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Twitter Search Tool

The Twitter Search tool allows you to search tweets by given search terms, with location as an optional property. The search will only retrieve tweets from the previous seven days.

Beginning with Alteryx 10.6, this tool is not automatically installed with Alteryx Designer. To use this tool, download it from the Alteryx Analytics Gallery.

IMPORTANT!  Before you can you use this tool, you must register an application with Twitter. Log in to your Twitter account at https://apps.twitter.com, click “Create a new application”, and complete the form (a placeholder website may be used and there is no need for a Callback URL). Once you have submitted the application form, you will be provided with a Consumer Key and Consumer Secret that you can use to configure the tool.

Configure the tool

Configuration Tab

1. Specify the Authentication parameters:

   • Consumer Key: Enter your Twitter Application Consumer Key. This information will be encrypted.

   • Consumer Secret: Enter your Twitter Application Consumer Secret. This information will be encrypted.

   • Application Name: Enter the name of the application you created in Twitter.

2. Record Limit: Specify the number of records to request, up to a maximum of 100,000 records.

The API returns approximately 500-1000 records per minute so the tool may take a long time to return the data if you set a high record limit. During execution, a counter in the Results window lets you know how many records have been downloaded so far.

Search Tab

1. Standard Search: The Standard Search option gives you the ability to search for Tweets without requiring any knowledge of the Twitter API syntax. Except as indicated below, there is no need to include any special punctuation (no commas, quotes, or parentheses) in the Standard Search text boxes.

   If you choose Standard Search, you’ll see eight text boxes in which to enter search criteria. You can enter criteria into one or all text boxes. The tool takes all the criteria you enter and configures it into one combined query.

   • All of these words: Return Tweets containing all of the words (in any order) in the body of the Tweet.

   • This exact phrase: Return Tweets containing this exact phrase in this exact order. This is one of the only text boxes in the Standard Search that allows punctuation (e.g., if the exact phrase you are searching for contains a comma or quote, do include the comma or quote in the search).

   • Any of these words: Return Tweets containing at least one of these words.

   • None of these words: Exclude Tweets containing any of these words.

   • These hashtags: Return Tweets containing at least one of these hashtags.

   • From these accounts: Return Tweets from any of these accounts.

   • To these accounts: Return Tweets sent to any of these accounts.

   • Mentioning these accounts: Return Tweets that mention any of these accounts.

‘Any’, ‘Hashtags’, ‘From’, ‘To’, and ‘Mentions’ are each treated like “OR” searches (i.e., each word in the text boxes is implicitly separated by the word “OR”).  Do not include the word “OR” in any of the text boxes.

2. Custom Search: The Custom Search option allows users to do a more advanced search than the Standard Search. However, unlike the Standard Search, using Custom Search requires utilizing the proper Twitter API syntax.

   • Enter custom query: Specify search terms. A maximum of ten search terms (space-delimited) may be specified at a time.

     You can learn about proper Twitter API syntax via these links:

     https://dev.twitter.com/docs/using-search

     https://dev.twitter.com/docs/api/1.1/get/search/tweets

     The following table describes and shows examples of some of the most common search types and what the syntax looks like.

     Search Type	Description	Looks Like	Finds Tweets
     All of these words:	Tweets containing any of the words in this field.	watching now	containing both words in any order
     This exact phrase:	Tweets containing the exact spelling and sequence in this field.	“watching now”	containing the exact phrase: watching now
     Any of these words:	Tweets containing at least one of these words.	watching OR now	containing either watching or now
     None of these words:	Tweets that don’t contain these words.	watching –now	contains "watching" but not "now"
     These hashtags:	Tweets that contain these hashtags.	#DataArtisan	containing the hashtag
     From these accounts:	Tweets from a specific person.	from:willywonka	sent from person: “willywonka”
     To these accounts:	Tweets sent to a specific account(s).	to:willywonka	sent to person: “willywonka”
     Mentioning these accounts:	Tweets referencing a specific person.	@alteryx	containing a reference to @alteryx

     Click here for more information on building queries and how query operators modify search behavior.

Location Tab

1. Enable geocoded search: Returns tweets by users located within a radius of a given latitude/longitude.

2. Set query centroid: Specifies the latitude and longitude coordinates for the center of the search radius.

• Map: The geo-location of the point placed by the user on the map will be used to specify the latitude/longitude coordinates.

• Address: The geo-location of the address submitted by the user will be used to specify the latitude/longitude coordinates.

3. Set query radius (mi): Sets the size of the search radius for the geo search. Defaults to five, with a max size of 1000.

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