Advanced searches in Insights

Advanced searches in Insights are searches that contain detailed search criteria, so you can find the most relevant mentions for your topic. The more narrow your search terms, the more accurate your results will be.

Start by entering the most common terms, keywords, and phrases that people use when talking about your topic. Run a quick search to see the results that come up, and then use Boolean operators to filter out irrelevant results.

Insights displays an alert for any search queries that contain formatting errors so you know what to fix.

Search query operators

Insights supports a wide range of search query operators to help you find the most relevant mentions for your search.

Search terms are not case-sensitive (unless you use the { } operator, as described in the following table). If you're searching for a phrase that contains spaces, enter it in quotation marks.

Content-related operators

The following table lists the operators you can use to filter mentions based on keywords and content.

Location-related operators

The following table lists the operators you can use to filter mentions by location. Download this XLSX spreadsheet for a complete list of location codes.

Note: For the region: and city: location operators, not all mentions contain granular location metadata. Where location is unavailable, the location defaults to the country where the site domain is registered.

Source-related operators

The following table lists the operators you can use to filter mentions by source.

Advanced search examples

The more granular you make your search query, the more relevant the conversations you'll be able to surface. You can use a combination of the operators described in the previous tables to refine your search and narrow down your results.

A good practice is to test your query as you build it, and then assess the results of your search. You can then refine your query to filter out irrelevant mentions, or to find mentions that your current query isn't catching.

Example 1

In this example, the search query captures mentions for "Marriott" and one of its hotels across the web.

Specifically, this example query searches for:

• mentions that contain any common variations of the brand's name
• mentions that refer to the brand's website
• mentions posted by the brand's own social handles
• X @mentions of the brand's social handle
• branded hashtags shared on social media

Finally, the query excludes irrelevant mentions that contain words related to the brand name.

Marriott OR "Residence inn" OR "Fairfield Inn & Suites"
OR links: marriott.com
OR site: marriott.com
OR author: (MarriottIntl OR Marriott)
OR @MarriottIntl OR @Marriott
OR #Marriott OR #LetYourMindTravel
NOT ("Willard Marriott" OR "Bill Marriott"

Example 2

In this example, the search query finds mentions for "Marriott" that include specific references to some of the services offered by the brand.

Specifically, this example query searches for mentions that contain:

• the brand name and its services
• the brand name and its pet-friendly policy
• the brand name and specific amenities

We avoid more generic context terms like "luxury" and "beach" to avoid irrelevant data. After testing the query, you can determine the best context terms to use with the brand name to capture the most relevant mentions.

(("marriott") AND (yoga OR massage OR facial OR spa OR "hot stone" OR pets OR "pet friendly" OR dogs OR cats OR fitness OR gym OR "business center" OR "reception rooms"))

Example 3

In this example, the search query looks for mentions across all content sources related to self driving vehicles. The complexity of this query reflects all the ways that people talk about "vehicle" and "self driving".

For example, the sample search query uses:

• the AND operator to find mentions that fit the most obvious and specific descriptors for self-driving vehicles
• the OR operator with a wide range of terms commonly used to describe a "vehicle" to broaden the search and capture mentions not returned by the first clause of the query
• the NOT operator to exclude terms that are not relevant to the search intent.

(("self driving" OR autonomous OR driverless) AND (Car OR vehicle OR auto OR suv OR suvs OR "sport utility vehicle" OR sedan OR sedans OR "mini van" OR minivan OR miniaturevan OR truck OR pickuptruck OR "Pickup truck" OR pickuptrucks OR "pickup trucks" OR hybrid OR "two door" OR "2 door" OR 2door OR twodoor OR 2doors OR twodoors OR "four door"))

NOT (AI OR "Artificial intelligence" OR artificialintelligence)