How to Conduct Multiple Social Media Searches with One Lookup

Some social media search engines let you concurrently explore dozens of social networking sites.

Social media is a broad term that refers to online communication venues, such as social networking sites, blogging and forums. Social media is about being social; it can be a medium for friends to stay in touch, but it's also a means for other types of communication. Companies use social media to promote brands, and businesses can use it to recruit new hires -- for example, in 2010, UPS attributed the hire of 955 new employees to its use of advertising through social media. There are free search engines that let you search multiple social media sites with one lookup.

Instructions

1. Search a dozen social networks for a person or group. Kgbpeople is a people search engine that searches names and other alphanumeric combinations in a dozen social networks. Go to Kgbpeople.com, enter a name or search term in the "Name:" field, select a country in the "Country:" pull-down menu and press the "Search" button.

2. Follow conversations. Whos Talkin lets users search for conversations in sixty popular social media sites. Go to Whostalkin.com, enter the word or term in the top right search box and press the "Search" button. Another real-time conversation search engine is 48ers -- go to 48ers.com, enter a word or phrase, and press the "Search" button.

3. Search and analyze social media results. Socialmention offers real-time searches in over a hundred media properties, from blogs to forums to images. It also provides a social media analysis that evaluates connected information, such as top keywords and user names. Go to Socialmention.com, enter a word or term, select the category of social media to search and press the "Search" button.

4. Conduct real-time searches in Facebook and Twitter. Search any identifier -- such as a name, email address, phone number -- in Kurrently, whose results show real-time results. Go to Kurrently.com, enter a word or term and press the "Search" button. You can also conduct searches in Google, Bing and YouTube.

5. Search online video. Developed at Cambridge University, Blinkx claims to be the world's most comprehensive video search engine. It uses speech recognition and visual evaluation to find associated video in social media and other online resources. Go to Blinkx.com, enter a search word or term and press the "Go" button.

6. Drive your search via a dashboard. Surchur advertises itself as the "dashboard to right now." It specializes in real-time searches on the Web, including social media, news, pictures and products, as well as provides a vast list of trending topics. Go to Surcher.com; enter a word, term or alphanumeric combination; select "all" to search all online options, or select a specific social media search such as "blogs" or "social web"; press the "Surchur" button.

References

• Ere.net: UPS Says It's Now Delivering Hires, Not Just Fans and Followers; Todd Raphael; February 2011
• Kgbpeople
• Whos Talkin
• Socialmention
• Kurrently
• 48ers

Resources

• Blinkx
• Surchur