When you were only following 10 people, Twitter seemed so peaceful. It was so quiet that you could hear the sound of a penny when it falls on the ground. Then when you started following back everyone or started to follow more people, it may sound as though you're in a mall... unless you have a Twitter list. You could only have up to 20 Twitter list and, at 500 people per list, you could only list 10,000 people at most.

A friend of mine, @thomasmarzano said that if you're not on his twitter list, chances are he might not see your tweets. (if you're following him, ask him to list you today)

I agree, if you're not in my list then I might miss your tweets or might not notice you at all. I have 3 lists which I follow and are left open on my browser every day, and I follow 10 other lists that were created by influential users on Twitter so that I can get updates on what they are following/reading/retweeting.

When your followers continue to grow, how are you able to keep up with all the conversations? I'm about to show you a secret ninja weapon... its top secret... alright maybe not..

Answer: Research.ly

Research.ly is an amazing tool created by the People Browsr. I found this great tool when @Scobleizer blogged about it.

Great features which Research.ly offers.

Search Your Followers/Following

What amazes me is with research.ly you could actually view tweets from your own followers. For example, I could search the term "Twitter" and see who is tweeting/talking/discussing about Twitter in both my list of followers and whoever I'm following. Amazing isn't it? I could also search for "breaking" topics or any current topics as well to see what they are discussing so that I can jump into the conversation.

Location

If I don't want to do that, Research.ly also gives an option to search via location. With location you can actually search for people that are tweeting about a particular topic in your own country and, if you are in the US, you can even search in every state.

Community

Another great feature which Research.ly offers is the ability to search within a wide range of categorized communities. You can search for CEO's, bloggers, mummy bloggers, and so on. This allows you to connect with real people in your niche. It is a great way to break away from your current social circle and meet new people.

Mix them up! For better results

The best feature is how detailed you can search for someone. For example I can search for people from Malaysia who are CEOs that are currently tweeting about "Twitter" or search for bloggers who lives in Malaysia who are have twitter in their terms.

What a great way to introduce yourself! Especially to CEO's or meet up with other blogs who are talking about the same topic as you.

What I would love to see in research.ly

Klout

Can they improve? Definitely. Probably with Klout! Who doesn't want to engage with CEOs who have a Klout score of 60, 70, or even 80. Klout scores are probably a feature they can consider having in the future because it makes the search even more targeted especially when you are looking to converse with influential people. Despite Klout sometimes having their funny moments, they are continuously improving. You could actually see it as Joe, the CEO and co-founder of Klout, is spending time commenting on blog posts.

More detailed followers search

I actually hope to search people who are Malaysian and are following me, however I wasn't able too. Hopefully this feature would be available in the coming future. The way I see it, businesses could actually benefit a lot with this feature as it allows them to segment their customers' demographics better. I have connected with@gloriaeffe from People Browsr and they have submitted to a their programmers, maybe in the near future?

Unfortunately, this tool is not free. You are able to try research.ly for free as they offer a trial. This tool will cost you $99 a month. However if you own a business, this is a tool that will help you enhance your twitter experience and help you engage with your followers and new people.

So whoever says you shouldn't follow back people because you can't follow too many conversations...Show them this. *winks*

What other tools are you using to follow conversations? Have you tried research.ly? Let's discuss about it below. I would love to hear your opinions.