Pulsar User Guide Jan-14 (1)

8/12/2019 Pulsar User Guide Jan-14 (1)

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PULSAR user guide2014



What is PULSAR?

PULSAR is a tool that gives you instant access to online conversations .PULSAR constantly monitors social media sources to look for conversationsaround your brand, to give you the opportunity to understand what is going on inthe social web in real time.

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PULSAR gatherscontent from a range

of sources based on aparticular topic

The data is availablein an online

dashboard for you tosee

The system processesthis data to find key

topics and sentiment

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How does it work?



PULSAR

Micro blogs

SocialNetworks

VideoSharing

ImageSharing

Blogs

Forums &Boards

News sites

Comparisonsites

Review sites

Aggregators

Microblogs (e.g. Twitter)

Social Networks (e.g. Facebook,Tumblr)

Video sharing (e.g. Youtube,Dailymotion)

Blogs (e.g. Wordpress)

Forums and Boards

News sites (BBC, The Guardian)

Comparison sites (MoneySupermarket)

Reviews Sites

Aggregators (Reddit)

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Where does the data come from?



Overview

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PULSAR user guide 2013

This user guide contains all essential information for the user to get started using PULSAR. The

guide includes descriptions of the platform‟s functions and capabilities, as well as practical

examples and tips for data analysis and reporting.

PULSAR user guide 2014 includes:

A description of the system functions and capabilities:

Statistics page - see how pre-set topics are performing at glance

Results view - dive into raw data and look at mentions from a qual perspective

Visualisations - summarise data and help you understand statistics

Practical examples on how to use basic filters to isolate the results you‟re interested in Introduction to Boolean operators to tailor the dataset around your research needs

How to set up a new search

A glossary summarizing all terms and abbreviations used in the manual

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Statistics page (upper half)

Search switchSwitch betweendifferent searches

Filter tabOpen filters to refine your

research by channel,keywords etc.

Daily volume/visibility graphShows volume/visibility day by day:

• Blue line - overall volume• Light blue line - reactions

Navigation buttonNavigate to Results

page

Daily sentiment graphShows how sentiment

changed over time

Download buttons Download image orexport data in excel

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Statistics page (lower half)

Key statsNumber of messages, reactionsand overall sentiment figures in

the selected timeframe

Sentiment buttonShows sentiment

breakdown by source

Trending today graphThe most common

trending words with thegreatest percentage

increase in the last 24h

Visibility switchShows visibility broken

down by source

SourcesVolume, visibility and sentiment

broken down by source

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Analysis approach

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How can we look at data?

Results can be switched between two modes, volume and visibility (see figure below)

VOLUME : The number of mentions around this topic

“How many people are talking about it?”

Best used to understand whether the topic/area is

widely discussed, or creating a buzz

VISIBILITY: Whether the mentions are in a highly visible

place

“How many people are hearing what they're saying?”

Best used to understand whether the topic/area is

reaching a lot of people

Volume Visibility

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Have you got a particular topic you want to get data for?

The filter option in the statistics page allows you to tailor the results to exactly what you need,

based on using several filters to isolate the results you‟re interested in.

Click the Filter tab

How to filter content

Use the date options to select the time frame you areinterested. This can also be used to filter content byhour

Use the keyword box to focus the search by reducingthe results.

Use any other relevant options such as site, source, sentiment, domains etc. to narrow down the filter

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The filter tab

The filter option in the statistics page (see slide 11) allows you to tailor the results to exactly what

you need, based on using several filters to isolate the results you‟re interested in.

Use the date options toselect the time frame

and filter content by hour

Filter results whichcontain one or more

keywords

Use the author optionto look for messagesfrom specific users

Use any other relevant

options such as site,source, country orlanguage to narrow

down the filter

Save your chosenfilter settings to use

again

Filter users andmessages by Klout

scores, no. followers,

level of visibility andno. reactions

See either positive,negative or neutral

results only

Search for user withspecific keywords in their

bios

Select content type:either direct mentions or

reactions

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Some useful filters

Positive Only

What can be capitalized on to drive positive buzz?

Negative Only

What could benefit from some engagement?

Consumer Channels Only (Social Media, Forums, Microblogs)

What is coming straight from real people?

Press and Professional (News, Blogs)

What do the thought leaders think?

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Search syntax

Sometimes you may want to look at the data in itsentirety but on other occasions you may want to find

and analyse a particular topic.

When you develop and enter search strings

in PULSAR, you can refine results by using Booleanoperators. The latter are essentially used to create

true or false statements:

Operator AND: search for A and B

Operator OR: search for A or BOperator NOT (-): search for A - B

Grouping (“”): search for A B

Wildcard character (*): search for singular,

plural, takes into account misspellings, the root

of the word is searched

A and B m eans bo th

A not B means A but nothingfrom B

A or B means either

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Some useful tips to develop searchstringsTo drill down into a particular topic, you can use advanced search strings:

Quotation marks (“”) looks for a particular combination of words in that order:

Example: If you wanted to search for a campaign phrase like “Find yourself” , you justneed to type “Find yourself “ in quotation marks to find mentions of it.

If there are two different ways to say something you might want to use ORcommand:

Example: If you wanted to search for all mentions of confectionary you might search forsweets OR chocolate OR treats etc.

If there are results showing up in your search that you don't want; you caneliminate these using the NOT (-) command:

Example: If you wanted to look for discussion around sweets but not chocolate youmight want to search for sweets – chocolate.

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Example

catOR catsOR kittenOR kittensOR "feline friend"OR moggie

NOT diggerNOT truckNOT CaterpillarNOT excavator

Variations on ‘cat'?

Then t e rms to b lock ou t

If you want to search for all mentions of cats in your dataset, you might search for all variations

on “cat” so as to put PULSAR in condition to extrapolate the great majority of conversation

around the topic. However, there are lots of different “cat” things on the internet. In order to

refine your dataset and exclude results you don't want; you use can the NOT (-) command.

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Easy outputs: Visualisations

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Visualisations

At the top of the statistics page you will see links to several visualisations – these will help you

make sense of the data, each has a specific purpose.

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Visualisations features

Every visualisation has two “download” options at the top right corner. Chose between a PNG

image with a transparent background to use in reports or to export data (csv) in Excel and

create your own visualisations.

Mouse over or click through to drill- down data and see „behind‟ each visualisation.

Downloadoptions

Click through any volumepoints to see what caused a

specific phenomenon

Mouse overvisualisations to

receive summary info

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Keywords

This visualisation allows you to look at the most common words in mentions in four

different ways – which can be selected in the top left of the visualisation once clicked

through.

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Keywords visualisation types

Treemap allows you to see the most common

words (the larger the square the more common) split

down by sources (the colours).

Stream allows you to see how the use of words

changes over time – see when keywords are used

more and when they are used less.

Wordcloud shows you the most common words as

the largest word – this can often be the best way to

get an overall sense of a topic area.

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Keywords visualisation types

Bundle is a visual summary of online conversation dynamics within the given timeperiod. It shows you the connections between the most occurring keywords in thedataset.

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Topics

Topics is similar to keywords – but instead of showing all individual words mentioned, ituses semantic algorithms to identify the words and phrases that are the linguisticsubject of the message.

Visualisation toggle As per the keyword visualisation, you can

switch between four types: treemap,

stream, word cloud and bundle

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Links

Links shows you the most shared links in your dataset. The bigger the square the moreit has been shared, this is visible in the right hand corner. It‟s a great visualisation toshow you a greater picture of the actual content and conversations happening aroundyour search.

Click through to original dataClick on the title (blue) to get to the main

site, click on the content and a newwindow opens up with the original post

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Sites

Sites shows you a bubble graph of which sites posts are coming from. The bigger thebubble the more content is coming from this site.

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Volume/VisibilitySwitch view between sites per

volume or visibility



Filter out other sites

Scroll down and un-tick Twitter, Facebook or other sites to better visualise other siteswhere content comes from.

Volume/VisibilitySwitch view between sites per

volume or visibility

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Influential users

Influencers allows you to see the users who:

Produce the highest volume of mentions

Have the most visibility

Generate the most engagement (responses)

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Type of social influence

Influence by Volume Influence by Engagement

Who is talking about you

the most?

Whose mentions drive the

biggest reaction from otherpeople?

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Influential users by volume

In the volume and visibility “bubbles” graph, the larger the bubble the higher thevolume/visibility of that user.

DownloadEvery visualisation has two “download” optionsat the top right corner to get a PNG image witha transparent background to use in reports or

export data in excel and create your ownvisualisation

Excel PNG

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Influential users by engagement

In the engagement graph, size reflects the number of replies and retweets a user hasgenerated on the topic.

User infoMouse over each dot to see the amount of the

individual‟s reactions

View listScroll down the page to see a list of

user/site shown in the image

Tick boxesSelect users to

remove them fromthe visualisation

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Locations

Location allows you to see the physical locations of where posts are coming from. Thisis calculated by the IP address, geo localisation, location of where the domain isregistered and the location of the user bio (Twitter).

The larger the circlethe more users in that

location

Location infoMouse over each circle to see total

number of messages and

sentiment breakdown

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View by cities or

countries



Clusters

Clusters gives you flexibility to combine and customise different datasets within yoursearch by using filters to create your own graphs and visualise specific data to compare.

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Name your cluster

Choose between bar chart or piechart visualisation

Clusters

Name different fields

Open up the settings to specifyyour filter for the dataset you

want to use

Add or remove different filters you wantto be included in the visualisation



Clusters

Once you have finished you can visualise the customised visualisations. Create one ormany clusters to use the data you want to visualise.

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Results: Accessing actualmentions

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The results page

The results page shows you the actual mentions and the raw data which created the statistics

By going down to this level you can begin to see what people are really saying out there in the

social web about your brand or topic. All visualisations in PULSAR are interactive which means

that you can click from any visualisation to open up the results page in a new tab.

This allows for deeper understanding of how people are talking online – their language, their

tone, and the context of their brand mentions.

The results are flagged with information on their sentiment and source (the site from which the

mention occurred).

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Individual messageEach tweet, forum post,

news article shown as anindividual message when

highlighted

Filter resultsOpen filters to refine your

research by channel,keywords, sentiment etc.

Content typeChannel, e.g.

microblogs, news,forums

ReactionsNo. repliesor retweets

Visibility

Measure of reach byaudience size

Search switchSelect the search you

want to review

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The results page

CountryWhere the overall

website is hosted

LanguageLanguage of the

post



Selecting your view

You can decide whether you want to display images and videos attached to posts on your

results page.

Users get the "Collapsed" view by default and in this view, contents are tagged with "photo" or"video" label.

Choose "Expand" button at the top of the Results Menu to view the actual images, includinggifffs, and videos.

Play/pause videos in the 3rd column.

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Selecting your view - Collapsed

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Selecting your view - Expanded

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Selecting your view – Playing Videos

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How to set up a new search

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What kind of search?

First of all, you need to chose the kind of search you want to set up. PULSAR allows you tochose between three types: Topic, audience and content searches.

This search set-up focuses on keyword-based topic searches , the type most frequently used.

Pulsar welcome page

Traditional keyword-based search

Allows you to track youronline presence through a

finite set of keywords,defined by Boolean syntax

Audience mappingThis technique allows you

to track specific onlineaccounts as well as their

audiences

Content diffusion Allows you to follow any

URLs and look at howcontent travels on the

social web

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How PULSAR keyword searcheswork

Define the keywords you want to track

PULSAR searches for all social media messagescontaining these keywords…

…excluding any "block words" you define

…and within the parameters of the search you setup (e.g. country, language, date range)

You are able to view and analyse these messageson the PULSAR dashboard for your search

All relevant messages are saved in thePULSAR database

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How search terms are structured

We define PULSAR search terms using something called Boolean logic. Thisallows us to look for keywords in different combinations.

There are 3 basic combinations to understand:

A and Bmeans both

A or Bmeans either

A not Bmeans any in A that is not in B

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Testing search terms prior toentering them in PULSAR

1. Enter your keywords into Twitter's advanced search(https://twitter.com/search-advanced )

2. Select 'All results' (not 'Top')3. Note the frequency – how many in a minute / hour / day?

This can help estimate daily volumes1. Scan the results brought back – are these messages relevant?

If they're not what you want, try more specific search terms

1. Go to the relevant local Google (e.g. Google.co.uk or .com.br)2. Search for your keyword and press enter3. Select „more‟ and then blogs 4. Within „search tools‟, select „Any time‟ and then last

week/month or custom5. Scan the summaries to ensure they're relevant, rather thanspam or other meanings of the keywords

Same process, but use Google „Discussions‟ (from the „more‟ dropdown) to look at forum posts

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https://twitter.com/search-advanced








How PULSAR syntax is structured

This is how search syntax looks as you're setting it up:

Each row is a search term

The total set of all thesearch terms makes upthe search syntax

The rows are in an OR relationship witheach other.

So this search is looking for contentcontaining at least one of the followingwords: cat OR feline OR moggie ORdog OR canine 43



Designing a relevant and accurate socialmedia search strategy can involve asurprising amount of time , thinking andongoing refinement.

This is because language is complex:

Few words only have one meaning

Few concepts are defined by only one word

Make sure you test your search terms

on Twitter and Google when designing youstrategy.

Only add search terms to Pulsar once you'vetested them, and you're sure they'll bringback the type of messages you want.

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Keyword-based searchStep-by-step setup instructions

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The 4 stages of PULSAR search setup – Keyword search

1. Topics Enter your search terms, row by row

2. Blacklist Define the words or websites (if any) you want to blockentirely

3. Target Define the countries, languages and channels you want torestrict the search to. Add tags to categorise posts (optional)

4. Range Define the date range to search, and whether it's a real-timeor historic search

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Search setup Topic page

What do you want to track?

In this section, you‟re able to formulate your search strategy and set the logic of your social media queriesusing Boolean operators.

Assign a title to your search to add context andallow easy recollection. We recommend the

format: [Client name] Search topic

In this box, you can insert keywords in

different ways. Pulsar TRAC is designed toallow three basic type of combinations:

Every line equals to Boolean “OR”.Used to cover synonymous or alternatewords. i.e. Mobile OR mobiles ORSmartphone

Commas (,) equals Boolean "AND".Cover the need to include two words

together Every record must contain both.Spaces assume adjacent words. This isused to contain two or more words side byside. i.e. search an exact phrase.

Enter each search string in the text box, thenpress the “+” button. This saves the search termas row. Each row sits in an OR relationship tothe other search terms. 48

To match only case sensitive terms, wrap themwith quotes “”



What do you want to exclude?

In this section you can instruct PULSAR to automatically eliminate all records that contain specifickeywords or that come from specific websites. Please remember that Boolean “NOT” is a risky operator andhas to be used very carefully.

Search setup Blacklist

Bad words

To automatically block keywords, just type themin the box using the same Boolean logic youwould us to structure your search queries.

This is a useful tool when a search word hasseveral unrelated meanings or is constantly usedin different contexts.

Bad domains

PULSAR also give you the possibility to excludecontent from specific URLs.

To block domains, just copy and paste them inthe dedicated box. You can add specific domains(i.e. www.pulsar.com) as well as Twitter handles

(i.e. @pulsar)

www.Pulsar.com

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Search setup Target

What is your social media target market?

The target market section allows you to refine your search strategy even further and automatically filter resultsby country, language or source.

Just click on the boxes, scroll down the list and select the parameter of your interest. Type in the first few lettersfor speed search. The list will shrink as you type and auto-populate with the words containing those letters.

Countries If no countries selected: Get content from anywhere onthe globe. Or select the country / countries you want tofocus your searches on.

ChannelsIf you don't select anything here, you get all channels bydefault.Or you can focus on specific sources: MicroBlogs (Twitter), Social Networks (i.e. Facebook, G+), Forums,Blogs, News, Videos (i.e. Youtube) and Images (Flickr).

Languages E.g. English language content, from wherever in theglobe it is being used. Or used in combination with acountry filter, e.g. content in Spanish from within the US.

Unknown location Often location cannot beidentified for social media contentbecause the person has norelevant info in their profile bio.This is marked as "unknown"country.

By default it is included in thedashboard, because it's relevantto your keywords.

If you want to hide it instead, tickthis box.

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Search setup Tags

Is there a way to create categories to classify posts?

The tags section allows you to create groups of content, tags which are visible in different colours. This makes iteasier for you to tag different posts in the Results view to classify different themes.

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Edit or delete your tags

Within the results page (slide 36)when you highlight posts you canlabel them in different categorieswith tags which you can createwithin the search.

Once you have set up your tagswithin your search, you will beable to see these as an option inthe results page.

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Search setup Range

Considering and selecting different time spans

The last section asks you to determine the timeframe in which PULSAR will collect data.

You can collect data moving forward, go back in time through historic and, of course, you can also do both.

Date optionsClick on the date options. Our drop-downcalendar will provide you with a quick andstraightforward way to accurately enter a date.

For example, you may want to track all mentionsof Turkey during last December. Click on Historicand then select 1-Dec-2012 to 31-Dec-2012.

Type of search

First, click on the type of search you want to carry

out.Real-time searches start from the moment youclick "go"Historic searches collect Twitter content from adate range in the past.

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Search setup Range – Historics

Sample historic data from historics

If you have a big topic to search for (for example an Easter or Christmas campaign) and would like to samplehistoric data, PULSAR allows you to collect a sample of 10% (or 100%) for a specific time range. This is usefulif you want to bring back sample content and keep data costs down.

You can sample historics from both Keyword, Audience and Content searches.

Sample size

Choose between 100% and 10% in your dataset Time frame

Choose your start or your end date from whenyou want your historic data to be collected.

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H k d f h



How to remove keywords from searches

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1. Go to settings

2. Go to Keywords in the left hand side

H k d f h



How to remove keywords from searches

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3. Remove one or several

keywords from your searchby clicking on the crossesat the right within theplatform.

4. Click “Save”

H d di h



How to stop and edit a search

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1. Go to settings2. Go to “Status” on the left hand side

4. If you wish to edit the date rangeof you search, simply click “Edit”

3. To stop the search, click “stop”



Audience searchStep-by-step setup instruction

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Th 4 f PULSAR h



The 4 stages of PULSAR search setup – Audience search

1. TopicsEnter your search terms, row by row

2. BlacklistDefine the words or websites (if any) you want to blockentirely

3. TargetDefine the countries, languages and channels you want torestrict the search to. Add tags to categorise posts (optional)

4. RangeDefine the date range to search, and whether it's a real-timeor historic search

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A di h t L di



Audience search setup – Landing page

Once you click on the “+” button, a popup windowwill present you with basic info about the specifiedaccount as well as give you two choices:

To track the specified Twitter handleTo track its followers

First of all, type in the Twitter handles you wantPulsar to track (i.e. @FaceResearch) and pressthe “+” button.

You can also chose to retrieve only tweets with some specificterms. You can add one or more groups of terms based on thesame Boolean logic explained in slide 41.

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A di h t Addi



Audience search setup – Adding Facebook Pages

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1. Set up a token

A di h t Addi g




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2. Select Audience Search

A di h t Addi g




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3. Add Facebook Pages



Glossary

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Glossary



Glossary

Mentions: An individual mention of a topic area on the social web, with any reactions included

within the mention.

Reactions: Reaction to the original mention which stick to the topic.

Sentiment: Whether the mention is broadly positive, negative or neutral about the subject.

Sparkline: A small graph showing the changes in volume over the last 7 days without labelledaxis.

Visibility: A value based on how visible a source is to the rest of the web e.g. the BBC news is

highly visible while a twitter account with 2 followers is not.

Volume: The number of mentions in that topic.

Keyword: A search which looks for a certain word in the stored content.

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Contact

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Team

Jamie Watson – Social & Pulsar Account Manager

Jamie‟s interest in data and insights originated from a young agewhen his obsession for basketball meant he developed amastermind level of knowledge about NBA player statistics. Since2010 Jamie has put this skill to good use in the media evaluationindustry where for almost four years he has helped clients such asSkype, Epson and Expedia to understand how social data whencombined with traditional media measurement can improve

Anna Dorywalska – Social & Pulsar Account Manager

Anna came to London in 2006 to study Media andCommunications and her MA thesis focused on the impact ofsocial media on political campaigning and voter behaviour. Annahas followed her passion for social media in her career working

with consumer and tech brands, including O2, eBay andSamsung, to help them understand the impact of their PR andcommunication strategies.

Pulsar User Guide Jan-14 (1)

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