Step by step guide: Starting with successful queries

A query is a word or combination of words that you can enter in Media Monitor's search field to monitor relevant messages. You can use a query to set up a report or an alert, for example.

A query should consist of at least one keyword and can be as long and complex as you would like. Depending on what you would like to monitor and with what criteria.

You know what idea you want to monitor but you don't know the best way to set up a good search query. If a search is not specific enough, you often pick up noise and see posts in your search results that are not relevant to you. In this article, we will discuss the steps for setting up a successful search query:

• Step 1 - Defining a search
• Step 2 - Creating a search
• Step 3 - Creating a new search in the Media Monitor

Step 1 - Defining a search

Before setting up a search, alerts and reports in Media Monitor, start thinking about what information you want to get from the search. Therefore, think about the following topics:

• Goal
• When

Goal

Think beforehand about what you want to monitor and what the purpose of the assignment is. What you want to monitor can be a small and limited subject, but it can also be a large subject. You can make subjects smaller by, for example, delimiting the subject to:

• Source type
• Website 
• Sentiment
• In combination with another topic

Example 1

"I would like to monitor all posts mentioning our municipality to identify how people talk about our place online. I would like to share the posts with my colleagues on a weekly basis."

• What do you want to monitor? - All posts mentioning the name of the municipality.
• What is the purpose of the search? – Monitoring developments.

Example 2

"I would like to be informed of any post mentioning our mayor in conjunction with topic X, this is a topic currently going on within the municipality."

• What do you want to monitor? – All posts mentioning our mayor's name.
• What do you want to combine? – I only want to see posts where the mayor is mentioned in conjunction with topic X

The two combinations provide a specific outcome

When

When is it important to read posts on topic X?

• When sentiment is negative
• When a key stakeholder talks about the topic
• When the topic touches another topic

Step 2 - Creating a search

Using a case, we explain how to create a search based on your definition. In this case, I want to monitor accidents around fatbikes.

A search requires operators. This way, it is clear what conditions a search must fulfil. In this case, we use the following operators:

()	Everything between ( ) belongs together. This allows you to organise and refine your search and combine it using search operators (AND, OR and NOT)
*	By using a * after a word. It searches for all words starting with the initial letters and ending with every ending that the Media Monitor can find.
""	If you are looking for a specific combination of words to be found in a special order, use double quotes. No word should come between them, this must be the exact order.
OR	The operator OR between the keywords in the search containers ensures that one of the words is searched for.
AND	When words in the search need to be combined, use AND.

There are several options around search operators. An overview of all search operators can be found in the article: Queries.

We are dealing with two different topics in this case; namely accidents and fatbike. These two topics must be a combination. Therefore, my search consists of two search containers. With a search container, you group search terms that belong together.

Example:
(search term OR search term OR search term) AND (search term OR search term OR search term)

The green part (before AND) is the first search container and the part after AND is the second search container. The AND operator connects the two search containers to create a combination of the search terms.

First search container

(search term OR search term OR search term) AND (search term OR search term OR search term)

In the first search container (in green), you are going to enter all keywords related to the first topic ‘accidents’. For example:

• Accident
• Collision
• Run-over
• Traffic accident
• Fell over
• Fell down
• Crash
• Bumped
• Collided
• Injured

This filled in looks as follows:

(accident* OR collision* OR run-over OR "traffic accident" OR “fell over” OR "fell down" OR crash OR bumped OR collided OR injured) AND (search term OR search term OR search term)

By placing an * operator after a word, the Media Monitor also checks for the words accidents and mishaps in accident*.

The operator OR indicates that one of these words is being looked for. For example, you ask Media Monitor to look for posts that either contain the word accident, or the word crash or the word run-over, or the word injured, etc.

And the operator ‘’ ensures that you are looking for a specific combination of words to be found in a special order. In the case of this case, you don't want a word between ‘fell down’. This has to be exactly this order.

Second search container

(accident* OR collision* OR run-over OR "traffic accident" OR "fell over" OR "fell down" OR crash OR bumped OR collided OR injured) AND (search term OR search term OR search term)

In the second search container (in purple), we are going to enter all words related to Fatbike. For example, this is:

• Fatbike
• Fat bike
• Fat bikes

This filled in looks as follows:

(accident* OR collision* OR run-over OR "traffic accident" OR "fell over" OR "fell down" OR crash OR bumped OR collided OR injured) AND (fatbike* OR "fat bike" OR "fat bikes")

The operator * ensures that Media Monitor also checks for variations that include the word fatbike. In this case, the operator ‘’ indicates that no word should appear between the search term ‘fat bike’ or ‘fat bikes’.

Result

The search result is as follows:

(accident* OR collision* OR run-over OR "traffic accident" OR "fell over" OR "fell down" OR crash OR bumped OR collided OR injured) AND (fatbike* OR "fat bike" OR "fat bikes")

In other words, with this search result, you want to find posts when the word hit is found with the word fatbike, but also when the word collided is found with fat bike.

Add exclusions

You may find a result that you find less interesting. Or perhaps some websites come up that you want to exclude. As soon as you want to exclude something, you can use the operator NOT. This basically indicates that you do not want to find something in the search result.

It is useful to create a search container with all your exclusions. That way, you keep overview in your search. When we look at the case, a third search container is added.

(accident* OR collision* OR run-over OR "traffic accident" OR "fell over" OR "fell down" OR crash OR bumped OR collided OR injured) AND (fatbike* OR "fat bike" OR "fat bikes") NOT (exclusion OR exclusion OR exclusion )

Anything I want to exclude I am going to add in a third container (in orange and after NOT). In this case, I don't want to see messages from 112meldingen.nl and also no retweets from Twitter. The end result is then as follows:

(accident* OR collision* OR run-over OR "traffic accident" OR "fell over" OR "fell down" OR crash OR bumped OR collided OR injured) AND (fatbike* OR "fat bike" OR "fat bikes") NOT (site:112meldingen.nl OR rt)

Step 3 - Creating a new search in the Media Monitor

You have the search query clear. Now it can be entered into a search in Media Monitor. The roadmap for creating a new search can be found in the article: Queries.