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    The Indicators Tab: Creating an Indicator

    On the Indicators tab in Listen & Analyze, you can create and manage indicators, which are filters that you use with existing topics, highlighting mentions containing the specified search terms and keywords in the indicator. In this article, we'll take you step by step through creating an indicator.

    You can work with the Indicators tab if you are an Oracle Social Engagement and Monitoring customer.

    In this article:

    What is an Indicator?

    Creating an Indicator

    How do Search Terms Work?

    Advanced Options
        · Boolean Conditions
        · Keywords
        · Boolean Conditions for Regular Expressions
        · Regular Expressions

    Targeting
        · Location
        · Content Type
        · Source URLs
        · Bulk Include/Exclude
        · Authors

    Previewing an Indicator
        · Messages
        · Themes
        · Media Types

    Saving an Indicator

    Click a link above to get directly to that section, or scroll down and start reading.

    What is an Indicator?

    Indicators are pre-configured semantic filters that allow you to extract and analyze more precise aspects of interesting conversations. An indicator contains logic designed to recognize a specific response or reaction within each conversation. You use indicators as filters on top of existing topics, so when you use one, mentions that match the part of the topic you want the indicator to display will be highlighted.

    There are two types of indicators in Listen, custom and standard. Standard indicators are ones that we have created for you out of the box:

    • Advertising
    • Awesomeness
    • Customer Service
    • Favorable
    • Favorite
    • Humor
    • Intent to Switch
    • Loyalty
    • Media: Trailer/Previews
    • Media: Viewing Intent
    • Media: Watching
    • Offensive
    • Price
    • Purchase Language
    • Quality
    • Recall
    • Sales & Coupons
    • Traveling
    • Unfavorable

    Custom indicators are ones that you create, specific to your topic needs. We'll discuss how to create an indicator next.

    You can learn about how to use indicators with your topics in the Using Dashboard Tabs help article.

    Creating Indicators

    You can access your indicators and create new ones from any bundle in your account.

    To Create An Indicator

    First, click New Indicator. This will take you to the Create a New Indicator page.

    Fill out the following fields:

    • Indicator Name - Give your indicator a name. We suggest something that will help you remember what the indicator is covering.
    • Language - Choose a language you want the indicator to search. This will only provide results in the chosen language – the user language you have selected in Workflow & Automation is chosen by default unless that language is not yet available. In this case, English is the default.
        The languages you can search are:
      • Arabic
      • Bahasa
      • Czech
      • Danish
      • Dutch
      • English
      • Finnish
      • French
      • German
      • Greek
      • Hebrew
      • Hindi
      • Hungarian
      • Italian
      • Japanese
      • Korean
      • Norwegian
      • Polish
      • Portuguese
      • Russian
      • Simplified Chinese
      • Spanish
      • Swedish
      • Tamil
      • Thai
      • Traditional Chinese
      • Turkish
      • Vietnamese
    • Search Term - Type a term or phrase and press Enter or click Add to add them to your indicator to be searched. All the terms you add to the indicator will show on the right hand side in the Indicator Properties section. You can enter multiple terms, phrases, or a combination of both.

      For example, type oracle to retrieve all conversations containing the term oracle. Click x on the term or phrase under Included Search Terms to remove it.

      By default, Listen looks for search terms on the subject and body of web pages. However, if you would like the term to be searched in URLs as well, select the Find search terms/keywords in URL option beneath the search term field.

      Note: You can add up to 1,000 search terms/keywords. There's a counter in the Indicator Properties box that shows you how many search terms/keywords you have added so you can easily keep track.

    After you enter your search terms, you can preview a representative sample of social conversations to help you evaluate and refine your indicator. This is fully covered in the Preview section below.

    How Do Search Terms Work?

    Our search terms are optimized to give you the most results. Just by entering simple terms, you'll get results covering multiple versions of that term.

    The indicator will search using the OR operator by default with the terms and phrases. For example, if you enter the terms oracle and ORCL, then your results will contain the term oracle OR the term ORCL.

    To add AND terms to your search, add keywords under the Advanced Options section.

    Punctuation & Symbols

    With many search tools, you have to enter every permutation of a term to capture results that use all those variations. In indicator search terms, we've simplified that. Let's look at an example:

    When you enter oracle as a search term, not only will you get back mentions containing oracle, but also:

    oracle
    oracle.
    oracle?
    oracle!
    oracle,
    oracle;
    oracle:
    oracle-
    (oracle)
    [oracle]
    {oracle}
    oracle’
    “oracle”
    oracle…
    #oracle
    @oracle
    oracle_
    oracle/

    By simply entering the term without capitalization or symbols, Listen will automatically return those results for you.

    Note: Listen's search can handle nonspace languages like Chinese and Japanese. For example, if you search for oracle, and in Japanese the mention says oraclecloudisgood, the Listen categorizer knows to separate that out into oracle cloud is good, so this mention will be returned.

    Specific Searches

    If you do enter a search term that uses punctuation or symbols, Listen will only return results for exactly what you entered. SO, If you enter #oracle, you will only see mentions that have #oracle. It will not include oracle as a result. This is handy if you have a very specific result you want returned.

    Note: This includes case sensitivity. If you want a general result, use lower case with your search term.

    Punctuation and Symbol Rules

    If you use the following punctuation or symbols with your search term, it will return specific results for that mark/search term combo:

    period
    question mark
    exclamation point
    comma
    semicolon
    colon
    dash/hyphen
    parentheses
    brackets
    braces
    apostrophe
    quotation mark
    ellipses
    hashtags
    @symbol
    underscore
    slash
    case sensitivity

    Oddities

    There are certain types of search terms that can complicate the results you get, Camel Cases and Numbers.

    • Camel Cases - Camel cases are compound words or phrases where both words are capitalized. For example, PowerPoint. The search will recognize this as one word, powerpoint and will only find mentions that contain powerpoint as one word.
    • Numbers - Numbers are treated the same as letters in search. So searching for oracle will not return oracle123. But since they are treated the same as letters, all the punctuation and symbol rules apply (see the examples above).

    Our search recognizes these terms as one word, so searching for power will not return PowerPoint. Keep that in mind when you are entering these as search terms.

    Working With Advanced Options

    Advanced options are optional and help you further filter your search by adding a keyword/phrase or content type to look for specific conversations. For example, you could track a campaign by searching for the campaign hashtag, or target the conversation around specific products by searching for mentions of an advertisement or gift certificate for that product.

    To add advanced options, click Advanced Options on the Create An Indicator page. There you'll see four sections, Boolean Conditions, Keyword, Boolean Conditions for Regular Expressions, and Regular Expressions.

    Boolean Conditions

    Boolean Conditions refine your searchs by comparing two values to each other. Here, we use options with additional keywords so you get exactly the results you want. There are three options for you to use:

    • Content contains one or more keywords: Retrieves social media content that contains one or more of the keywords you enter in advanced options. For example, if your main indicator search terms are Oracle and ORCL, selecting this option and entering Sun and server as advanced keywords, your indicator will retrieve social content that contains the following terms:

      Oracle and sun OR Oracle and server

      OR

      ORCL and sun OR ORCL and server

    • Content contains all keywords: Retrieves social media content that contains all the keywords you enter in advanced options. Using the previous example, if you select this option, your indicator will retrieve social content that contains the following terms:

      Oracle and sun and server

      OR

      ORCL and sun and server

    • Content does not contain keywords: Excludes social media content containing the keywords you enter in advanced options. Using the previous example, if you select this option, the system would exclude social content that contains the following terms:

      Oracle and sun OR Oracle and server

      OR

      ORCL and sun OR ORCL and server.

    Keywords

    Use keywords with a boolean condition to help refine the content coming in from your main Search Terms.

    To add a keyword, type a term or phrase and press Enter, or click Add to add them to your indicator. You'll see them displayed in the Indicator Properties section on the right side of the screen. You can add multiple keywords. To remove a keyword, click X on the keyword in the Indicator Properties section.

    Users have the option to conduct Case Sensitive searches in Advanced Options by selecting the appropriate checkbox under the keyword field.

    • Case Sensitive - Only results matching the included symbols, numbers, and/or punctuation entered in the Keyword field should be returned. If you enter multiple keywords, case Sensitive will apply separately to each keyword entered.

      For example, Oracle would not return mentions of oracle or OrAcLe.

    Boolean Condition for Regular Expressions

    You'll only use this option if you are using a regular expression with your indicator. Choose from one of the following: Content contains one or more regular expressions, content contains all regular expressions, or content does not contain regular expressions.

    Regular Expression

    A regular expression (also called regex) is a pattern or sequence that a string can match. It forces your results to return in the specific, designated order that you set. You can enter multiple regular expressions for each indicator.

    Note: Regular expressions are highly technical, so we recommend only using them if you are familiar with how they work, to make sure you get the correct results for your indicator. We also recommend checking your regular expression before adding it to your indicator. There are lots of websites that can check your expressions to make sure they work.

    Adding Targeting Options

    Targeting Options are also optional, and allow you to target a specific segment of conversation by filtering your search by demographic information. For example, you could create indicators searching for campaign results in different countries to compare them against one another or only search for conversations in a specific region to limit message volume.

    To add targeting options, click Targeting Options on the Create An Indicator page. There you'll see four sections, the Location filter, Content Types, Source URLs, and Author.

    You can add up to 1,000 targeting options. There's a counter in the Indicators Properties box that shows you how many targeting options you have added so you can easily keep track.f

    Note: When you preview your indicator, the preview mentions will not use any targeting options you add. These will be applied to your messages after you save and activate your indicator.

    Location Filters

    Click the countries and/or regions to include or exclude from your indicator search. All countries are included by default. Once you’ve started including locations, you will not be able to exclude specific locations unless you clear your selection(s) and vice versa. You can clear your selection(s) by clicking Reset to include all locations link or clicking x next to each location in your Indicator Properties.

    Content Types

    You can also include or exclude certain content types from your search. They are, Message Boards, Blogs, News, Microblogs, Social Sites, Consumer Reviews, Videos.

    Source URLs

    Enter in any URLs that you want to include or exclude from your indicator search. This will pull in messages that contain this exact URL in them.

    Bulk Include/Exclude

    You can also include or exclude multiple URLs at one time. Clicking either button will open a modal, allowing you to upload a CSV file with all the source URLs you want to include or exclude in your indicator.

    Note: Do not include the http:// from the URL. Also, any subdomains that contain the source URL will also be included in the messages that are pulled in.

    Author

    Enter in any names of authors you want to include or exclude from your indicator search. For Twitter, enter their Twitter handle, for Facebook, enter their Facebook username, for YouTube and blogs, enter the name on their channel or blog name.

    Previewing Indicators

    Once you have entered all your info for your indicator, you can get a preview of the indicator by clicking Preview button at the top of the page. Your info will be saved, and a preview of the themes and social media messages the indicator will collect will appear at the bottom of the page. The preview will show you info in three sections, Messages, Themes, and Media Types.

    Use the preview to review what has been returned in these sections to help evaluate your indicator's results. If you aren't getting the right results, change the search terms, advanced options, and themes in your indicator until the content you are getting matches what you want. Your preview is in draft status and can be changed as often as you need while in preview. Remember to click Preview after you make any changes so those new results are displayed below.

    Messages

    This tab displays a sample of the social media messages the indicator is retrieving, and a timeline showing you when those messages were posted. You can sort these messages by source or date. If the messages are not what you want to indicator to retrieve, try modifying your indicator options.

    The timeline displays message volume in a particular date range. Hovering over the timeline will show you daily message volumes.

    Themes

    This tab shows you themes for the messages the indicator is retrieving. These themes group related messages by their contextual meaning. For example, the term Java is used in the context of programming as well as coffee. So searching for Java would give you different themes for those two contexts.

    Clicking a theme shows you a word cloud of the terms that are used most often used in the messages that fall into that theme. The size of the term indicates its frequency in the messages. You'll also see a selection of messages that fall in the selected theme.

    To help refine your indicator, you choose whether the theme is providing the kind of messages you want. You'll see two buttons at the top of the theme, More Like This, and Less Like This.

    • More Like This: Click this button to include a theme that has messages you definitely want in your indicator.
    • Less Like This: Click this button to exclude a theme that has messages that you definitely don't want in your indicator.

    Note: There is no need to include or exclude every theme. Only include or exclude themes that are clearly desirable or undesirable. For example, if you are interested in the Java programming language, then the coffee theme is of no interest and should be excluded.

    Media Types

    This tab displays a pie chart of the content types where your messages are coming from. Clicking on a pie slice displays a selection of messages from that content type.

    If you are not getting desirable messages from a particular content type, you can exclude it in the Advanced Options section.

    Saving Indicators

    After you click Preview, it will change to Save. When you are satisfied with all your indicator options, click Save. The system will begin monitoring the social web and retrieving messages.

    Note: After an indicator is activated, it takes about 15-30 minutes to begin collecting data. You will not see analytics in the Dashboard for the indicator until data collection begins.

    Once saved, the indicator is activated and available for use in the Dashboard tab. It can be found in the Custom Indicators section of the main Indicators page. Pre-configured, out-of-the-box indicators are viewable in the Standard Indicators section.

    Note: Once an indicator is active, you can edit the indicator and make changes, but those changes will only affect content pulled in after you made the changes.

    Indicators are saved in families, with the first indicator created as the parent, or anchor, indicator. For more information on managing indicator families, see the Creating and Managing Indicator Families section of the Topics Tab: Managing Indicators help article.

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