MyWedding.com meets Ryan Seacrest and Keyshia Cole – Sorta’

In our last post, we used the online wedding megasite, MyWedding.com, as a search example without even asking them. We do that a lot… and they took it well. So, we decided to double down and show you how this company could use Twitter searches for their own business purposes.

As we explained in that post, MyWedding.com is moving its corporate headquarters to Castle Rock, Colorado. These days, that’s not such a big deal because Internet companies are global, not local.

However, even the good folks at an online Internet company aren’t virtual – they’re real people. And, they will be hiring real people in the area. They’ll also be interested in developing some close-by businesses relationships with those both inside and outside the wedding industry.

Did we forget customers?! MyWedding’s customer base may well be global, but the nearby customers they can actually rub shoulders with may become their most ardent advocates.

Search Locally, Think Globally

And that’s why they will want to search Twitter locally. In order to do that, they’ll want to go to the “Advanced Search” tab of Search.Twitter.com:

Here, they can search for any terms they might find useful in order to connect to Twitter members near Castle Rock. (they’ll want to search within 100 miles of Castle Rock, what is called “The Front Range” around here – all the nearby burbs, including Denver, Ft. Collins and Colorado Springs).

Using “Advanced Search,” we’ll do a search for the words “wedding” and “planning” within 100 miles of Castle Rock. You can see the result in the picture at the beginning of this article (you should do the search yourself just to get warmed up), but here’s the fill-in the blanks part that got us there:

Certainly, the gurus at MyWedding know their business and their needs much better than Sheryl and I ever could. But, even by using the most rudimentary search terms, we can turn up some surprisingly interesting contacts who might turn into new customers, vendors, partners or employees.

Nearby Wedding Planner

One of the tweets from someone who lives near Castle Rock (and includes both of our search terms) was from @DebbieOrwat. She is the owner and lead wedding consultant at savetheDate! Events.

Debbie’s got over a thousand followers, offers a profile, web link and her real name. That kind of transparency is crucial to evaluating a potential Twitter contact. As we’ve said, there are a lot of shady characters out there, but she and her company look pretty good.

She also happens to write a blog, so the folks at MyWedding.com might convince her to blog about them or partner with them in some other way. Regardless, she’s a legitimate wedding-related contact who lives near their new offices.

Potential Customer

Another Twitter member who mentioned both the words “wedding” and “planning” in a recent tweet is @kaneil. She doesn’t work for a wedding related company, but she has been mentioning (quite charmingly) her upcoming wedding and what it’s doing to her!

This is the kind of search that companies of all kinds are using to generate qualified leads. In this case, @kaneil might be interested in using MyWedding.com – especially those parts of the site that will help her organize and plan her wedding.

What About Keyshia Cole and Ryan Seacrest?

At first, it looked like our search was going to lead to a couple of celebrity weddings. Nope, because no matter what search terms you use, you’re gonna’ haul in some pretty shady stuff.

It looked like someone was re-tweeting Ryan Seacrest talking about his upcoming wedding. But, the newbie who “re-tweeted” that message seems to have invented it herself. Or, perhaps she has a thing for Ryan.

And, even though Ms. Cole has announced her upcoming wedding, there is no way to tell which, if any, of the many Keyshia Coles on Twitter are the real Keyshia Cole (a common problem on Twitter, only sometimes solved by their “Verified Account” insignia).

Keep it Complicated, Stupid

All this just means that MyWedding.com can find some great connections, but it is going to have to be pretty savvy to avoid the junk.

One way to do that is for them to target their search terms with very specific phrases or combinations of words that fit their needs and industry.

The other way, as we have seen here, is to search a much smaller geographic area. A search for the word “wedding” in Twitter would overwhelm. But, a search for the phrase “my wedding” within 100 miles of their new home office, well, now that’s another story.

There’s More to the Story

Even better? Any of these searches (even the radius location ones) can be turned into alerts that can land in your RSS reader, email or Google desktop.

(But, that’s another article – so, stay tuned).