Ever wonder who the people are that are near your location and tweeting with a certain topic or hashtag?

Maybe not, unless you are a Twitter nerd like me. But it can be interesting and if done correctly, improve your social marketing. Here is how to do it:
1. First, determine your geolocation (latitude and longitude). Not sure? Use a service like My GeoPosition. It will look something like this:
Latitude: 37.776692537
Longitude: -122.4167751122
2. Then determine the radius that you want to search tweets. For example, within 50km of your location (~ 31 miles).
3. Now you can compose a search string that will be used to search tweets within your desired location. The search string will follow this format:
geocode:latitude,longitude,radius
If you want to search for all tweets within 31 miles of the above location your search string would be:
geocode:37.776692537,-122.4167751122,50km
4. Next, log in to your Twitter account and paste the search string into the search box in the upper left and voila, your results (be sure to view “live” tweets).

This will show you all tweets within the chosen geographic location that you are permitted to see (depending on a user’s settings their tweets may not be accessible). What if you only want to see tweets within your desired location for a particular hashtag or topic? Easy. Edit your search string as follows:
geocode:latitude,longitude,radius,searchterm
If I want to view all tweets within 31 miles of the above location that have the hashtag #LoveTwitter then my search string would be:
geocode:37.776692537,-122.4167751122,50km,#LoveTwitter
So What?
There are several practical uses of a tweet location search:
- Curiosity: You can monitor the Twitter conversation in a particular area. And then jump into the conversation.
- Prospecting: As this blog describes, you might use Twitter Geolocation targeting to find users who are asking for recommendations about a particular product or service that you sell in your region.
- Networking: I’m always curious to know who is tweeting about HR-related topics in my local area. I have met several new business colleagues this way.
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