Will It Fly?: How to Test Your Next Business Idea So You Don't Waste Your Time and Money

by Pat Flynn

Let’s start with Twitter. Twitter is a fantastic resource, not just for seeing what your favorite celebrities are up to, but also for finding top influencers in your niche. The number of followers a person or profile has is a relatively decent indication of their authority in a space, because people typically choose to follow accounts they find interesting and useful. It’s not a perfect barometer, however, because some of the numbers could be skewed as many accounts go inactive, and some people even go as far as to purchase followers in order to increase their perceived authority, which is lame. In general, however, the number followers a person has is a good indication of their standing within their niche. Beyond that, Twitter is the social media channel I’d recommended above all others to start with when you begin building your brand because it’s relatively much faster to build a following on than any other platform. It’s also a great medium for starting relationships with influencers. Whether you already have a Twitter account or not, you can still continue forward with this part of your research. To find the top Twitter profiles in your niche, we’re going to start on Twitter’s advanced search function, which you can find at https://twitter.com/search-advanced. On this page, you’ll notice a number of different fields to hone in on any kind of search you wish. You’re welcome to play around with this and narrow down your search results, but the only text fields we’ll be w...