As part of becoming HootSuite certified, I went through some of the videos in the HootSuite University. I found a very useful way of creating a location based search real time search from within HootSuite. I had previously used Twilert to do this, but the alerts are sent with delay which isn’t quite so good.
To Use HootSuite Location Search
If I want to set up a search for anybody mentioning “Twitter Training” within 20 miles of Oxford (allowing me to see what my competitors are doing as well as being able to respond to any requests), I would do the following:
1. In Google Maps, on the bottom left hand side, click Map Labs. Enable LatLng Marker and Save Changes
2. Search for Oxford. Right click over the marker and select Drop LatLng Marker. Highlight the numbers that appear and copy (Using Ctrl C is the easiest way to copy)
3. In HootSuite, Add a new column of Type Search
4. Enter my keyword term, e.g. “Twitter Training” (with quotes), then type the text geocode: (with a colon) paste the numbers (press Ctrl V).
5. Remove any spaces after the colon, after the numbers type , (comma) 20mi for 20 miles away, 50mi for 50 miles away,etc.
Example
“Twitter Training” geocode:51.7587,-1.256,20mi
Save the column and watch your real time search results appear. Remember if you make the radius too small, you may not get any real time results!
Let me know how you get on and of course, let me know if you have any problems or you would like more information on how to make the best use of HootSuite to manage your Twitter account.