14 DAY TRIAL // With the World Cup craze over, Twitter can start focusing on new features again. And it isn’t wasting any time; Twitter is now listing account names with searches to highlight Twitter users that may be relevant to that particular query. Twitter has had a people search feature for several years, but it only now managed to integrate it with the regular search.
The search results for a well known person or brand will now list three accounts under a new “Name results for ...” section which shows up above the real-time results. There is also a link leading to the full-blown name search feature which lists all of people using that particular name.
You can preview any of the accounts listed, thanks to the hovercard feature which gives you an overview of the account and also enables you to follow it from the search results with just one click. Another nice touch is that verified accounts are labeled as such to help you make sure you’re following the right person.
The move should really have an effect on follower numbers, especially for the more popular accounts. Users are going to find it a lot easier to discover new accounts and may start following more people, especially if the same account keeps on showing up for several searches. It also helps those that are actually doing a name search on Twitter but which may not be aware that there is a dedicated search feature for it.
There have been talks about Twitter looking into ‘selling’ followers and this may be exactly the way to do it. Like with Promoted Tweets and especially Promoted Trends, a ‘Promoted Account’ could be listed at the top of the search results for relevant queries. This would more than likely guarantee an influx of followers for that account, which Twitter could charge for.