How to do better open source intelligence investigations on Twitter?

Twitter is one of the most popular social networks that people use to make loud statements, read news, or share their daily lives. Although it is very simple compared to other services, it can still provide a wide variety of information. All this information can be very useful for open source intelligence investigators if they want to learn more about a person or even social sentiment.

Therefore, we will show you how to better use Twitter for open source intelligence investigations.

Simple operators can enhance your search, helping you find more of what you want and less of what you don't.

Twitter's built-in search

The most obvious solution is to use Twitter Search. Twitter has a built-in advanced search that can be found by typing a query into the general search bar, pressing enter and clicking on the three dots to the right of the bar.

In the window that appears, you will see different options that can make your search more accurate, including:

路 All of these words聽means that the search includes all the words that you enter in this line.

路 This exact phrase聽only聽shows tweets that have exactly the same words in the same sequence.

路 Any of these words聽finds tweets that contain one of the entered words.

路 These hashtags聽looks for tweets on specific topics.

路 From these accounts only聽looks for tweets from the account you typed.

路 To these accounts聽shows all tweets that are associated with the account

路 Mentioning these accounts displays all tweets mentioning the name of the chosen account

路 Filters聽only show you the results you鈥檝e selected by date, engagement, or type.

In any case, it is well worth getting familiar with the operators: once you know them, you can type them directly into Twitter's search box. You can quickly adjust them without having to go back to the advanced search page.