A look at some issues with the Radian6 platform. Some tips and tricks to minimise their impact or add additional insight to your reporting.

1. Radian6 Platform
Issues/Tips/Tricks
Actionable Insights
@BruceJBaird
April-2013

2. Platform Issues/Tips/Tricks
• >15 keywords groups leads to decreased
performance
• Does Not Contain section – Greatest
Server performance drag within TP
configuration
• Phrases / Expressions – heavier load on
servers
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Actionable Insights Ltd - Confidential 19-Apr-13

3. Performance Issues/Tips/Tricks
• Regional Differences:
– Summary Dashboard Region: uses Twitter data
– Radian6 Dashboard Region: uses URL/IP Address
(Facebook=USA)/User-Defined – Not Accurate
• River of News CSV v Excel Add-in
– CSV has ID number (can build dataset), Excel doesn’t have
an ID number
– Insights Packages, not included in main River of News
dataset, must build dataset
– Sentiment is ONLY Radian6 sentiment, not a insight
package sentiment – Radian6 and Engagement Console
– Can only export 10,000 posts at a time! Difficult for large
Datasets. Content only contains 340 character snippet
most relevant snippet only
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Actionable Insights Ltd - Confidential 19-Apr-13

4. Platform Issues/Tips/Tricks
• Facebook:
– Only USA, because Server location
• If Region selected that doesn’t include USA, then no Facebook
results.
• “Post From” AND “Something” OR “Timeline photos” AND
“Something” can help isolate a source within Facebook – fairly
well! (not perfect and only posts that match your keywords)
– i.e. “Post From” AND “No Fracking UK” – isolates source (if unique
enough) keyword related conversation within that source
– i.e. “Timeline photos” AND “please SHARE! Ban Fracking Now!
Fracking Carcinogens In Wells” – isolates story” – isolates story source
(if unique enough) keyword related conversation within that source
– Data nightmare:
• Semi-structured, difficult to analyse. But doable. Requires data-
level understanding and additional focussed search queries
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Actionable Insights Ltd - Confidential 19-Apr-13

5. Platform Issues/Tips/Tricks
Same Stories, but Different
Facebook Posts Facebook Story IDs!
• this activity. Please come and bring
your friends, and please SHARE! Ban
Fracking Now! Fracking Carcinogens
In Wells -> http://huff.to/hkxjbv
Fracking fouls drinking water-
>http://bloom.bg/PTRcGt...
– http://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=33
8477006271722&id=776904668
• please SHARE! Ban Fracking Now!
Fracking Carcinogens In Wells ->
http://huff.to/hkxjbv Fracking fouls
drinking water-
>http://bloom.bg/PTRcGt
• http://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=42 Unable to capture
9670923780696&id=1524234540
Story analytics 5
Actionable Insights Ltd - Confidential 19-Apr-13

6. Performance Issues/Tips/Tricks
• Sources – Doesn’t get down to the story-
level
– Only Facebook is identified, not the a story
post (storyID is different for different people
posting it. Must isolate by title)
– Media: identify the entity (i.e. Washington
Post, etc.)
– Twitter: Identifies the Twitter handle
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Actionable Insights Ltd - Confidential 19-Apr-13

7. Performance Issues/Tips/Tricks
• Widgets Based Sub Queries/Search
– Not easy to identify a single Story, but Widget-
based searches can narrow down to the story
(still cumbersome).
– Widget>Use Keywords>Add Query>
• Enter text into : “China’s Shale Gas No Revolution
as Price Imperils Output”
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Actionable Insights Ltd - Confidential 19-Apr-13

8. Performance Issues/Tips/Tricks
Boolean logic is not
Widget-based Search obvious, and not what
you expect!
A Boolean Displayed is:
A AND ((B OR C OR
B D) AND E)
C This search looks at:
• Facebook Only +
D Post from Facebook
Page Entity (i.e. No
E Fracking UK) +
keyword: water
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Actionable Insights Ltd - Confidential 19-Apr-13

9. Performance Issues/Tips/Tricks
• Influencer Widget
– Great at identifying SPAM, less so for
identifying Influencers
– Works at TP level – no filtering
– Regardless of Date Range of TP – goes back 6
months
• If Source outside begin date of your TP, then Error
when trying to view source/content
– Exports Top 30 only, even though can show
up to Top 250
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Actionable Insights Ltd - Confidential 19-Apr-13

10. Performance Issues/Tips/Tricks
• Illegal Characters (i.e. >), use a space
“More Th n” will produce: “More Th>n”
– Caution: cannot control what goes in space!
• Conversation Cloud
– Top 50 Words Last 1000 Posts ONLY
• No value with larger datasets
• Use River of News (Content) Column paste into
Wordle. But only will identify what is within the
Content snippet, not the entire post.
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Actionable Insights Ltd - Confidential 19-Apr-13

11. Performance Issues/Tips/Tricks
• Widgets
– Max 90 days, regardless of historical data
• Historical Data May 2008.
• Data needs to be appended:
– 20 Widgets Required for a single trendline back to May
2008!
– 4 Widgets per year
– Specific Date Range
• Cannot pick a date in the future, cannot set
yourself up for future reporting easily
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Actionable Insights Ltd - Confidential 19-Apr-13