Today we’re introducing a new way to map the relationship between social media conversations and online news media coverage, with News Data on Pulsar TRENDS, now in Beta.
TRENDS –our answer to Google Trends for social media– allows you to pinpoint the moment a topic blew up on social media. And while news media is an important part of the online conversation, often it's hard to tell how news and social media’s focus converge, or differ, at any given moment in time.
With the addition of news data to TRENDS, you can now map the historical performance of a topic and measure the cumulative (news + social) mentions of that topic over time, as well as be able to see the split between news data versus X data.
Through comparing the two data sources, you can understand the complex relationship between them: you might notice how news media sometimes is the first to cover a topic, which then spreads to social media, or vice-versa. Other times, you will be able to spot a more complex and interdependent relationship: a trend will emerge on social media, but remain a niche topic until it is ‘ordained’ by a news outlet – and then truly explode social.
Overall, the addition of news data to TRENDS will allow you to:
Measure the scale of the conversation for any topic, from the news media perspective and compare this with public opinion on X.
Find out what topics journalists are interested in covering and how this differs from the wider public opinion on X.
See the dynamic relationship between online news and X, and spot the correlations or disparity between news coverage and organic discussion.
Nice, so how does it work?
News data will be available on Historical Trends and will work in a pretty much similar way to X data. The workflow is straightforward: you set up your search query as normal, where you can compare up to three topics. And at the final step, you are prompted to select your data sources, which can be News, X, or both, and then hit go.
The result is a time-series chart like the one below, where we present you with different ways in which you can understand the performance of your chosen topics over time. By default, we map the trend line for each of your chosen topics across News + X, combined, giving you an instant view of how each topic performed over the last x days that you’ve selected to look at.
That’s one way of looking at the data.
However, you can also select an individual topic, and look at a side by side comparison of News data versus X data, as shown below. This is where you can start to understand how a particular topic has been covered by journalists, assess whether or not there's been any interest in that topic, and gauge how online news media coverage differs to social media discussion.
Lastly, you can also choose to view the trend line for each topic across News only, or across X only, so you can discern where most of the online discussion is taking place, as illustrated below.
As with all Pulsar charts, sharing on social, or exporting the chart is available for whichever view you select.
The update is now available right now for all users who have a subscription to Pulsar TRENDS. We are actively looking for feedback on the UX for this, so give it a spin and get back to us with any comments or observations at support@pulsarplatform.com. If you don't have a subcription to Pulsar TRENDS and want to check it out, reach out to your account manager who will be happy to set that up for you.