Searching social media presentation

1. The storyful guide
to SOCIAL SEARCH
@malachybrowne

2. storyful
NEWS from NOISE
storyful.

3. Static Search
Twitter, Facebook, YouTube
storyful.

4. “Wayne Rooney” -RT
near:Greenwich within:1km
London AND bus AND YouTube
storyful.
•
Learn Twitter advanced search
•
Search operators to help you get
closer to the source of a story

5. storyful.
Native Facebook
Search is limited.
Unless you set
search going very
early, a limited
number of results
are returned. Click
Public Posts to
see these.
In Settings,
change language
settings to
English (US) to
use Graph Search
which returns
more results

6. Use Date
Filters
This allows you to
identify the earliest
and original version
of a video and
exclude ‘scrapes’.
storyful.

7. storyful.
TIP: Unique video code
Every piece of content on
the web has a unique code.
Search Twitter and
Facebook using this to see
how the video or picture has
passed through social
media.
Trace origins, find affiliated
social profiles.

8. Search Tools
storyful.

9. Storyful MultiSearch
Search for images, videos & people from one panel
Get it at the Chrome Web Store http://bit.ly/15lCZgV
storyful.

10. GeoFeedia
- Find content and tweets tagged by location
- Good for identifying local search terms, hashtags
- Some limitations (not everything has location info)

11. TOPSY – advanced/historical search
- Multiple search terms
- Date & time range
- Tweets
-
Other information
-
Topsy Free & Pro

12. storyful.
Wolfram Alpha
‘Knowledge Engine’
Find weather and
other info on specific
dates in specific
locations - good for
corroborating details
Other useful tools:
- spokeo.com
- ifttt.com

13. News from Noise
Social Media Monitoring
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14. storyful.
700,000 items shared per minute
100 hours added per minute
Why are lists so important?
They help us cope with volume, filter social media into
subsets and allow early discovery of stories
40,000 tweets per minute

15. Organise pages into lists
Subscribe to priority
accounts
1,000 lists per account
storyful.

16. storyful.
Twitter Lists
Targeted, well-maintained Twitter lists
are among the most powerful tool in your
social media newsgathering armory.
- Generate story ideas
- Read-in for your chosen beat
- Track your competitors’ habits
- Keep abreast of a breaking story
- Promote your entire team’s work

17. Monitor/Manage in TweetDeck or
Twitter
storyful.

18. storyful.
Facebook Interest Lists
Monitor Pages without polluting your news feed.
- Create your own interest lists
- Follow lists created by others
- Favourite lists for easy access
Click here
to open out
interest lists

19. storyful.
1
2
3
1 This is where your subscriptions live
2 Group your subscriptions into thematic collections
3 ‘Doorstep’ priority accounts so their uploads email you
YouTube Collections

20. storyful.
YouTube Alerts – Doorstep accounts
Subscribe for email alerts to your inbox

21. Case Study: Mitt Romney April Fools’ Joke
Sources on our US Politics Twitter list say a prank
was pulled on Mitt Romney during his campaign
An empty room? Who would possibly have video?
Romney’s bagman has a YouTube account, let’s
subscribe to that for email alerts
Storyful is alerted via email to the video as
soon as it is uploaded.
Storyful alerts the video to news clients 30
minutes before Mitt Romney’s Twitter account
mentions it.

22. Storyful Tech
Alertbot, Heatmap, Trending
storyful.

23. Alertbot – software that monitors hundreds of Storyful lists
Alertbot signals that the behaviour of a list has changed and our journalists should
investigate it.
Above: Our Greece list sends alerts that a well-known left-wing musician was stabbed to death, an
event that sparked violent protests
Above: As news of the pope’s resignation exploded across the world

24. Alertbot example
Assassination of significant opposition politician in Tunisia
Storyful’s Alertbot picked up the conversation around this event from our lists
Alerted our newsroom over one hour before mainstream wires alerted it

25. HeatMap – monitors info shared by 1000’s of sources
Examples
•
US Supreme Court ruling on gay marriage;
•
Retirement of Microsoft CEO announced;
•
Death of author Elmore Leonard.
Subject to vetting, this information gives Storyful
newsroom a lead on “traditional” wires

26. Trending Content - what the list is sharing
Storyful technology extracts the links, videos an pictures trending on our lists in a 60
minute, 24 hour or 7 day period.
Example: Trending content from our Syria list in the last 60 minutes surfaced early
video of UN inspectors in Damascus

27. Case Study
Fallowfield, Canada Train-Bus crash
storyful.

28. Get closer to the story
1. Open Storyful’s pre-curated
Canada list to see what reputable
sources are saying
2. Open a Twitter search using the
“near:Ottowa” filter to find search
terms and exact location
3. Narrow the Twitter search for
exact placeneme, “Farrowfield”
4. Find geo-located photos and
tweets via Twitter search
5. Open Facebook search
Alertbot reports an event
on our Canada list

29. storyful.
Get closer to the story
Use GeoFeedia to find geo-located photos and
tweets via GeoFeedia or Twitter search

30. Get closer to the story
Using the right search terms, usually it’s
possible to find eyewitnesses from the earliest
tweets and Facebook posts.

31. storyful.
Breaking News Wire
Storyful alerts news clients to
verified updates and content
with guidance on usage rights

32. storyful.com
@malachybrowne
malachy@storyful.com