Thursday 10 October 2013

[Build Backlinks Online] TITLE

Build Backlinks Online has posted a new item, 'Find Your Old Tweets: How to Find Your First (Worst?) Tweet'

Can't remember what your first tweet was? It was probably "Hello world!" or "Is this thing on?" or "I finally joined Twitter, am I doing it right" or "Twitter sucks," but if you want to know for sure, you'll need to dig back into your archives.

Unfortunately, Twitter only displays your last 3200 tweets in your timeline, so if you're anything like me (I've been on Twitter since May 2009 and have well over 40,000 tweets), that won't cut it.

Here are the two easiest ways to find your oldest tweets, including your first tweet. (I promise these work – a lot of the methods and tools you'll find in the Google results don't.)

How to Find Your Old Tweets Using Twitter Search

Open up Twitter.com and go to the search bar:

how to find old tweets

Type in the following string but with your username and the date range you want to look at:

from:username since:yyyy-mm-dd until:yyyy-mm-dd

So, for example, if I want to see all my tweets from my first month on Twitter, I'd insert:

from:egabbert since:2009-05-12 until:2009-06-12

This will show you your earliest tweets – but note that the default view is of your "Top" tweets; click "All" to see every tweet from this time period.

Oldest Tweets

Scroll to the bottom and ta-da: There's my first tweet!

Not my "best work," I admit.

How to Find Your Old Tweets Using Topsy

This method is even easier, it's super-fast, and you don't need to know when you joined Twitter. Go to Topsy.com, and click the "Tweets" tab, then enter from:username.

Find First Tweet with Topsy

Select "All Time" for the date range in the left-hand sidebar, and select "Oldest" from the "Sort by" dropdown menu:

use topsy to search old tweets

There it is again!

My Oldest Tweets

It's almost time to go see how dumb your first tweet was, but first, let's look at the first tweets of some of Twitter's most followed.

Best and Worst First Tweets: Celebrity Edition

I looked at the first tweets from everyone on the Top 100 most followed list, and let me tell you, the rich and famous can be pretty boring. Here are the first tweets that made me smile/laugh/cry:

First up, Lady Gaga – she starts off great, but …

She didn't quite grasp the 140-character limit yet, bless her heart. But at least Gaga typed that tweet in herself. Britney's team didn't get the memo that celebrity tweets are supposed to be in the first person:

I expected better from Ellen DeGeneres, but at least she didn't say "Is this thing on":

Pink's first tweet was actually funny! And only got 42 favorites, for shame.

Nicki Minaj's first tweet was pretty generic …

But the second one was good:

Eminem's first tweets are creeping me out:


Lil Wayne's first tweet was a little bit NSFW:

Paris Hilton's first tweet was definitely "on brand" … but only got 2 favorites and 4 retweets?! Where were the fans?

Oh Tyra! Tellin' it like it is, just like on ANTM (y’all KNOW I watch that show):

Love ya Kanye but that's not how you spell Silicon Valley (unless he's making a witty pun about somebody's cleavage?):

Kanye West's First Tweet

He appears to have seen the error of his ways and deleted this tweet.

Best and Worst First Tweets: Search Marketing Edition

Just for fun, I checked out first tweets from a few of the most followed accounts in search marketing.

Here's Matt Cutts' first tweet:

Here's a man who knows that all the Internet really cares about is cats.

Rand Fishkin's first tweet was about writing a presentation for SMX (snooze), but props for working a Goonies reference into the second:

Danny Sullivan was very busy his first week on Twitter – or just sleeping a lot, it's unclear:

Find Your First Tweet

Seth Godin has only ever used his Twitter account to tweet links to his blog, so this should come as no surprise:

Todd Malicoat pretty much nails it, huh?

Meanwhile all Aaron Wall could think about was rankings!

That's so SEO.

And finally, the first tweets from our own Larry Kim! CLASSIC:


Ha! And Larry taught me how to use Twitter!

The first tweet ever, by the way, was this one from Twitter founder Evan Williams:

Did you search for your first tweet? What did you post?

This post originated on the WordStream Blog. WordStream provides keyword tools for pay-per click (PPC) and search engine optimization (SEO) aiding in everything from keyword discovery to keyword grouping and organization.

You may view the latest post at http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/WordStreamBlog/~3/7fyLKibHD84/how-to-find-your-old-tweets You received this e-mail because you asked to be notified when new updates are posted. Best regards, Build Backlinks Online peter.clarke@designed-for-success.com
Posted by at

No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)