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Creating a Social Listening Search to Identify Emerging Trends and Gaps in Products for Your Industry
Creating a Social Listening Search to Identify Emerging Trends and Gaps in Products for Your Industry
Cheyenne V. avatar
Written by Cheyenne V.
Updated today

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Introduction

In the fast-paced world of consumer products, staying ahead means understanding the market's pulse. Social listening is a powerful tool for uncovering emerging trends and identifying gaps in products within your industry. This article, inspired by insights from Savanah Wilshire a CSM in our Miami Office, guides you through creating an effective social listening search strategy.

Before Getting Started

Patience is Required

Creating a great search will take a couple of iterations. Some clients think that they should build a search string once and then get frustrated when it doesn’t produce the results they are hoping for. Building a search string is an art and science. You have to test the terms you are using to determine if the search string needs broadened (e.g. you need more results) or if it needs to be more narrowed (e.g. you have too many results and need to be more specific with your keywords). There are also instances where the results aren’t applicable to your goal and you’ll need to add NOT terms. We will discuss all of this in this article. The value of Meltwater is that our platform gives you the ability to iterate quickly.

Know Your Goal

Before embarking on social listening, be clear about your objectives. Are you tracking media contacts discussing lifestyle trends, identifying specific trends or gaps, or gauging customer sentiment about a product? Define your focus area, including industry and geography. This article will help you create a search string for 3 objectives

  • Media contacts that are writing these pieces, for lifestyle pieces want to identify who is talking about trends.

  • They want to identify what the trends or gaps are.

  • What customer sentiment is around a product (and is it trending)

The Power of Twitter and Reddit Data

Twitter and Reddit are ideal for candid customer insights as the data provides unfiltered opinions on products. These platforms often reveal honest product reviews and customer sentiments.

Application Across Industries

Trend Reporting is highly applicable to consumer-focused industries like CPG and e-commerce, but it can be adapted to any field. Should you be looking to identify trends or gaps outside of consumer-focused industries, you may need to spend more time identifying key terms that should be used in the Boolean.

Creating Your Search

Step 1: Set Up Initial Search - Make it Broad

There are several ways to create a search string. We are going to take you through a step-by-step approach to get you comfortable building out your search.

  1. Identify the keywords that meet your objective. These will be used in the search string:

    1. If your goal is to identify emerging trends and or journalists writing about them, you will want to use the following keywords:

      1. Top Industry Products

      2. Trending Products

      3. Best Selling Products

      4. Popular Products

      5. Best Product

        • Example of Boolean string you could use: “Top product*” OR “trending product*” OR “best-selling product*” OR “popular product*”

  2. Now it’s time to build your Boolean search query. Click on Explore from the left-hand navigation panel

    1. In the Advanced Search box, click on the create button

  3. Update the below search string by adding your industry to the search string. Copy and paste the below search string into search string into Advanced Search Box.

    1. Add your industry (Beauty, Health, Automobile, etc.) name in the below search string.

    2. For this example we will add beauty to the above search string.

      1. “Top beauty product*” OR “trending beauty product*” OR “best-selling beauty product*” OR “popular beauty product*”

  4. Add another search string that shows what is trending on Amazon

    1. To do this, first put ”()” around the Search String in Explore and OR after the parentheses.

      1. (“Top beauty product*” OR “trending beauty product*” OR “best-selling beauty product*” OR “popular beauty product*”) OR

      2. Now you can add this search string after OR ("top amazon product*" or "trending amazon product*" OR "best-selling amazon product*" OR "best selling amazon product*" OR "popular amazon product*" OR "best amazon product*" OR "favorite amazon product*")

      3. You search query will now look like this:

        • (“Top beauty product*” OR “trending beauty product*” OR “best-selling beauty product*” OR “popular beauty product*”) OR ("top amazon product*" or "trending amazon product*" OR "best-selling amazon product*" OR "best selling amazon product*" OR "popular amazon product*" OR "best amazon product*" OR "favorite amazon product*")

  5. Let’s make the search even more specific by using industry specific key words (e.g. health, mascara, skincare, supplements). We will use the NEAR operator to help us show when these specific keywords are within 10 words of our search keywords.

    1. ((“Top beauty product*” OR “trending beauty product*” OR “best-selling beauty product*” OR “popular beauty product*”) OR ("top amazon product*" or "trending amazon product*" OR "best-selling amazon product*" OR "best selling amazon product*" OR "popular amazon product*" OR "best amazon product*" OR "favorite amazon product*")) NEAR/10(wellness OR skincare OR mascara OR "skin care" OR supplement*)

  6. Click the Search button to update your results.

Step 2: Review Results

Once your results populate, review the results to identify what is in line with your objectives.

Step 3: Tweak your Search String

Here is how to update your search string based on the results you are seeing:

Too many results, narrow your search Option 1:

  1. Update the “Industry” keyword in the search string and replace it with a more specific product category - let’s say you’ve started with Beauty Industry, using this search string:

    1. “top beauty product*” OR “trending beauty product*” OR “best selling beauty product*” OR “popular beauty product*” OR “best beauty product*”

  2. Replace the industry with specific product categories (replace beauty with mascara or body lotion)

    1. “top mascara” OR “trending mascara” OR “best selling mascara” OR “popular mascara” OR “best mascara”

Too many results, narrow your search Option 2:

  1. Add additional specific industry keywords alongside with the terms Top or trending, see the example below.

    1. ((“Top beauty product*” OR “trending beauty product*” OR “best-selling beauty product*” OR “popular beauty product*”) OR ("top amazon product*" or "trending amazon product*" OR "best-selling amazon product*" OR "best selling amazon product*" OR "popular amazon product*" OR "best amazon product*" OR "favorite amazon product*")) NEAR/10(wellness OR skincare OR mascara OR "skin care" OR supplement*)) OR “Top health product*” OR “trending health product*” OR “best-selling health product*” OR “popular health product*” OR “Top skincare product*” OR “trending skincare product*” OR “best-selling skincare product*” OR “popular skincare product*” OR “Top beauty product*” OR “trending beauty product*” OR “best-selling beauty product*” OR “popular beauty product*” OR “Top supplement*” OR “trending supplement*” OR “best-selling supplement*” OR “popular supplement*”

Not enough results, broaden your search:

  1. Update the “Industry” keyword in the search string and replace it with a more generic product category or industry term- let’s say you’ve started with the mascara-specific search using this search string:

    1. “top makeup” OR “trending makeup” OR “best selling makeup” OR “popular makeup” OR “best makeup”

Your results have irrelevant articles that include results out of your geography:

  1. In the Advanced Search, select the following filters from the Filters tool bar:

    1. Source Type

    2. Language

    3. Location

  2. After you select the options that align with your objectives, select Search to update your results

Other industries are showing in the results

For example, you are seeing pet industry when researching beauty industry trends:

  1. Review the results to determine why it is showing

  2. Add another “()” around the current search string

  3. Add NOT (“keyword” OR “keyword” OR Keyword) to the end of your search string

    1. (“top beauty product*” OR “trending beauty product*” OR “best selling beauty product*” OR “popular beauty product*” OR “best beauty product*”) NOT (pet* OR dog* OR animal*)

Step 4: Rinse and Repeat Step 3

You may have to do step 3 a few times to get the results you are looking for.

Step 5: Advanced Search String Creation

The key in improving your search string is knowing your customer. For instance, if your customer were to search for your product category or industry terms, how would they do it? The closer you are to your customer, the easier this step will be.

Let’s take our beauty example, we know our customers search for terms like nighttime routine or morning vitamins. Therefore, we should update our search string with these terms.

  1. Add another “()” around the current search string

  2. Here is an example of what this search would now look like:

    1. ((“Top beauty product*” OR “trending beauty product*” OR “best-selling beauty product*” OR “popular beauty product*”) OR ("top amazon product*" or "trending amazon product*" OR "best-selling amazon product*" OR "best selling amazon product*" OR "popular amazon product*" OR "best amazon product*" OR "favorite amazon product*")) OR ​​​​​​​(("favorite product*" OR "best product*") near/10 ("nighttime routine" OR "night time routine" OR "skincare routine" OR "morning routine" OR "daily routine")) OR ("favorite beauty product*" OR "best beauty product*") near/10 ("nighttime routine" OR "night time routine" OR "skincare routine" OR "morning routine" OR "daily routine") OR (("favorite supplement*" OR "best supplement*"))

Step 6: Identify Customer sentiment

Once you are happy with your search results, you can start to use the other tabs in Explore. To see customer sentiment about your topic:

  1. Select Topic Analysis

  2. Scroll to Top Keyword Sentiment

This chart offers a clear view of the sentiment conveyed in the search results based on your query. Green indicates a positive sentiment, while red indicates a negative one. Also, the size of each word corresponds to how often it appears in the results. The larger the word, the more frequently it appears in the search results.

Step 7: Use Custom Categories

Rather than typing out additional search strings, custom categories can be added as a filter that you can switch on and off as needed. This can be found in the filter toolbar:

For example, if our goal is to identify positive trends as it relates to the beauty industry, a great custom category to add to your account would be our custom category for love:

(love OR loving OR loved OR loves OR adores OR adore OR adoring OR infatuated OR emojis:😍 OR emojis:🥰 OR emojis:❤️)

Learn more about how to set up my reading this custom categories article.

Reminder: Patience is Key

Patience is key when building out a strong Explore search. It is very rare to capture the results you are looking for on the first try. For instance, our original, very simple trending product search:
​“Top product*” OR “trending product*” OR “best-selling product*” OR “popular product*”

Turned into this:

​​​​​​​(((​​​​​(“Top beauty product*” OR “trending beauty product*” OR “best-selling beauty product*” OR “popular beauty product*”) OR "top amazon product*" OR "trending amazon product*" OR "best-selling amazon product*" OR "best selling amazon product*" OR "popular amazon product*" OR "best amazon product*" OR "favorite amazon product*") NEAR/10 (wellness OR skincare OR beauty OR "skin care" OR supplement*)) OR "top beauty product*" OR "trending beauty product*" OR "best-selling beauty product*" OR "best selling beauty product*" OR "popular beauty product*" OR "favorite beauty product*" OR "top skincare product*" OR "trending skincare product*" OR "best-selling skincare product*" OR "best selling skincare product*" OR "popular skincare product*" OR "favorite skincare product*" OR "top wellness product*" OR "trending wellness product*" OR "best-selling wellness product*" OR "best selling wellness product*" OR "popular wellness product*" OR "favorite wellness product*" OR ((title:"top amazon product*" OR title:"trending amazon product*" OR title:"best-selling amazon product*" OR title:"best selling amazon product*" OR title:"popular amazon product*" OR title:"favorite amazon product*") NEAR/10 (wellness OR skincare OR beauty OR "skin care" OR supplement*)) OR (("favorite product*" OR "best product*") NEAR/10 ("nighttime routine" OR "night time routine" OR "skincare routine" OR "morning routine" OR "daily routine")) OR "favorite beauty product*" OR "best beauty product*") NEAR/10 ("nighttime routine" OR "night time routine" OR "skincare routine" OR "morning routine" OR "daily routine") OR (("favorite supplement*" OR "best supplement*") NEAR/10 ("nighttime routine" OR "night time routine" OR "skincare routine" OR "morning routine" OR "daily routine"))

Additional Search String Ideas

There are several ways we can take our Explore searches to gather the results we are looking for. Below are some additional search strings you can test to see if they generate the results you need for the beauty industry. To use the strings for your industry, copy and paste them into your Advanced Search and update the "industry" with your industry-specific terms.

Follow the below steps to add these search strings into a new search:

  1. Click Explore on the left-hand navigation bar

  2. Navigate to Advanced search

  3. Click Create

  4. Copy and paste one of the below search strings

  5. Update the "industry" with your industry-specific terms as needed

  6. Click the green Search button

((("top amazon product*" OR "trending amazon product*" OR "best-selling amazon product*" OR "best selling amazon product*" OR "popular amazon product*" OR "best amazon product*" OR "favorite amazon product*") NEAR/10 (wellness OR skincare OR beauty OR "skin care" OR supplement*)) OR

("top beauty product*" OR "trending beauty product*" OR "best-selling beauty product*" OR "best selling beauty product*" OR "popular beauty product*" OR "favorite beauty product*") OR

("top skincare product*" OR "trending skincare product*" OR "best-selling skincare product*" OR "best selling skincare product*" OR "popular skincare product*" OR "favorite skincare product*") OR

("top wellness product*" OR "trending wellness product*" OR "best-selling wellness product*" OR "best selling wellness product*" OR "popular wellness product*" OR "favorite wellness product*") OR

((title:"top amazon product*" OR title:"trending amazon product*" OR title:"best-selling amazon product*" OR title:"best selling amazon product*" OR title:"popular amazon product*" OR title:"favorite amazon product*") NEAR/10 (wellness OR skincare OR beauty OR "skin care" OR supplement*)) OR

(("favorite product*" OR "best product*") NEAR/10 ("nighttime routine" OR "night time routine" OR "skincare routine" OR "morning routine" OR "daily routine")) OR

("favorite beauty product*" OR "best beauty product*") NEAR/10 ("nighttime routine" OR "night time routine" OR "skincare routine" OR "morning routine" OR "daily routine") OR

(("favorite supplement*" OR "best supplement*") NEAR/10 ("nighttime routine" OR "night time routine" OR "skincare routine" OR "morning routine" OR "daily routine")))

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