Learning Outcomes:
Understand audience segmentation using the Communities functionality.
Learn how to access and navigate the Communities section in TRAC.
Discover how to filter data by interest profiles.
Grasp the benefits of using this unique Pulsar functionality.
Different communities within an audience talk about the same topic differently. To enhance your audience insights, we offer the ability to segment your audience and uncover the distinct audiences found in that audience. We are able to achieve this through our seamless integration with Audiense.
In this article, you'll learn how to use the Communities subpage within the Audience Insights section in TRAC and how this can benefit you, but firstly let's get started on what communities are.
What are Communities?
Communities are distinct segments or groups of people within a given audience that discuss the same topic, but in their own unique ways. By segmenting the audience of your TRAC search, we are able to give you unique insights on the various groups of people taking part in that conversation, to better understand who they are, what they like or what they have a strong affinity for, and therefore what binds that group together, or sets that group apart from the rest.
🚨 Important: You will need an Audiense subscription in order to use the Communities feature. If you don't have one, please contact your Account Manager.
How to Segment an Audience and Generate Reports in TRAC
Go to Audience Insights > Communities in TRAC.
Name your report and choose the segmentation type - Affinities or Interconnectivity.
Learn more about these two clustering options here.
Click on "Segment Authors" and then let Pulsar handle the rest.
Within 5 to 20 minutes, you'll have your report back with your audience analysed and segmented into distinct communities.
Segmentation Types
Audiense offers two primary audience segmentation methods: Affinities, or Interconnections Clustering. Below is a high-level overview of each method and typical use-case.
Affinities Clustering
Basis: Clusters individuals based on shared interests inferred from their following patterns.
Methodology: Utilises unsupervised clustering to analyze the accounts users follow, identifying patterns that indicate common interests. Users are grouped into clusters reflecting these shared affinities.
Use Cases: Ideal for understanding audience interests, informing content creation, media planning, influencer partnerships, and personalised marketing strategies.
Interconnections Clustering
Basis: Clusters individuals based on mutual relationships and how they are interconnected.
Methodology: Employs the Louvain algorithm to analyze who follows whom within the audience, grouping individuals into communities based on their direct connections.
Use Cases: Suited for discovering niche sub-communities, analysing location-specific groups, professional cohorts, and gaining a general market overview.
Key Differences
Clustering Criteria: Affinities Clustering focuses on shared interests derived from following behaviours, while Interconnections Clustering centres on direct relationships and mutual connections.
Insights Generated: Affinities Clustering provides insights into audience passions and interests, aiding in content and marketing personalisation. Interconnections Clustering reveals how audience members are connected, useful for community detection and understanding network structures.
📝 Note: You can only create an Audience Segmentation report for an audience that is up to 100K authors. If your search has more than this, consider filtering your dataset to focus on a particular location or language.
When your report is ready, you'll receive an email notification and be able to view the different audience segments that have been detected within the conversation that you're analysing.
From there, you will be able to click on "Existing Reports" to view any other reports that have been created on your specific search.
Navigating Your Audience Communities
You can access your Communities Report from the Communities page in TRAC. Once in this page, you can either choose to compare your reports, download your reports or navigate directly to your Audiense dashboard so that you can view the report in more detail. Pulsar gives you a snapshot of the Communities in your report, whilst from your Audiense dashboard, you have full access to the report in it's entirety.
Every Community we identify in any report is automatically saved as a new audience filter - that's the beauty of this integration! This means if you have a community about vegans who like chocolate, for example, you can now use this subset of your audience as an ongoing live filter and learn more about what that specific community cares about, allowing you to have a better understanding of the various groups of people in your search.
Lastly, our integration with Audiense is a two way integration. In addition to being able to analyse and segment your audiences on Pulsar, when you're viewing your dashboard in Audiense, you are also able to select those segments once clustered and create a Panel search on TRAC for ongoing monitoring - just at the click of a button!
We hope you enjoyed reading this article! 📚 If you have any questions or would like to learn more, please don't hesitate to reach out to our support team via live chat. 🚀