Meltwater Quick-Start Guide

Contents
Introduction ...................................................................................................................................................................... 3
Logging in .......................................................................................................................................................................... 4
Account Management ...................................................................................................................................................... 4
Searches ............................................................................................................................................................................ 4
Inbox ............................................................................................................................................................................... 10
Dashboards ..................................................................................................................................................................... 11
Reports............................................................................................................................................................................ 13
Appendix: Additional Step-by-Step Instructions ........................................................................................................... 14
Introduction
Welcome to the new Meltwater media intelligence solution. Meltwater helps you stay on top of the
online conversation, delivering insights that help you manage your brand, understand the competition, and track
industry trends.

This quick-reference guide provides easy instructions on how to get started using our application.
Beginning with the fundamentals, it details how to:

● Log in and manage your account

● Set up your searches and monitor results
● Analyze and report on market conversations
● Share your coverage with influencers and stakeholders

If you have additional product-related questions, please access our knowledge base or contact your
Meltwater representative.

Meltwater at a Glance
You can access the Meltwater application through a web browser and on your mobile device (Apple iOS or Android).
To access either tool, log in to your account.
Logging in
A Welcome email from your Meltwater representative or account administrator includes an account
activation link. If you have not received it, please contact them.

Once your account credentials are established, log in to the Meltwater application at
https://app.meltwater.com/login. Your username is your email address.

Account Management
With Meltwater, you can manage your account from a centralized location. Click the menu
item in the left-hand menu bar to access:
● Account information
● User management
● RSS feeds
● Report settings
● Personal settings

Account information describes the authorizations provided to your company and your usage levels and includes
number of users, widgets per dashboard, number of dashboards, number of saved searches, number of RSS feeds,
and premium content subscriptions. To increase your application access, please contact your Meltwater
representative.

User management enables administrators to control access to the Meltwater application. Users can be added,
edited, and removed. All users are assigned one of two roles:

Administrators have the ability to manage users, saved searches, dashboards, and
organizational reporting.
Listeners can conduct ad hoc searches but cannot save them, and can also configure their own reports and
personalize how they consume content streams in the application.

Note: Administrators must send a new user an Account Activation invitation

with instruction on setting their password. To do so, simply edit the user account
and click the Invite link next to the new user’s name.

RSS feeds let you add custom sources to Meltwater and allow you to capture data coming from your
favorite websites or third-party providers of broadcast media monitoring. Include this data as either a source for
saved searches or directly as an input to dashboard widgets, the Inbox, News Digest reports, and Newsletters.

Report settings are available for your Meltwater Reports. These reports consolidate search results and your analysis
into an email to share with key stakeholders. Create and configure these
reports from this settings panel or from within the dashboard.

Personal settings help tailor the application to each user across your company.
Manage contact information, change your password, select a time zone, and set the
language for the user interface by choosing from among the 13 available options.

Searches
Searches help you locate and track your editorial, blog, and social coverage. Searches scan more than 30 billion
documents and 30 million blogs globally (including content from Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter, RSS feeds, and
your premium content subscriptions). Results are delivered to your Inbox, Reports, and Dashboards.

Access the list of saved searches by clicking > Searches in the left-hand menu bar. The list displays:
Type: indicates whether ( (news) or (social) sources are being queried by the search.
Name: assigned by the author of the search. This field can be used to sort the searches.
Usage: lists the dashboards whose widgets draw from the search results.

From this page, you can:

● Edit a search: Click the name of the search to add a filter or change its criteria.
● Add to a dashboard: One or more searches to add them to an existing dashboard as content widgets, or
create a new dashboard for them.
● Delete: One or more searches to remove them from the application. When prompted, confirm your action
prior to completing the deletion.
● Duplicate: One or more searches to copy their search expressions, which you can then edit to create a new
search. Note that this will copy the source selection along with all other settings and keywords.
● Build a new search: Enter a Keyword Search expression or select the Advanced Search option to build a new
search. All Meltwater searches begin as ad hoc queries and are only saved when explicitly named.
Keyword Search

Meltwater offers Keyword Search—a fast, simple, and powerful tool for searching coverage. Define your Keyword
Search using concept, brand, or entity phrases that you drag and drop to create logical
and/or/not statements.

To create a new search:

1. Select which content type to query—news or social.

2. Enter a word or phrase into the search box. Create a list of keywords and phrases by pressing tab after each
entry.
3. Press Enter or click the Search button to advance to the Keyword Search page.
4. Use the All, At Least One, and None boxes to create a search expression. Move the words and phrases into
the appropriate boxes to include or exclude them from your search. Manually add additional words or
phrases by typing them into the appropriate box.
5. Refine your search by dragging and dropping Top Keywords from the list above the search boxes. Top
Keywords is a set of words or phrases commonly found together with your search terms.
6. Define the case sensitivity of your search terms:
● No matching—case is not considered
● Exactly match—all letters are case sensitive
● Only match capital letters—makes only capital letters case sensitive—not lowercase letters (for
example, “Android” returns “ANdroid” and “AndroID” but not “android”)

7. Filter your search by selecting from the Source Selection drop-down menu. Source Selection narrows your
results to certain geographies, languages, sources, reach percentiles, or simply to a set of specific sources.
8. Click Update Search Results to view search results that will help you verify the search expression.
9. Click Save and name your search.
10. To add more-advanced logic to your expression, click the Advanced Search button.

Advanced Search

Advanced Search allows you to use a Boolean statement in your search. You can create Advanced
Searches from scratch or start with a Keyword Search and modify its Boolean expression. To start, click the
Advanced Search button in the upper-right corner of the Keyword Search page. Build your query by typing directly
into the Boolean Query box. The more specific you are, the more relevant your results will be.
Boolean Operators and Characters
Advanced searches use Boolean operators and characters to help define relationships between
keywords. By building a Boolean statement you can include wildcards as well as information about
keyword locations and proximity to each other in your search statements. A list of the most commonly used
operators and characters resides below.

AND—an inclusionary operator. The terms on either side of “AND” must appear together in an article,
regardless of proximity to each other.
OR—a conditional operator. Either the term before or the term after “OR” must appear in an article for it to
pull into the system.
NOT—an exclusionary operator. If the term on the right side of the “NOT” appears in an article, regardless of
the left-side terms the article will not be pulled into the system.
NEAR/n—an inclusionary operator that considers proximity. The terms on either side of
“NEAR/n” must appear together in an article within “/n” keywords of each other, such as
NEAR/8 or NEAR/20.
Title—only searches the headline of an article when included before a search term.
Ingress—only searches the first paragraph of an article when included before a search term.
Quotation marks—use when you’d like two words to be searched as one term.
Parentheses—use similarly as quotation marks, but to group multiple terms together.
Asterisk—a wildcard operator that can take the place of multiple characters; for example,
“implement*” will pull “implement,” “implements,” “implementation,” and so on.
Question mark—a wildcard operator that can take the place of any single character; for example,
“implement?” will pull “implement” or “implements.”
Example Expressions

Apple NEAR/5 design; Apple NEAR/5 expensive; Apple NEAR/5 WWDC

This search displays documents about your company or a competitor, but only when one specific
product or brand name, event, qualifier, or other keyword appears within five keywords of the company name.
These proximity searches are similar to standard “AND” searches but specify a distance between the search terms.
Use the “NEAR” operator when you want to ensure that there’s a close relationship between two keywords in your
results.

Apple AND iPhone) NOT (Google OR Android)

Use this search to find documents about one of your company’s products that doesn’t mention a
competitor. This example uses “AND” and “OR” to describe the relationship between the two company and product
names; however, any combination of “OR,” “AND,” or “NEAR/#” can be used.

(iOS AND Android) OR ((OSX OR “OS X”) AND (“Windows 8” OR Windows8))

This search returns documents that compare Apple’s mobile and desktop operating systems (iOS and OSX) with
competing operating systems (Android and Windows 8). Because it’s common to find
misspellings even in professional writing, the “OR” operator has been included to catch common
misspellings of the desktop operating systems.

Tip: Removing Your Press Releases from Search Results

If you send releases over the wire often, then you’ve probably noticed that your company- or brand-
focused search agents can become inundated with pickup from your own releases. Luckily, separating your
company’s press releases from other mentions is as easy as excluding any article with your standard company
boilerplate.

Let’s use a search for Meltwater as an example:

“Meltwater” NEAR/2 (“media intelligence” or “media monitoring” or “social media”)

The updated search looks like this (changes in bold):

(“Meltwater” NEAR/2 (“media intelligence” or “media monitoring” or “social media”)) not
“Meltwater helps companies make better, more-informed decisions based on insights from the outside. We
believe that business strategy will be increasingly shaped by insights from online data.”

Note: Include only the first few sentences of the boilerplate, as the search matches keywords exactly and you don’t
know if there will be a typo or error when your release is re-posted.
Source Selections
Source Selections allow you to narrow your search to focus on particular publications, media types,
geographic locations, and languages. A Source Selection offers a quick and easy way to focus on a target market or
specific industry or language, or to limit the volume of a search.

To filter a search, click on the Sources drop-down menu in the upper-right corner of your search page.

The menu shows a series of default selections, or Quick Pick Source Selections, as well as your list of
configured Custom Selections. The Quick Pick options vary based on the content type of the search
(news or social).

Fig1. News Source Selection Fig2. Social Source Selections

To add to your Custom Selections:

1. Click on Create New. You will see a list of filters that vary based on the content type of the search.

Type: The Meltwater source base covers several

types of publications. Use this filter to select only those that
fit your search needs.

Language: Select the preferred language or languages of

the search results.

Geographic regions: Select any combination of continent,

country, region, or subregion by clicking the box next to the
options.

Reach percentile: Meltwater receives monthly readership

data for the majority of sources in our source base. The
sources are then given a percentile ranking based on
readership for that month—“91–100” represents the most
highly trafficked publications for the month.

Source name: Query for a source by typing in a name and

pressing Enter.

RSS feed: Select from the custom feeds you have

configured to feed into Meltwater
 2. Click on the expansion icon for each filter criteria to display the available options.
3. Select one or more options to include them in the filter.

4. Change your selections by clicking the on the top of the selected filter to remove it from the configured
list.
5. Click Save to create the custom source selection, and assign it a name.

Inbox
Keep your saved search results current using the Inbox, which can be accessed from either the
Meltwater web or mobile applications. This view displays all your tagged content and search results in a sortable,
searchable manner.
To access the Inbox from within the web application, click Inbox in the left-hand menu bar for a list
of results from your most recently viewed search. Click any document headline to view the full result.

Click the box next to a document or set of documents to take any of the following actions:

Tag ● Share a document through email.

● Post a document to Facebook/ Twitter / LinkedIn.
● Tag a document for categorization and future
follow-up.
● Translate a document using Google Translate.
● Export a document or set of documents to Excel.
You will receive the Excel spreadsheet via email
typically within 15 minutes.
● Create impact report to understand the reach and
statistics of a particular press

Content Tags
Content Tags help you organize documents into categories. Tags work
like folders, but with a bonus: you can add more than one tag to a
section of content. Once configured, content tags can be used to search
. your Inbox, filter dashboards, feed content to your newsletters and news
feeds, and be assigned directly from your daily News Digest Report and
Inbox by placing a on one or more items and applying a
Mobile Application Inbox
Document access within the mobile application Inbox functions differently.

Dashboards
Dashboards provide real-time market analysis, captured in a series of interactive widgets. You can view the data
behind each analysis and publish your dashboards in a Dashboard Report.
click box in the upper left-hand side.

Within a dashboard view, you can:

Change the date filter to look further back in time or analyze a limited set of days.

Create a dashboard report by scheduling the dashboard

to be emailed weekly.

Share the dashboard with other users by inviting them

to collaborate on the document, or email a snapshot of
the view to a larger audience.

View the details of any widget on the dashboard—

hover the mouse over the upper-right corner and click the blue

arrow .

Edit the dashboard by clicking . Change the dashboard name,

update the default date range
for the view, and add, edit, delete, and move widgets around in the view.

You can also easily create a new dashboard in minutes by duplicating an existing dashboard or by
starting with a dashboard template.
Dashboard Templates
Build a dashboard quickly using out-of-theMbox templates and then tailor it to your business. Three
dashboard templates are currently offered:

Monitor: Focus on your content stream and get

valuable indicators on coverage volume, velocity,
and reach.

Benchmark: Track historic and real-time

performance of several brands or topics by
coverage and drill down for insight on trends.

Analyze: Explore data through visual breakdowns

of trends and metrics around a search.
After selecting a template the dashboard creation
wizard steps you through configuration of the
dashboard.

After selecting a template the dashboard creation wizard steps you through configuration of the
dashboard.

Dashboard Widgets
Dashboard widgets analyze and display data as a component in a dashboard. A number of dashboard
widgets are available to you out of the box:

To add a new widget to a dashboard, name and configure it. Select one or more news searches, social
searches, RSS feeds, or tags to feed data to the view. If appropriate for the widget, get more granular by
assigning a chart type, label format, and date. You can also apply a series of filters to the widget to help
you focus your view by date, geography, language, and sentiment.
Reports
Meltwater Reports consolidate search results and analysis into an email that can be shared with key
stakeholders. When creating a report, specify whether it is a News Digest or Dashboard report.

News Digest Reports

News Digest reports can be configured to publish a daily summary of news. The reports can be
published in HTML or PDF format.

Recipients with web application access can seamlessly transition to the Inbox from this report. Users can
also tag, translate, and share content items directly from the report.

Dashboard Reports
Dashboard reports provide a snapshot of your analysis at a single point in time. You can schedule these
for weekly publication or send them out ad hoc.
Appendix: Additional Step-by-Step Instructions
Adding a User
Step 1: Click the avatar in the upper right-hand corner.
Step 2: Select Manage Users.
Step 3: Click Add New User.
Step 4: Fill out the user’s first name, last name, and email address and select their role.
Step 5: Click Add User.
Step 6: Once created, send the new user an Account Activation Invitation requesting that they set their
password. Do this by editing the user account and clicking the Invite link that appears next to their
name.

Deleting a User
Step 1: Click the avatar in the upper right-hand corner.
Step 2: Select Manage Users.
Step 3: Click Delete for the user you wish to remove. Once deleted, the selected user will no longer be
able to log in to the account.

Adding an RSS Feed

Step 1: To access, click your avatar in the upper right-hand corner and select RSS Feeds from the drop-
down menu.
Step 2: Select Add RSS Feed.
Step 3: Enter the RSS link from the website you would like included in the application.
Step 4: Click Next. The application verifies the link and provides a preview of the feed.
Step 5: Click Save. Meltwater begins receiving the content within 15 minutes. Your RSS feed will appear
as an available RSS source within Source Selections and as an Input within your dashboards.

Deleting an RSS Feed

Step 1: To remove a feed from Meltwater, click your avatar in the upper right-hand corner and select
RSS Feeds from the drop-down menu.
Step 2: Click the RSS Feed to be removed.
Step 3: Press Delete.
Step 4: A confirmation dialog box appears on the screen. Click OK.

Creating a Keyword Search

Step 1: Click Search. The application displays the list of saved searches you have already created.
Step 2: To create a new search, select which content type to query—news or social. By default, new
searches poll the news content type.
Step 3: Enter a word or phrase into the search box. Create a list of keywords and phrases by pressing tab
after each entry.
Step 4: Pressing Enter or clicking the Search button advances you to the Keyword Search page.
Step 5: Use the All/At Least One/None boxes to create a search expression. Move the words and
phrases into the appropriate boxes to include or exclude them from your search. Phrases that are
commonly found together with your search words appear above the boxes. Drag and drop these words
into any of the keywords boxes, or you can manually add words or phrases by typing them into the
appropriate box.
Step 6: Click Save and name your search using up to 21 characters. To add more-advanced logic to your
search, create an Advanced Search.

Editing a Keyword Search

Step 1: Click Search.
Step 2: Click on the search name you’d like to edit.
Step 3: Change the search name, keywords, and/or source selection.
Step 4: Click Update Search Result to preview your changes.
Step 5: Click Save to lock in your changes.

Deleting a Keyword Search

Step 1: Click Search.
Step 2: Check the box next to the search(es) you would like to remove.
Step 3: Click the Delete button above the search list.
Step 4: Click OK to confirm that you would like to delete the selected search item(s). If a dashboard was
using the search, this confirmation window will list the dashboards affected by the action. The
dashboard will still render but the widget using the search will require reconfiguration.

Creating an Advanced Search

Step 1: Click Search.
Step 2: To create a new search, select which content type to query—news or social. By default, new
searches poll the news content type.
Step 3: Click the Advanced Search button.
Step 4: Write your Boolean search query.
Step 5: Click Save and name your search using up to 21 characters.

Editing an Advanced Search

Step 1: Click Search.
Step 2: Click on the Search Name you’d like to edit.
Step 3: Modify the Boolean expression to reflect the required changes.
Step 4: Click Update Search Result to preview your changes.
Step 5: Click Save to lock in your changes.

Deleting an Advanced Search

Step 1: Click Search.
Step 2: Check the box next to the search(es) you would like to remove.
Step 3: Click the Delete button above the search list.
Step 4: Click OK to confirm that you would like to delete the selected search item(s). If a dashboard was
using the search, this confirmation window will list the dashboards affected by the action. The
dashboard will still render but the widget using the search will require reconfiguration.

Editing a Source Selection

You can edit custom source selections while you are configuring a new search or editing an existing
search.
Step 1: Click the Source Selection dropMdown box.
Step 2: Click Edit next to the custom source selection you want to modify.
Step 3: Modify the filter options.
Step 4: Click Save.

Deleting a Source Selection

You can delete custom source selections while you are configuring a new search or editing an existing
search.
Step 1: Click the Source Selection dropMdown box.
Step 2: Click Delete next to the custom source selection you want to remove.
Step 3: Click OK in the confirmation box.