Article updated: September 20, 2023
Add a Twitter stream
You can create streams to monitor activity on your connected Twitter profiles. Streams help you keep track of engagement with your tweets and monitor tweets from others in a Twitter list. You can also create search streams based on keywords or Boolean queries to focus on important conversations and connection opportunities. Learn more about Streams.
Create a new streams board
When you select New board, you have three options for creating boards for Twitter:
- Monitor my own content - Create streams specific to your own social accounts.
- Discover new content - Create streams for following trends and competitors.
- Follow personalized feeds - Get straight to building custom streams based on any theme or activity.
To browse all available streams, select Follow personalized feeds, select a Twitter account, and then select one of the available streams for that account.
Add a stream
You can add a stream to an existing board at any time. Boards have a limit of 10 streams.
- Go to Streams
.
- Create or select the board that will host the stream.
- Select Add stream.
- Select a Twitter account.
- Select the streams to add.
iOS devices
- Go to Streams
.
- Scroll down and select Manage boards & streams.
- Select Add stream
at the bottom of the board you want to add it to.
- Select a Twitter account, and then select a stream type.
- Select Save in the top right.
Android devices
- Go to Streams
.
- Select Settings
.
- Select More
, and then select Add stream.
- Select a Twitter account.
- Select the streams to add.
- To add the stream to a board, go to the stream you added, select the stream name list, select a board, and then select Apply.
Create a Twitter Search stream
Use powerful search filters to create advanced queries.
Note: Twitter indexes their search based on how popular the search term is. At this time, this index can return tweets for the past seven days. Twitter’s search service is not meant to be an exhaustive source of tweets, so not all tweets will be indexed or made available.
- Go to Streams
.
- Create or select the board that will host the stream.
- Select Add stream.
- Select a Twitter account.
- Select Search, and enter your search query.
The search field supports up to 1,000 characters, but it's best to avoid using more than 10 keywords and filter operators. Also see Twitter search queries and filters, later in this article.
Tip: To easily identify complex Twitter search streams, select the stream title to rename it.
iOS devices
- Go to Streams
.
- Scroll down and select Manage boards & streams.
- Select Add stream
at the bottom of the board you want to add it to.
- Select Twitter.
- Select Search, enter search terms and then select search on your keypad.
- Select Save.
- Select a Twitter account that will own the search stream.
- When you’re finished adding streams, select Done.
Android devices
- Go to Streams
.
- Select Settings
.
- Select More
, and then select Add stream.
- Select a Twitter account.
- Select Search Twitter, enter a search term, and then select Search on your keypad.
- To add the stream to a board, go to the stream you added, select the stream name list, select a board, and then select Apply.
Create an Advanced Twitter Search stream
Much like the advanced search feature in Twitter, you can create a stream in Hootsuite based on a more narrow Twitter search, including things like specific words, people, locations, and more.
- Go to Streams
.
- Create or select the board that will host the stream.
- Select Add stream.
- Select a Twitter account, and then select Advanced Search.
Scroll through and select from the available options, and then select Add stream.
Create a Twitter Lists stream
Twitter lists let you group users together, to focus the conversations you’re monitoring. Add streams for existing Twitter lists, or create public or private Twitter list streams from scratch. You can also access these lists on Twitter.
- Go to Streams
.
- Create or select the board that will host the stream.
- Select Add stream.
- Select a Twitter account, and then select Lists.
- Select an existing list, or select Create a new list, give it a name, and make it Public (anyone can view) or Private (only you can view).
- Select Add Stream.
iOS devices
- Go to Streams
.
- Scroll down and select Manage boards & streams.
- Select Add stream
at the bottom of the board you want to add it to.
- Select Twitter.
- Select the List tab at the bottom of the screen.
- Select a Twitter account and then one of the lists in that account.
- Select Save in the top right.
- When you’re finished adding streams, select Done in the top right.
Android devices
- Go to Streams
.
- Select Settings
.
- Select More
, and then select Add stream.
- Select a Twitter account.
- Select List, and then select an existing list.
- To add the stream to a board, go to the stream you added, select the stream name list, select a board, and then select Apply.
For more about Twitter Lists and how to use them, see How to Set Up and Use Twitter Lists: 9 Great Ideas. Visit the Hootsuite blog for news, tips, tools, and tactics to help you succeed on social media.
Available stream types and stream content
The types of streams available for Twitter, and what you can do with them, depend on the functions made available by Twitter to third parties like Hootsuite. Expand the following table to see detailed descriptions of each Twitter stream type.

Stream type | Stream content | Engagement options | Available in mobile app? |
---|---|---|---|
Home | Your tweets and retweets, as well as those from the users you follow. Limit 800 tweets. | Reply to tweets. Retweet. Retweet from another connected profile. Quote tweets and retweet. Like tweets. Assign tweets.* Send direct messages. | Yes |
My Tweets | Your tweets and retweets. | Reply to tweets. Retweet. Retweet from another connected profile. Quote tweets and retweet. Like tweets. Assign tweets.* Send direct messages. Delete own tweets. | Yes |
Likes | Tweets you liked. Limit 200 tweets. | Reply to tweets. Retweet. Retweet from another connected profile. Quote tweets and retweet. Like tweets. Assign tweets.* Send direct messages. | Yes |
Retweets | Your tweets that were retweeted by others. Does not include quoted tweets. Limit 100 tweets. | Reply to tweets. Retweet. Retweet from another connected profile. Quote tweets and retweet. Like tweets. Assign tweets.* Send direct messages. Delete own tweets. | Yes |
Scheduled | Your scheduled tweets, listed chronologically, with the next tweet to publish at the top. Limit 100 tweets. | Edit scheduled tweets. Delete scheduled tweets. | No |
Followers | One tweet each from all new followers, most recent at the top. Displays up to 20 new followers on initial creation. | Reply to tweets. Retweet. Retweet from another connected profile. Quote tweets and retweet. Like tweets. Assign tweets.* Send direct messages. | No |
Search | Tweets matching your search query. Limit 100 tweets and 7 days. | Reply to tweets. Retweet. Retweet from another connected profile. Quote tweets and retweet. Like tweets. Assign tweets.* Send direct messages. | Yes |
Lists | A timeline of tweets and retweets by users in the selected list. Limit 900 tweets. | Reply to tweets. Retweet. Retweet from another connected profile. Quote tweets and retweet. Like tweets. Assign tweets.* Send direct messages. | Yes |
- Twitter polls are not supported and don’t appear in streams.
- Use Inbox to manage your direct messages on Twitter (see Overview of Hootsuite Inbox).
Tip: Select the timestamp on any post in a stream to open it in Twitter and view it there.
Twitter search queries and filters
Create Twitter search streams based on keywords or Boolean queries to focus on important conversations and connection opportunities. Twitter search streams must not exceed 500 characters and may be limited by their complexity.
When entering your search queries, don’t use commas to separate the search terms. Instead, use spaces, which act like AND, so results will contain ALL the terms. Put OR between terms to pull results containing either term. See the following filter table for more options.
You can add filters to the end of your search queries to narrow your results. For example, you can search for tweets in a specific language, or from a specific user.
The query pizza lang:fr min_retweets:5 min_faves:10 filter:images will display all tweets in French mentioning pizza that have at least 5 retweets and 10 likes and contain an image.
Tip: To find your quoted tweets, create a search stream for your own Twitter handle plus the filter:quote. Example: “twitter.com/hootsuite filter:quote”. Then select the title of the stream to rename it ‘Quoted tweets’.
Expand the following table to see detailed filter examples.

Filter example | Result |
---|---|
General | |
twitter search | containing both “twitter” AND “search” |
"owls rock" | containing the exact phrase “owls rock” |
restaurant OR cafe | containing either “restaurant” OR “cafe” (or both) |
(strawberry OR banana) milkshake | containing "strawberry milkshake" or "banana milkshake" |
-RT | excludes retweets |
super -man | containing "super" but not "man" |
#followfriday | containing the hashtag "followfriday" |
Users | |
from:thenoodlestop | sent from user "TheNoodleStop" |
to:thenoodlestop | sent to user "TheNoodleStop" |
@Hootsuite_Help | mentioning user "Hootsuite_Help" |
filter:verified | containing tweets by verified users |
list:pdon/deals OR list:18464315 | containing tweets from the list “deals” by user @pdon (https://twitter.com/i/lists/18464315) Note: Twitter recommends using the list ID (rather than username and list name) to filter on a list, because names can change. You can find the list ID at the end of the URL for the page. |
from:@username | not containing tweets from a specific user |
Timeframe (within the last 7 days) | |
superhero since:2020-01-23 | containing "superhero" sent since "year-month-day" |
help until:2020-01-27 | containing "help" sent up to "year-month-day" |
Links and Media | |
rainbows filter:links | containing "rainbows" and linking to URLs |
filter:images | containing all posts with images |
filter:links | containing all posts with links |
filter:videos | containing all posts with videos |
filter:media | containing all posts with videos or images |
Social Source | |
source:instagram | containing Instagram content |
source:foursquare | containing Foursquare content |
source:Facebook | containing posts coming to Twitter from Facebook |
exclude:nativeretweets | does not include retweets originating from Twitter |
exclude:retweets | does not include regular RT retweets |
Minimum Result | |
min_replies:5 | containing tweets with 5 or more replies |
min_retweets:30 | containing tweets with 30 or more retweets |
min_faves:100 | containing tweets with 100 or more likes |
Language | |
lang:ar | Arabic |
lang:da | Danish |
lang:nl | Dutch |
lang: en | English |
lang:fil | Filipino |
lang:fi | Finnish |
lang:fr | French |
lang:de | German |
lang:el | Greek |
lang:hi | Hindi |
lang:hu | Hungarian |
lang:id | Indonesian |
lang:it | Italian |
lang:ja | Japanese |
lang:ko | Korean |
lang:ml | Malayalam |
lang:no | Norwegian |
lang:pl | Polish |
lang:pt | Portuguese |
lang:ru | Russian |
lang:zh-cn | Simplified Chinese |
lang:es | Spanish |
lang:sv | Swedish |
lang:tl | Tagalog |
lang:ta | Tamil |
lang:th | Thailand |
lang:zh-tw | Traditional Chinese |
lang:tr | Turkish |
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