Isentia platform: Topics

Everything you need to know about topics in the Isentia platform. Find out what your topics are, how to create new topics, and how to share topics with other users in your team.

Topics are your way of viewing and organising the media coverage that is important to you. You can use topics to manage your media coverage and create a tailored setup that shows the media coverage you need to see.

Your topics display content from the different areas of interest relevant to you. This may include your organisation’s self-mentions, specific spokespeople, or relevant industry interests.

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Your topic: An overview

As you view the media items in your feed, there are several filtering and sorting options available to help you digest your coverage in a way that suits you.

Use optional filters to control which media items are displayed in your topic. Select a specific date range (based on when an item was published), or filter your media items by media type, outlets or contacts or by geographic locations.

Select the filters and sorting options you want to use, and your topic will automatically update and display matching media content.

Using the date range filter, you can choose from preset date ranges or select a custom date range up to 12 months previously.

Note: You can easily remove any filters or sorting options applied to your topic using the Reset option.

Actioning media items in your topic

You can apply several actions to the media items displayed in topics, including adding them to a manual report, moving them to other topics, or removing items from a topic.

To action media items, select the check box shown on each item, and choose the action you want to complete.

Note: You can select all displayed items in your topic using the check box next to the display of the total number of items shown.

Once you have selected your media items you can choose to Add to report, Add to topic: or Remove from this topic:

• Add to report: Your selected media items will be added to your manual report builder and will be included in any reports you build to share media coverage with stakeholders.
• Add to topic: Your items will be added to the additional topics that you select from the list shown. Use this function to manually move and organise your content.
• Remove from this topic: Removes selected items from the topic you are viewing. Items will remain in any other topics they have been added to.
• Export to CSV: Will export your media items into a spreadsheet format. More information on Export to CSV can be found here.

Note: If you remove media items from a topic, these items are being removed from the individual topic in your account and not from your organisation’s Isentia service.

Adding a new topic

To add a new topic to your account, select the ‘+’  icon shown on your topic list and choose how you want to add a topic to your account. Options for adding a new topic to your account are:

• Create a new topic: Create a new topic from scratch based on your requirements.
• Browse topics: Select from a list of already created topics shared across your organisation.

How to: Add a topic

We’ve taken all the information in the above article and detailed below a simple guide to adding a topic to your account:

1. Select “+” next to your topic list and choose how you want to add your new topic
2. Select the type of topic  you want to create
3. Give your topic a name and choose if you want to share your topic
4. Select the filters your topic will use to curate content.

Browse topics

The browse topics option allows you to select from a list of already created discoverable topics available for you to subscribe to, and add to your account.

These topics are visible to all team members within your organisation and allow you to view and subscribe to key topics other team members have set up within their accounts.

More information on the browse topics option can be found in this article: Isentia platform: Browse topics.

Creating a new topic

If you’ve checked the discoverable topics in the browse topics option, and there isn’t a suitable topic already created, or based on your requirements, you need to create a new topic from scratch, select Create new topic and follow the guided steps to add a newly created topic to your account.

Types of topics

When you are creating a new topic, you can choose to create either an Automated or Empty topic:

• Automated topics: Use a combination of filters and additional criteria to automatically display relevant media content captured by your Isentia service. These topics are great for tracking specific mentions of your organisation, spokespeople, or relevant industry interests from your monitoring briefs.
• Empty topics: Create an empty topic to manually add media items within the Isentia platform. These topics are best used for manually organising and managing content, including archiving or building reports using specifically selected content.

Once you have selected the type of topic, click Next to start personalising your topic.

Here you can give your topic a name. We suggest a name that is easy to understand so you can easily identify the topic in your list. You can also make your topic discoverable to other users, define what media items that topic will contain, and choose to share your new topic with other team members.

Note: If you are creating an empty topic, once you have given your topic a name and set your sharing preferences, select Add Topic to finalise the setup and add your new topic to your account.

Sharing topics

To make collaborating with your team easier, you can easily share the topics you create with other users. There are two ways to share topics with other users when creating a new topic.

Discoverable topics

You can make your new topic discoverable for all other team members on your account, who can subscribe to your topic using the browse topic tool. This allows users to add your topic to their account and view the media items that appear within your topic.

To make a topic discoverable select the Make topic discoverable option. If you don’t select this option, the topic will remain visible to you as the owner, and anyone you choose to share it with directly.

Any other users that add your discoverable topic to their account will be added as viewers. You’ll remain the owner of the topic, which means you’ll be able to continue to make changes to the topic, including how the topic is set up, or how the topic is shared with individual users.

Note: Making a topic discoverable does not instantly add it, or make it visible in any other user’s topic lists, users will need to subscribe to your topic using the browse topics tool for it to appear in their topic list. More information on discoverable topics and the browse topics tool can be found in this article: Isentia platform: Browse topics

Sharing topics directly with individual users

When creating your topic, you can share it directly with other team members, so your topic becomes visible in their account.

When sharing topics directly with other users, the permissions you set for that user will determine their access and how they can interact with your topic.

To share a topic with other users, select their username from the drop-down list of other team members, and set the permissions you want to give them. If you do not wish to share your new topic with any other users, just leave the share topic options blank.

 

Topic permissions

There are two permission types you can set when sharing topics with other users depending on what level of access you want to give others:

• Viewer:  Allows another user to view the topic you are sharing with them, and the media items contained in that topic. Viewers of a topic can action the media items included in the topic you’ve shared, including being able to access original coverage, add those media items to any other topics that they own, or add the media items to their manual report builder.Note: If a user has viewer permissions for a topic, they will be unable to add media items to that topic.
• Admin: Allows the user the full permissions of a viewer of the topic, and also permits them to make changes to the topic, including being able to add additional media items, and edit how that topic is set up and shared with other users.

Note: Users with admin permissions can also delete a topic. If a user with admin permissions deletes a topic it will be removed from all accounts it is shared with. For more information on how to correctly delete or remove a topic check out the deleting or removing a topic section of this article.

Once you have set your sharing permissions, select Next to start defining the criteria your topic will use to display matching media coverage.

Adding filters to your topic

For your automated topic to display the correct media coverage, you need to determine which media items from within your organisation’s monitoring service you want to appear in your topic. This is done by setting up filters and selecting any additional criteria a media item needs to match to appear in your topic.

Topic Filters

You can use briefs, keywords and additional filters to further refine which content appears in your topic.

Briefs

Briefs are the tools we use to ensure we capture relevant content for you, based on your organisation’s monitoring requirements, and what your team has told us you are interested in.

When creating your topic, you can choose to filter content from all of your organisation’s monitoring briefs, or select individual briefs that may be more relevant to the content you want to be displayed in a particular topic.

Keywords

Keywords are a great way to further refine what content appears in your topic. You can use the name of an organisation or spokesperson, an industry term, or the name of a campaign to ensure that any media items captured by your monitoring service that mention your keywords appear in your topic.

Additional tips for building effective keywords can be found in this article: Creating effective search terms.

Additional Filters

Use optional additional filters to refine which media items appear in your topics. Additional filters include or exclude media items from specific media outlets, and geographical regions or only include content that matches specific media types.

Note: If you choose not to utilise any keywords or additional filters when creating your topic, your topic will contain all media coverage delivered to the monitoring briefs you’ve selected. If a brief captures a high volume of media coverage, this may result in a lot of irrelevant media items appearing within your topic.

Once you’ve set up any filters and additional criteria that you want to use, select Create to finalise the setup and add your new topic to your account. New topics you create will start empty, but new media content will be added as new media items that match your set criteria are delivered to your account.

Topic Groups

Group topics together based on priority, area of interest, or just to organise your topics list to make it easier to find your most important topics.

Reorder Topics

Organise your topics and groups into a custom order. Move individual topics to the desired position on your topics list, or easily move individual topics into and out of existing topic groups, by dragging them to your chosen position.

For more information on topics check out this article: Reorder topics or groups

Editing a topic

To edit a topic, you must make sure you have admin permissions. If you have these permissions, select the ellipsis next to the topic name and select Edit topic.

From here you can update the brief’s the topic is pulling content from, who the topic is shared with, or the additional filters and keywords being used to determine which media items appear in the topic. Once you’ve finished editing a topic, select Save to confirm your changes.

Note: If you do not have admin permissions, contact the owner or another admin of the topic. Owners or Admins of a topic can be identified using the Share Topic option shown on the topic screen.

Deleting or removing a topic

There are a few things to consider when removing or deleting a topic, depending on your permission for that topic, and what you want to achieve by removing or deleting the chosen topic.

Note: To check which permission you have on a particular topic, select Share Topic on the topic screen and find your name, to see if you are the owner, an admin, or a viewer of a topic.

Once you understand which permissions you have for a topic, choose from the below options to make sure you correctly remove or delete a topic:

• You are the owner/admin of a topic and want to completely remove it: Select the ellipsis next to the topic name and choose Delete

Note: Deleting a topic will remove it from all accounts it has been shared with, meaning it will no longer be accessible to other team members.

• A topic has been shared with you as an admin, and you no longer wish to view it in your account without deleting it from the accounts of other team members: Open the Share Topic option on the topic screen, and select the ‘x’ next to your name. This will remove you from the topic but keep it visible to other users.

• A topic has been shared with you as a viewer, but you no longer wish to see that topic in your account: Open the share menu and select the ‘x’ next to your name. This will remove you from the topic but keep it visible for other users.

Note: An owner of a topic cannot remove themselves from that topic. Their only option is to delete the topic completely.

Topic notifications

To be notified of your latest media coverage, set up email notifications to be notified each time a new media item is added to one of your topics.

More information on topic notifications can be found in this article: Topic notifications.