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Monitor topic coverage

monitor menu item

Select a topic for instructions:


How do I research coverage on a new topic?

Begin by entering keywords you want to use for a topic search:

  • Enter keywords or phrases into “Any of these Words” to look for content that includes one some or all key terms provided; these words or phrases generally expand a search to bring back more results. Hit Enter or Tab on the keyboard when done to submit search terms.
  • Enter keywords or phrases into “All of these words” to retrieve content that must include all key words and phrases in this field; this typically narrows a search so that you retrieve very narrow results. Hit Enter or Tab on the keyboard when done to submit search terms.
  • Enter keywords or phrases into the “Contains NONE of these words” field to block keywords you don’t want to have in your results; enclose exact phrases in quote marks. Hit Enter or Tab on the keyboard when done to submit search terms.
  • You can also enter words in French or Spanish to get results in those languages (Agility supports special characters like accent marks, etc.); however, by entering French or Spanish terms, you will still get results related to those terms in English as well.
  • At this time, Agility does not have case sensitivity limitations for topic searches; results returned will include mentions of the keyword(s) in any case, regardless of whether the search was entered in upper or lower case.
  • For all fields, to look for content with keywords in a specific order, enclose exact phrases in quote marks (for example, “New York City”).
  • Agility supports several wildcard operators when setting up topic keywords. Users can employ a single character wildcard (?) and multi-character wildcard (*) to help expand the topic search parameters.

Monitor topic coverage

For more complex searches, use the “+ Keyword Group” button, which will nest your search strings for more complex boolean creation. Nested search, signified by parenthesis ( ), can be used when searches become more complex. The parenthesis tell Agility which search terms to look at first, similar to a math equation where calculations within parenthesis are done first.

As an example, if we search for Cats AND Dogs AND Fleas, we will retrieve articles that must contain all three words. This would be a narrow search. If we use Cats OR Dogs AND Fleas, we will find articles that include Cats and articles that include Dogs and Fleas (two searches). If we use parenthesis and look for (cats OR dogs) AND fleas, you are then looking for articles that include Cats and Fleas or Dogs and Fleas (two, more precise searches).

With Agility, you don’t need to enter the parenthesis yourself. Simply use the “+Keyword Group” ; this will create a nested search. You can view your complete search using the blue receipt or you can view your individual nested searches separately. Agility supports an unlimited number of nested searches.

As always, contact support for assistance.

search by keyword or phrase

Next, in the “Discover Related Concepts” dropdown menu, you can add related concepts, people or companies to your terms that you had not previously thought of. Make your selections and click “Add to My Search” when done. If you have added additional Keyword Groups, any related concepts you select will be added to the blue receipt above, not to individual keyword groups.

Under Sources, enter a URL, outlet name or author to find topic coverage from that source(s), and do the same to exclude topic coverage from that source(s).  These fields are limited to 100 entries each.

Under Regions, enter a region – such as a city, county, state, country, etc. – in which to find topic coverage, and do the same to exclude a region of topic coverage.

In the Refinements column at the right:

  • select the language(s) in which you’d like to see content
  • select the media type(s) from which you’d like to see content
  • select a date range in which to see content – last 24 hours, 7 days, 30 days, or a custom date range
  • choose the sentiment of the content – positive, neutral, negative, or not available (refers to languages/ articles in which sentiment cannot be determined)
  • As you enter terms and select refinements, a search receipt will build at the top of the screen in a blue box.

When finished, click the green “View Results” button. Or to start over, click “Reset”.

monitor topic coverage


How do I start monitoring my topic?

After you click “View Results”, you’ll be taken to a sample of results showing articles that match your search terms. This sample is taken from our database and does not represent all of the available mentions of your topic across traditional and social media sources. Note: Agility queries both the title and the body content of all articles and posts when generating results.

topic coverage results

On the Results page, you can:

  • remove any search terms or refinements in the blue search receipt at the top by clicking the “X” next to any term. Note: removing all languages, sources, media types or regions will show everything for those refinements in the results; also, at least one main search term must remain in the search receipt.
  • go back and edit your original search
  • use the “Discover Related Concepts” drop-down menu to add related concepts, people or companies here that you did not previously add in your search
  • view and interact with charts that represent Coverage Over Time, Sentiment Breakdown and Media Type Breakdown; each chart can be exported or downloaded
  • use the filters to further refine the results you want to see (see more below)
  • select any mentions, and then choose “Save Clips for Later” or “Save and Add to Clipbook”

You can easily filter your results with the following:

  • Filter by Sources
  • Filter by Regions
  • Filter by Content Language
  • Filter by Duplicates
  • Show/Hide duplicates: this means that all content, including byline, headline, body/content, is the same. For example, AP or Reuters re-runs a story as is without any changes.

If the sample results match your expectations, in the “Actions” drop-down menu, click “Save Topic for Monitoring.”  This will allow you to “lock in” the search for future monitoring of that topic.

save topic for monitoring

If the preview results are NOT returning relevant mentions, feel free to go back and edit or enter new terms in the search fields.

After you click “Save Topic for Monitoring”, a window will open asking you to name your topic and assign to any tag(s) if you choose. Then click “Save”.  At this point your topic is now saved.

save monitoring topic


I would like to monitor for my topic internationally. Do I need to translate and enter my search terms in different languages, or will Agility do that for me automatically?

Agility only monitors for the terms you’ve specifically defined. To search for content in one of the supported languages, French or Spanish, you’ll want to enter your terms in that language. For example: United States OR Estados Unidos. It’s important to note that entering keywords in French or Spanish will still return results for those keywords in English as well.


When I enter in a new monitoring topic, does Agility do a retroactive search to collect previous mentions, or is the search forward-looking only?

Agility is continually ingesting data from our online news and blog sources.  Some historical mentions from these sites may be available when you begin monitoring a new topic. Historical mentions that display in your results may be up to 6 months old; however, depending on the source some maybe be limited to the last 30 days old only.  When Full Twitter is activated on a topic it does not pull in any new mentions retroactively.


How do I access existing topics I’m monitoring?

Go to Manage in the top navigation bar in Agility and click Saved Topics & Topic Alerts.  Likewise, you can also access topic results from the Topic Activity widget.


How do I use wildcards in a new or existing topic?

Agility now offers users the ability to add instances of wildcards within Monitoring topics.

Wildcards can assist with several common monitoring scenarios that you may run into.  It will allow you to account for the possibility of alternate spelling of certain keywords in a given topic, especially to save on characters being used in the overall topic setup.  Second, there is the ability to allow for some instances of keywords being open-ended, particularly where they may be suffixes associated with them.

Two wildcard operators will be available to use: a single character wildcard (?) and multi-character wildcard (*).    Each is explained below with several examples detailed.

Single Character

A single character wildcard search looks for terms that match the input keyword with variations where the single character wildcard is replaced with any alphabetical character.  You can use multiple instances of the wildcard in the same search term, either adjacently or not.

Ex. “ reali?ed ”

Will matches with: realized, realised

Won’t match with: realizzed (two wild characters), realied (no wild charcters)

Ex. “ cent??

Will match with: centre, center

Won’t match with: centrifuge (too many characters), cents (only one character)

Multi Character

Similar to the single character in implementation, the multi character wildcard affords a more open setup to account for instances were a variety of suffixes for a keyword could be found.

Ex. “ plant*

Would match with: plant, plants, planting, planted

Restrictions

Currently ether wildcard may not be the first character of a search term nor may they be used in an exact match (between double quotes) query.  If implemented anyway the wildcards would then be treated as white space in the query.

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