This document discusses alert settings in Brandwatch. It explains that regular alerts work best for tracking trends in rarely discussed topics while increase alerts work best for more frequently discussed topics. It also notes that topic-based alerts help target predictable discussions while metric-based alerts help identify unexpected conversations. The document provides examples of different types of alerts someone may want to set up and emphasizes that thresholds for increase alerts should depend on historical data volatility.

1. Alerts!
Nate Walton nate@brandwatch.com | @molten_tofu
MAY 2014

2. Contents
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• Basics
• Increase vs regular
• Metrics vs topics
• Quiz!
• Thresholds

3. Basics
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You can add any email address to an alert
You can always use a search within your query if you set it up as a rule
Have a naming convention
Recipients have to confirm

4. Example Alert
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5. Increase vs regular
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Regular alerts work best for content digests
e.g. influencer mentions
Regular alerts work best to identify trends in rarely mentioned topics
e.g., severe crisis topics
Increase alerts work best to identify trends in topics with daily conversation
e.g., brand products

6. Topics vs metrics
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Topics-based alerts help accurately target
predictable topics
• Product discussion
• Customer service
• Spokespeople
• Owned content (e.g. hashtags)
Metrics-based alerts help you identify the
conversation you couldn’t predict 

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Quiz Time!

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Celebrity mentions (more than 1,000,000 followers)

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Mentions with positive sentiment

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News clippings from top media (top sites list)

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Mentions from news (the page type)

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Bomb threats

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@ Mentions at @VerizonWireless

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@ Mentions at @molten_tofu

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Tweeters with Impact Score over 50

16. Increase thresholds
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Proper thresholds depend on historical volatility of the data
So, a percentage (e.g. normalized) based on volatility: Relative Standard Deviation
[Standard deviation of daily volume] / [Avg daily volume] = RSD
Acme Corp. Acme Inc.