expert on Twitter tools. I gave her an assignment to find local followers for some of our retail accounts. For most local businesses, it doesn’t do a lot of good to have Twitter followers that are a thousand miles away!

There are thousands of Twitter applications, but our intrepid Lindsey has found a few that can be very helpful if you are a local retailer.

Take it away Lindsey!

Twitter apps to filter by location

Finding local followers on Twitter can be challenging. Unlike Facebook, there isn’t a tool to filter users based on their location or “network”. When you first start looking for followers in a specific location, it’s best to start with tweepi.com and twellow.com jointly. Starting with your original Twitter page, go through your followers to find a user that is based in your city or nearby.

For example, if you’re looking for people in Frederick, MD, try a profile like TourFrederickMD. Then, using their name, get started with tweepi.com. Tweepi shows all of TourFrederickMD’s users and gives statistics about them. For example, it not only shows the user’s location, but the links they include in tweets, the last date of their tweet, etc. Using this information, you’re able to go through and add users who were active within the last month and who were in Frederick, MD.

After using this method for a while, head over to twellow.com. With twellow, you can log into your twitter account through their website and search for users specifically in Frederick, MD. This greatly expedites the process because you don’t have to manually go through each user and look at their location; twellow does that for you.

Four Great Twitter Apps to Help You Find Local Followers

Twellow

Twellow is an application that lets you search for followers by their location. You can enter the zip code, city and state, etc. You can also search in specific categories so if you’re looking for an Accountant who lives in Frederick, Maryland, twellow will give you a list of all the Accountants in Frederick, MD who use Twitter! Very cool!

Tweepi

Another great Twitter application that creates lists of any user’s followers. It not only gives you a complete list, but provides important stats, such as location, date of last tweet, number of followers and more. So, it let’s you not only find followers in your area, but it helps you identify followers who are active on Twitter. After all, it doesn’t do a lot of good to follow someone on Twitter whose last tweet was 6 months ago!

Local Tweeps

Local Tweeps displays the most recent Tweets within a certain zip code. Local Tweeps also gives you the most recent Tweets in a certain country and the top cities and states for Twitter.

Who Follows Whom

This application allows you to enter up to 5 users accounts, which creates a list of common followers. When you’re looking for users within a certain location, use two profiles that are about that location. For example, I used @FinditFrederick and @FredRockSchool in order to get a list of users from Frederick, MD and surrounding areas. And I especially like the application because it’s grammatically correct!

Topics: social marketing, Social media, Twitter, Twitter Applications