In this article, we will discuss creating, editing, and executing searches within Explore for Media Intelligence.

This user guide will cover the following topics:

1. Searches run across all information types

Unlike the old experience, you are NOT required to select an information type - News, Social, or Broadcast. All at once, you will surface a mix of results.

2. Explore for Media Intelligence uses filters for faster, more precise results

Whereas the old experience required time-consuming ‘Source Selections’, the new experience refines searches with intuitive, powerful, and reusable filter sets.

3. Explore for Media Intelligence provides charts and analytics alongside your search results, such as keyword word clouds, sentiment breakdowns, and media channel distribution charts.

Additional Benefits:

Access Explore for Media Intelligence through the left-hand navigation bar using the Explore link. Select the type of search you wish to run - basic, advanced, or combined, via the drop-down menu.

Enter your text into the search box to generate results for a basic search. There’s no need to select News, Social, or Broadcast before creating a search!

Creating a query in Explore for Media Intelligence is the same process as in Search. The boolean syntax, operators, and structure of queries are exactly the same. You can even copy a query from Search into Explore for Media Intelligence with no need for formatting!

There are, however, two major differences:

Apply filters using the filter bar that appears directly under the search entry box to refine query results and return the specific documents and articles you need.

The available filters include filter set, source type, language, location, keyword, sentiment, author, and custom categories. See below for details on each filter.

Source Type

The source type filter allows you to select content from specific sources like News, Social, or Broadcast. When not selecting an individual source, your results return documents across ALL source types.

To apply a source type filter, check the box next to the option(s) you would like to include in your search. Then, click “Update Results” to the far right of the filter bar.

Source types like News and RSS let you drill down further. You can find their corresponding subfilters by clicking the arrow icon. To subfilter News, enter a News source name or website into the search box and hit Enter on your keyboard. A list of sources with checkboxes matching your entry will appear. Select the checkboxes for the sources you would like to include in your search results and click “Apply”.

To subfilter RSS, you check the box next to the individual RSS feed(s) that are set up in your account.

Language

Language filters in Explore for Media Intelligence work the same way as in Search. You may select one or more languages to restrict results to content written in those languages.

Location

We have upgraded our location filters in Explore for Media Intelligence to offer considerably more precision than is currently available in Search. Locations are presented in a hierarchy of Country - State/Province - City.

When you click on the Location dropdown filter, you are presented with an alphabetical list of countries as well as an item for “Unknown country” to capture unattributed documents.

Check the boxes next to the specific country or set of countries you want to filter and click “Update results”.

The icon to the right of the country item will open a list of provinces and states. You may also drill a level deeper into the cities that are located in the selected state/province, again by clicking on the icon to the right.

If you wish to retrieve content without location information, such as blogs and forums, select the “Unknown” location item.

Keyword

When entering a keyword or phrase into this filter and applying it to your search, it will apply the keyword to your query. The keyword filter is frequently used after loading saved searches to further explore results, adding keywords to see the impact on results without changing the original query. You can repeat the process to add multiple keywords or phrases.

Sentiment

The Sentiment filter segments results by Positive, Negative, Neutral, or Not Rated. Check one or more sentiment values and click “Update results” to refine your search.

Authors

The Authors filter allows you to save a list of Twitter handles to use as a filter for a search. Note that applying an Author filter will by definition restrict your search results to only Twitter. The Authors filter can be useful in monitoring a set of influencers.

For more information on the process of creating and applying Author lists, view this Help Article.

Custom Categories

Custom Categories allow you to define additional queries you can then apply to your original query. Custom Categories allow you to save searches that you frequently use to sub-filter other searches, saving you time and effort. You can use it to exclude sources or terms that are irrelevant to your results or save a set of competitors you research, etc.

Notes

1) You must first save a Custom Category filter to make it available for all searches

2) Custom Categories can include any boolean operators

3) When applying multiple Custom Categories, they are joined as OR statements

For more information on Custom Categories, view this Help Article.

Filter Sets

Filter sets are saved filters that you can reuse at the click of a button. Common use cases include creating filter sets for specific sets of locations and languages, for a set of editorial sources that you wish to capture, or including only a particular set of sources in your results.

In many regions Meltwater has set up some pre-configured filter sets called “Quick Picks.” You may also create custom filter sets. Simply select the set of filters that you wish to save, then select Save under the Filter set menu.

Give your new filter set a name, then click “Save”. The filter set will now be available in the filter set dropdown list below the Quick Picks.

If you have searches that were saved using the existing Search application, they will appear in the list of available searches in Explore for Media Intelligence.

When you open a pre-existing search, Meltwater automatically converts the Source Selections to filters and runs the search. The filter bar will reflect the filters that were applied, and, as with any search, you can add or remove filters and re-run the search.

Explore for Media Intelligence's analytics provide insight into the overall data set, and suggest ways to refine your search for more precise results.

The visualizations that are generated with your search include:

The Latest Activity, Top Keywords, Top Locations, and Sentiment charts are all interactive. For example, if you click on a point on the Latest Activity chart, the date range for your search is updated and the results automatically update, or clicking on a Top Keyword will add that word or phrase as a Keyword filter which may help you drill into specific terms or phrases in the context of your search,

Saving New Searches

You can save a new search using the “Save” button above the query entry box.

You will be prompted to enter the search name and the Search Type - News, Social, or Broadcast. This Search Type does not change your results in Explore for Media Intelligence, however, it is required for compatibility with other Meltwater applications, such as Daily Digests and Dashboards.

You can see the Search Type assigned to a search in the saved search table.

An exciting new feature of Explore for Media Intelligence is the ability to Combine existing saved searches. For more information on Combined Searches, view this Help Article.

The basics of this feature are that you can combine saved searches by including ALL of the searches (i.e. as ANDs), ANY of the searches (i.e. as ORs), or NONE of the searches (i.e. as NOTs).

To give an example - you may have one saved search for “Tesla”, another for “Battery Tech” and a third for “Cars”. If you want to run results for “Tesla” and “Battery Technology” while excluding results about cars, you can add the first searches to the “All of these” box, the second to the “At least one” box, and add “Cars” to the “None of these” box. When you run the combination, any filters saved with the individual searches are reflected in the results.

Results are presented in the same way as for regular searches and you may apply a filter across ALL returned results.

If you create combined searches for the above, any changes you make to the “Tesla” search are immediately reflected in all combined searches that use it as one of the saved search inputs. This means that you can make changes to just one search rather than needing to edit multiple searches.

Other new features of Explore for Media Intelligence include:

Hour/Minute in the Date Range

You may specify a specific time (hour/minute) in your start and/or end date in the Explore for Media Intelligence date picker. This helps when tracking social activity occurring during a media event, for example.

Shareable Dashboard from Results

You can generate a shareable dashboard by selecting “Share Dashboard” from the Action Menu.

Thank you for reading. If you have any further questions, feel free to reach out to us via Live Chat!

Team Meltwater