Want to locate tools to monitor social media conversations? Easy -- a keyword search will reveal individual tools, lists of tools and even reviews of tools. But if you want to know what business users are really saying about those tools and the experience of using them, there is a better way. In this white paper, we explain why keyword search isn’t the end-all for marketing professionals when it comes to social media analysis — especially for those who view themselves as marketing technologists. We explore the shortcomings of keyword search. And we introduce an alternative: thematic discovery.

1. White Paper
Keyword Search vs. Discovery
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2. White Paper Networked Insights
Keyword Search vs. Discovery
Many tools are available to marketers for monitoring social media
conversations. And it isn’t hard to find them. Just do a keyword search.
Thematic discovery
can help uncover—
Identifying these tools by using a search engine is particularly fitting,
because most of those tools employ some form of keyword search as the • What topics are being discussed in
cornerstone of their technology. And for many information retrieval tasks, connection with the user’s and
keyword search works well. competitors’ brands
But search isn’t always the answer for marketing professionals — • How the volume of the user’s
especially those who view themselves as marketing technologists — who conversations compares to that
are growing ever more sophisticated in their approach to social media of competitors
analysis. Sometimes, search-based approaches are by nature flawed, pro-
ducing information that is misleading or inadequate. Even if the informa- • What unexpected topics are being
tion is on target, assembling and analyzing it can take a painfully long time. discussed by a given group of people
Search’s limitations are especially evident when the goal is to uncover • How the user’s and competitors’ PR
themes emerging from people’s social media conversations without and marketing efforts changed the way
injecting into the analysis any preconceptions of what they will be talking people talk about brands
about. In other words, when you truly want to find out what you don’t
know, search may be as likely to send you down rabbit trails as it is to
reveal the truth.
Thematic discovery is an alternative approach to search that can provide
a more accurate, authentic view of the topics that people are engaged in.
Along with identifying key themes within a social media data set, thematic Brands
discovery can help in identifying relationships between themes that may
not have an obvious connection, how the themes correlate, and where
people are likely to be talking about them simultaneously. Such informa-
tion can help marketers develop media plans, choose celebrities to en- Music
dorse products, and tap into the diverse interests of their target markets. TV
This white paper discusses the uses and limitations of keyword search-
based tools and the key characteristics of a thematic discovery tool that
can provide insights that search cannot.
Movies
Games
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3. White Paper Networked Insights
Keyword Search vs. Discovery
When search works well
Keyword search is an indispensable tool for virtually anyone who uses the
Internet. It is most effective when:
You know exactly what you’re looking for. Search does an excellent job of
finding specific items of information.
You have a narrow range of acceptable, predetermined results. Search
also works well when you have in mind what the results should look like
and say.
You only require a few answers to your question. Top search results can be traditional search
on target, but the farther down the list you go, the less likely the results
are relevant to what you are looking for.
Very specific matches are the desired output. Search emphasizes specific
matches of terminology because it relies on the language that you pro-
gram into the search box.
Search emphasizes specific
Context is not important or even valuable. Search works well if all you
matches of terminology because
want to do is find something, but you don’t care where it came from or
what it’s about. it relies on the language that you
program into the search box
Why search stumbles
While the characteristics of search make it work well for finding specific
information items, it has several limitations when conducting thematic
analysis:
Keyword search introduces
considerable distorting biases to results.
Performing a keyword search requires you to create a list of words and
phrases, which by definition, reflect your expectations of the themes that
will be present in a given data set. That expectation introduces a bias
in the results because the search will not find results outside of those
predefined keywords. If, for example, you try to learn from conversations
about smartphones, you will need to develop a search query that lists all
the topics and brands that you think will be present. But there is no way
for that query to find topics or brands that are not included in the keyword
string. In other words, you can’t search for something unless you have an
idea of what you’re searching for.
Another factor potentially influencing search results is “prosecutor’s fal-
lacy.” This is the statistical phenomenon that, in a large data set, no matter
what you’re looking for, you will find it, regardless of whether it is statisti-
cally important or valid.
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4. White Paper Networked Insights
Keyword Search vs. Discovery
Search can miss relevant data sets.
While keyword search can yield a lot of data, several issues can diminish its
usefulness and efficiency when applied to thematic analysis:
Lack of fluency in the vocabulary being used. In keyword search, a user can
misunderstand the subtle differences in how people talk about the same
concept. Thematic discovery provides the ability to identify similar con-
cepts even if the language used to describe those topics varies.
Search results may not produce enough relevant responses. Using search
to find themes may not produce a statistically valid sample. Again using
the smartphone example, a search for street-map applications may deliver traditional search
a few highly targeted results, but it will likely not yield enough data points
to constitute a statistically valid sample of the entire data set. Many lower
ranking results from a keyword search will not even be about the intended
subject matter at all.
Lack of context to bridge result sets. Keyword search delivers an ordered
list of individual results ranked by relevance to the search query. But there
is no additional information provided to help the user understand how the
Search cannot contemplate
results relate to each other. By contrast, thematic discovery not only iden- the context of how words
tifies the themes that are present in a given data set, but also describes and phrases are used in
whether those themes connect to one another, and if so how. Oftentimes,
the context of the results is as valuable as the results themselves. relationship to one another;
it simply can identify
Multiple word meanings make searching for themes more difficult. Say the
word “apple,” and someone may think about a food, a company or a com-
whether or not that word or
puter. Differentiating these meanings with a keyword search tool requires phrase is present.
complex queries containing many exclusions. The longer the query, the
longer it takes to build and process that query, and the greater the chance
of human errors as terms are added.
Search can be time consuming and costly.
Understanding multiple themes requires developing multiple keyword
search queries. Every theme within a data set will require its own tailored
search. The broader the analysis, the more time intensive it becomes.
Highly manual processes are required to measure, compare and trend
search results. The ranked results from a keyword search are typically not a
usable format for further types of analysis. Specifically, performing the-
matic discovery from those results requires considerable manual effort to
convert the data into consumable information.
Traits of a good thematic discovery tool
The goal of thematic discovery is to understand the prominent topics
within a given data set and how they relate to one another. The resulting
information can help answer critical business questions.
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5. White Paper Networked Insights
Keyword Search vs. Discovery
An effective thematic discovery tool can help users: If you are trying to find out what
Eliminate as many user biases as possible. A discovery tool needs to pro-
duce organic results uninfluenced by the user. In any discovery initiative people really think about your
it’s imperative to avoid injecting what you know into the process. brand, markets, products and
competitors, thematic discovery
Identify all the themes present in a data set. You can use search to
identify themes you know about, but how do you look for something will enable you to approach the
that you didn’t know was there? A discovery tool should uncover every task without biases, capture all
theme present.
key conversations and gather
Explain the relative size of themes and whether they are gaining or losing information quickly.
momentum. Comparing themes can show which are capturing the largest
conversations and how the themes are trending against one another over
time.
Provide the flexibility to change the granularity of the analysis. Ideally,
a discovery tool should allow users to define the size of a theme that is
important to them. Are you looking for the three or four most important
themes, or for outliers? In some cases, outliers may be valuable to mar-
keters because they help identify previously unidentified niche markets.
A good tool will enable the user to look at various levels of granularity in Questions about this report? Want
themes. to learn how thematic discovery can
improve your marketing decisions?
Separate noise from the signal. In any given discovery process there will be
some data points that have no value on their own and do not relate mean-
ingfully to any other part of the data set. The tool should eliminate these Let us know by visiting
points from the data set to prevent clouding the results.
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Understand the relationship between those themes. What is the likelihood
that someone might be talking about any two or more themes at a time?
Statistics can provide those answers and a good discovery tool will not just
find the themes but also identify the number and strength of correlations
that exist between them.
Work quickly and efficiently. The process of defining the data set for
thematic analysis should be quick and painless. The results should be
easily understood through a well-crafted visualization. And the entire
process should move quickly enough to provide same-day results from the
time a business question is asked to the time it is answered.
Ending the search for (search) alternatives
Keyword search will always have a role in finding the names of a compet-
ing company’s officers, the address of tonight’s restaurant reservation and
the score of last night’s game. But if you are trying to find out what people
really think about your brand, markets, products and competitors, themat-
ic discovery will enable you to approach the task without biases, capture
all key conversations and gather information as quickly as possible—to
truly know what you don’t know.
646-545-3900
info@networkedinsights.com
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