Anyone who has ever used a search engine such as Google, Bing or Yahoo, has already written a query, probably in a very simple way, consisting of a single term or multiple words. But we all know, either we find hundreds or even millions of results, or the results are kind of inaccurate or the term we are “googling” has more than one meaning. In order to get the best answer, it is crucial to formulate the right search. This is mostly done by Trial and Error, since we don’t really know, what kind of results we will find. Let’s use an example on Google: Bank of America.
Here we are looking for results in which the words “Bank”, “of” and “America” appear in a random order in a document. This leads to over 270.000.000 (!) results. In order to narrow down our search we can make use of the so-called Boolean operators, such as “AND”, “OR”, NOT and the minus sign “-“. Now, if we just write Bank of America between quotes, this will lead to a much more precise amount of results, namely 107.000.000, since only documents with “Bank of America” in this exact order and with just one space between the words will be shown. This is however still a lot to go through.
By applying the operators “OR”, “AND”, or the minus sign in front of the word to be excluded we can further refine the search query. Let’s look now into “Bank of America” AND research -stock. This gives us 22.200.000 results while “Bank of America” AND research only gives us 44.400.000 results.
Who doesn’t want to use the Boolean operators in the search box can go to the advanced search of Google.
QUERIES AND SOCIAL MEDIA MONITORING TOOLS
Boolean operators are the foundation of Web & Social Media Monitoring tools enabling more sophisticated and well-structured queries. Unlike search engines that show what might be the best and most interesting results for users within an undefined period of time, tools will show most recent results. Additionally, some tools offer an integration of historical data as part of a premium account or for a one-single payment. Besides, a powerful tool is able to show a lot more metrics, such as potential reach of a result and engagement numbers. Each tool has its particular strength and weakness, which requires a more profound tool test.
TOOL QUERY
A tool query could look pretty much the same as our Google query. Monitoring tools offer, however far more possibilities and have a large number of Boolean operators that can be used to optimize the search. Queries could limit results to a specific country or region, or to a language within a region. Online Campaigns could be closely traced and hashtags analyzed. Influencers could be identified and a specific Twitter or Facebook channel tracked. Here an example of a more complex query on Brandwatch:
With this query we are looking for Bank of America, written in this exact order in connection with research or publication. Results containing the word stock will not be shown. Results with #BankofAmerica will also be included. The search is geographically limited to the USA and to English results. The process of writing and optimizing a query is a never-ending task. Keeping queries simple at the beginning of a project will avoid that relevant results are not taken into account. In a second step, recurring wrong results can be excluded with further Boolean operators and new relevant topics, personnel changes or changes in product and company name can be done gradually. Finally, a constant query review and update on a regular basis by skilled professionals is essential for relevant results and consequently for a high quality monitoring. (LV)
