You may find that a term you’ve searched for is a bit too commonly used. It may return a bit too much social noise, or it may produce irrelevant results. Refine your Listen search results by adding advanced requirements, such as locations, website sources, grouped terms, excluded terms, and much more.

In this article, find out more about the different search operators available and how to achieve more accurate results.

Introduction to search operators

Search operators are simple words or symbols which will apply rules and specifications to your search. If you enter the words apple juice into the search bar, your search results will contain mentions which include the word apple and also the word juice, though either word could appear separately in any part of the mention.

If you only wanted to see mentions which included the only whole term apple juice, you could apply quotation marks as shown below:

Similarly, if you wanted to see mentions which include both the term apple juice and straws, but not necessarily together, you could use the AND operator as shown below:

You can also choose to view mentions which include only one or the other using the OR operator:

Below, you can see the full list of available operators along with a description and some examples of how they can be used.

Content operators

Content operators allow you to refine your search terms based on the keywords, hashtags, and topics contained in the mentions.

Quotations: " ”

Mentions will include the phrase as written in the quotations.

E.g., “apple juice”

AND

Mentions will include both terms surrounding the operator.

E.g., "apple juice” AND straw

OR

Mentions will include only one of the terms surrounding the operator.

E.g., “apple juice” OR “orange juice”

NOT

Mentions will exclude the term following the operator.

E.g., apple NOT juice

Parenthesis: ()

Parenthesis can be used to group terms together, allowing you to apply an operator to everything inside the parenthesis.

E.g., (apple AND juice) OR (orange AND juice)

Tilde: ~

Place a tilde and a number after a term in quotations. Mentions will include all words in your term, but within a specified number of words of each other.

E.g., “apple juice”~5. Mentions will include both the words apple and juice within five words of each other. If you enter “apple juice”~10, mentions will include both words within 10 words of each other.

Brackets: {}

Mentions must match the term exactly and must be case sensitive. However, terms must be less than 5 characters.

E.g., {AC/DC}. Mentions including ac/dc (in lower case) will not be included.

Accent

If you apply an accent to a term, mentions will include the term with any accents included. Mentions including the same term without accents will not be indexed.

However, if you enter a term without any accents, mentions may include accents.

Ex. 1: niño: Mentions will include only the word niño.

Ex. 2: nino: Mentions may include the word written as nino or niño.

Angle Brackets: <<< >>>

Information contained inside six angle brackets will not be considered a part of your search whatsoever. This can be used for internal notes, placeholders, or to distinguish between sections.

E.g., <<< Next section TBD >>>: Mentions will be indexed as per the rest of the query, having no regard for the information in the angle brackets.

NEAR/x

(Only available for Saved Searches) Mentions will include both terms surrounding the operator within the specified number of words (x). Either term can appear before the other in matching mentions.

E.g., Falcon NEAR/5 Brandwatch: Mentions will include both the words Falcon and Brandwatch within five words of eachother.

NEAR/xf

Mentions will include both terms surrounding the operator within the specified number of words (x). The former term must appear before the latter.

E.g., Falcon NEAR/5f Brandwatch: Mentions will include the word Falcon no more than five words before Brandwatch. Mentions including the word Brandwatch no more than five words before Falcon will not be indexed.

Wildcard: *

Mentions will include the preceding word and any words containing that word as the root. Only available for plain text.

E.g., complain*: Mentions will include the words complain, complaints, complaining, or complained. There is a limit of 150 on short wildcards (2 characters) e.g. *ab.

Replacement: ?

Mentions will include your specified term, substituting the ? with any letter. Using the replacement operator allows you to accommodate for different spellings of the same word.

E.g., Licen?e: Mentions will include either the word license or licence.

Source operators

Using Source operators, you can narrow down the online origins of your mentions. For example, mentions only from a particular site, page, or author.

Bear in mind that it's possible to search using only a Source Operator without the need to add any further keywords or terms to limit your results. For example, searching only url:bbc.com/news, you can index all new articles as mentions. The same can be achieved for any X (Twitter) account, Subreddit URL, Blog, or website.

site

Mentions will originate from your specified website. Do not include either https:// or www.

E.g., site:bbc.com

url

Mentions will originate from a particular page on a site. Place the page url in quotations, ignoring the https:// and www.

E.g., url:”bbc.com/news”

channelid

Mentions will originate from your specified channel ID.

E.g., channelId:141273439246434

title

Mentions will include your terms only in the title, rather than the body of the text.

E.g., title:Astrazeneca

author

Mentions will be sourced only from the specified author. Author format may vary depending on how the information is received from each platform. Author information must be exact.

For an idea of how an author's name may appear, consider viewing existing mentions from any authors you had in mind. Alternatively, look at the Top Authors component of your search insights.

E.g., author:philrudd: Mentions will be indexed from the author, philrudd, only. Mentions from philrudd54 will not be indexed.

subreddit

Mentions will originate from the specified subreddit name (the r/ version of the subreddit name, often contained in the subreddit URL). Please bear in mind that subreddit names must match exactly and the subreddit operator is case sensitive.

E.g., subreddit:Damnthatsinteresting. Mentions from r/Damnthatsinteresting will be indexed.

subredditTitle

Mentions will originate from matching human-readable subreddit titles (the full title of the subreddit displayed at the top of the page). Please bear in mind that historic data is not supported.

E.g., subredditTitle:interesting. Mentions from subreddits such as r/Damnthatsinteresting or r/mildlyinteresting will be indexed.

Location operators

Location operators allow you to narrow down your search results to specific continents, countries, regions, cities, or exact locations.

All available location codes can be found in the following XLSX sheet.

continent

Mentions will originate from your specified continent.

E.g., continent:EUROPE

country

Mentions will originate from your specified country.

E.g., country:GBR

region

Mentions will originate from your specified state, region, or province.

E.g., region:"GBR.Northern Ireland"

city

Mentions will originate from your specified city.

E.g., city:"GBR.Northern Ireland.Belfast"

latitude

longitude

Choose to specify a latitude range, a longitude range, or both.

E.g., latitude:[41 TO 44] AND longitude:[-73 TO -69]

language

Mentions will be indexed only in the specified language. Codes for each language can be found here.

E.g., language:en

Additional operators

authorGender

Mentions will be indexed from the authors matching the specified gender. Gender information is available for Facebook, Forums, Reviews, and Weibo data from March 8, 2014 and for X (Twitter) data from April 18, 2014.

E.g., authorGender:F

authorVerified

Mentions will be indexed only from X (Twitter) authors matching the specified X (Twitter) verification status. Choose from true or false.

E.g., authorVerified:true

authorFollowers

Mentions will be indexed only from X (Twitter) authors matching the specified range of followers.

E.g., authorFollowers:[200-2000]

engagementType

Only the specified type of engagements will be indexed as mentions. Choose from COMMENT (Facebook), REPLY (Instagram and X (Twitter)), RETWEET, or QUOTE (X (Twitter)).

E.g., engagementType:COMMENT

engagingWith

Mentions will be indexed when people have replied or reposted (retweeted) a post from the specified account.

E.g., engagingWith:acdc

engagingWithGuid

By specifying a post (tweet) ID, reposts and replies to that post will be indexed as mentions. Similarly, specify a Facebook post ID to view the comments and replies to the post.

The post ID and Facebook post ID can be found at the end of the URL while viewing the post. For example, https://X (Twitter).com/FalconIO/status/1445054562897911823.

E.g., engagingWithGuid:1445054562897911823

guid

Specify a post ID or a Facebook post ID to index the post as a mention. The ID can be found in the post URL as mentioned above.

E.g., guid:1445054562897911823

imageType

Mentions will always contain at least one image.

E.g., imageType:image

itemReview

Mentions will consist of reviews of the specified product. You can use the itemReview operator in conjunction with the site operator to index reviews from particular websites.

E.g., itemReview:Ring Doorbell

rating

Reviews will be indexed matching the specified rating. You can choose to specify either one number or a range.

E.g., rating:[3 TO 5]

links

Mentions will include content which contains links to the specified website. Shortened links to the specified website will also be included.

E.g.,links:falcon.io

minuteOfDay

Only mentions published during the specified minutes of the day will be indexed as mentions. Time is written in number of minutes and based on UTC.

E.g., minuteOfDay:[1110 TO 1140] (Represented timeframe: 18:30 - 19:00 UTC).

publisherSubType

Choose from IMAGE or VIDEO to specify the content for each mention. Only applicable for Instagram mentions.

E.g., publisherSubType:IMAGE

topLevelDomain

Choose from .com or .org to specify the type of domain your mentions will come from.

E.g., topLevelDomain:.com

weblogTitle

Mentions will include blog and Reddit posts from authors matching the specified name.

E.g., weblogTitle:falconio

Advanced search query examples

Below, you can find three examples of advanced search queries built using some of the operators mentioned above.

Example one

Marriott OR “Residence inn” OR “Fairfield Inn & Suites” OR links: marriott.com OR site: marriott.com OR author: (MarriottIntl OR Marriott) OR @MarriottIntl OR @Marriott OR #Marriott OR #LetYourMindTravel NOT (“Willard Marriott” OR “Bill Marriott”)

Example two

((“marriott”) AND (yoga OR massage OR facial OR spa OR pets OR “pet friendly” OR dogs OR cats OR fitness OR gym OR “business center” OR weddings OR “wedding reception”))

Example three

((“self driving” OR autonomous OR driverless) AND (Car OR vehicle OR auto OR suv OR suvs OR “sport utility vehicle” OR sedan OR sedans OR “mini van” OR minivan OR miniaturevan OR truck OR pickuptruck OR “pickup truck” OR pickuptrucks OR “pickup trucks” OR hybrid OR “two door” OR “2 door” OR 2door OR twodoor OR 2doors OR twodoors OR “four door”)) NOT (AI OR “Artificial intelligence” OR artificialintelligence)