Welcome to your go-to guide on Explore for Media Intelligence!
The article below walks you through the process of accessing, creating, filtering, and executing searches within Explore for Media Intelligence. Read below to learn more:
Accessing Explore for Media Intelligence
You will access Explore for Media Intelligence through the left-hand navigation bar using the 'Explore' link.
Next, you will select the type of search you wish to run. You will have a few options:
Create a Keyword or Company Entity Search using the search bar.
2. Select an option under 'Start a new search'.
These options include:
Keyword Search: Type individual terms or phrases into input boxes and our system will create the search. Recommended for simple searches and users who are new to using Meltwater.
Advanced Search: Directly enter Boolean queries with ANDs, ORs and NOTs (and our complete list of Boolean operators) for precise control over your results. Recommend for advanced users and those comfortable using Boolean syntax in searches.
Combined Search: Join together two or more existing saved searches to create a new search to generate search results. Helpful in managing a large number of searches or for quickly combining topics with your brand's saved searches. Learn more about Combined Search here.
After selecting your search type - you can now type your text into the search box to generate results for a basic search.
NOTE: If you have been migrated from Content Search to Explore for Media Intelligence, you will notice that any search string that had ‘AND’ and ‘OR’ was brought over as a combined search in the new experience. To learn more about why your searches were brought over as combined searches and how to edit these searches, check out - Why Combined Search and How to Edit?
Creating a Search
Creating a query in Explore for Media Intelligence allows you to search across multiple media types at once, review the results, and gain further insights from the instant analytics.
Let’s walk through step by step on how to build a Keyword Search within Explore for Media Intelligence:
Select Explore from the left-hand side navigation bar.
Enter your first word or phrase into the Search box, press Enter on your keyboard. If you'd like to write your keywords in Boolean, select 'Advanced Search' under 'Start a new search'.
Use the three Keyword boxes to specify the words you want to include/exclude from your search.
Adjust the Date Range and Search Filters (Further details below) to broaden or narrow your results.
Select Update Results to review the content matching your keywords. If there are irrelevant results, add keywords to the three searching boxes to further refine the results
Click Save in the top left-hand corner
Enter a Name for the search.
Click Save to finish your setup.
Other Search Options:
Company Entity Search: Company Entity Search simplifies searching. This is an automatically generated company suggestion based on the text you have typed into the Explore search bar. The entity combines the company name, associated social media accounts, stock tickers, and visual content such as logos, to find all relevant matches of the company. Learn more here.
Advanced Search: Search terms can be structured using Boolean Search Language to refine the results, please review how to use Boolean via this article here.
Combined Search: Your existing saved searches can be joined together to create a new search to generate search results. To manage a large number of searches , learn more about Combine within this article here.
Applying Filters and Filter Sets
Search results can contain an exceptionally large number of mentions if you do not include any specific criteria other than the query itself. This could potentially present you with results you don't want to see. You can apply filters to narrow down the results of your search.
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 filter bar is shown below:
Let’s break down each filter below:
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:
Select “Source Type”
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.
NOTE: Source types will vary depending on your package. All Explore for Media Intelligence packages have access to the following source types:
News
Blogs
YouTube Videos
Twitter
Facebook
If you have the Premium Social Package (PSP) add-on you will access to the above sources plus:
Instagram
Forums
Product Reviews
Comments
If you are unsure of what package(s) you have access to - reach out to our Support Team via Live Chat.
Source types like News and RSS let you drill down further. You can find their corresponding subfilters by following these steps:
Clicking the arrow icon
To subfilter News, enter a News source name or website into the search box
Next, hit Enter on your keyboard. Now 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
Click “Apply”
To subfilter RSS, you check the box next to the individual RSS feed(s) that are set up in your account. To learn more about how to set up RSS feeds - check out How Do I Add an Incoming RSS Feed?
Language
You may select one or more languages to restrict results to content written in those languages.
To apply a Language filter:
Select “Language”
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.
Location
To offer more precision when filtering via location our 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” to capture unattributed documents.
To apply a Location filter:
Select “Location”
Check the boxes next to the specific country or set of countries you want to filter.
Then, click “Update Results” to the far right of the filter bar.
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.
Note: Location data is now available for Instagram content in Explore results! Location data is AI-based, using post-level data, such as hashtags, language, user bio, etc., to infer the country/location of the person/handle. Not all Instagram content will include location data. This is due to privacy settings and other limitations on Instagram.
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.
To apply a Sentiment filter:
Select “Sentiment”
Check one or more sentiment values you want to filter.
Then, click “Update Results” to the far right of the filter bar.
To learn more about how Sentiment is assigned - check out the article HERE.
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.
In order to use the Author filter for the first time you will need to create an author list following the steps outlined HERE.
Now that you have author list(s) to apply an Author Filter:
Select “Author”
Check the Author list you would like to filter from
Then, click “Update Results” to the far right of the filter bar.
To learn more about the process of creating and applying Author lists, check out How to Use Author List in Explore.
Custom Categories
Custom Categories allow you to save searches that you frequently use to sub-filter other searches, saving you time and effort. You can use custom categories to exclude sources or terms that are irrelevant to your results or save a set of competitors you research, etc.
You will first need to set up and save a Custom Category filter to make it available for all searches. In order to set up a Custom Category filter - follow the steps outlined HERE.
Now that you have at least one Custom Category created - in order to apply the filter:
Select “Custom Categories”
Check at least one category you would like to filter from
Then, click “Update Results” to the far right of the filter bar
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 about Custom Categories best practices, check out Custom Categories in Explore.
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.
In order to apply 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.
Executing searches/displaying search results
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 on the right side of your search results include:
Total Mentions - Total articles/documents returned by your search
Total Mentions/Day Average - Average articles/documents returned by your search per day
Latest Activity - Chart showing the total number of articles/documents returned by your search, broken down by day
Top Keywords - Words and phrases included most frequently in the articles/documents returned by your search
Top Locations - The countries, states/provinces, and cities from which articles/documents originated most frequently
Sentiment - Breakdown of articles/documents by their sentiment - positive, negative, neutral, or not rated
The Mentions Trend, Top Keywords, Top Locations, and Sentiment widgets are all interactive.
For example, if you click on a point on the Mentions Trend chart, the date range for your search is updated and the results automatically update. If you click into Top Keywords it 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 Searches
Now that new searches with keywords and filters have been created you want to save these queries. You can save a New Search by following the steps outlined below:
Select the “Save” button above the query entry box.
You will be prompted to enter the search name.
Select Save.
Your search is now saved and listed under "All Searches":
Mini Profiles: Media Relations Contacts & Twitter Authors
Easily vet and gather info on journalists while in Explore. The same journalist mini-profiles featured in Media Relations and Monitor are now present in Explore.
Note: you must have access to Media Relations in Meltwater in order to view the full journalist profile.
To view the mini-profile, simply click on a journalist's name in the content stream. A condensed profile will slide onto the screen, from the right-hand side, for this contact. You will not be taken away from your current screen.
In the mini-profile, you will see the following details:
Name and location
Sources
Beats
Lists
Recent Articles
Social Media
Contact Information
Journalist profiles can be accessed via the Overview, Analytics, Topic Analysis, and Media Contacts tabs in Explore.
There is also a link to view the full profile for this contact, which will open in a new tab.
Note: that you must have access to Media Relations in Meltwater in order to view the full journalist profile.
Additional Resources:
Now that you understand how to set up Searches + Filters within Explore for Media Intelligence we recommend you continue learning through the Help Center articles outlined below:
💡 Tip
Need more help? Feel free to reach out to us via Live Chat or check out our Customer Community.
Find answers and get help from Meltwater Support and Community Experts.