Social Media Spreadsheet Tips: Search Keywords within Tweets

We often have users ask for tips on using spreadsheets to analyze social media data. In this video, we give a quick tutorial on how to use a google spreadsheet formula to search and filter for keywords within tweets (this process will work also in Microsoft Excel). We’ve found this kind of analysis highly useful for understanding what is driving the conversation around a specific brand or topic. Breaking down the tweets by keywords helps dig a level deeper. In this example we analyze tweets about RowFeeder for mentions of “twitter,” “data,” and “facebook.” In the past, we used the search function to look for mentions of “goal” and “ref” during Sounders games.

Links and Resources Mentioned in this Tutorial:

• The functions needed are: SEARCH, ISERROR, and IF.
• The combined function looks like: =if(iserror(search(I$2,$C3)), “”, 1)
• We made the spreadsheet in the video public, check it out here.
• Data was collected using RowFeeder Professional to Track Twitter and Facebook posts directly in a google docs spreadsheet.
• Special thanks to Jeff Turner at Zeek Interactive for the recent blog post about the need for listening tools that help breakdown the Twitter conversation.

• Posted on June 22, 2010 by Adam Schoenfeld
• Categories: Social Media, Tutorials