Support

Application and Content


Features and Functionality


Accounts and Billing



 

Application and Content


What is a workspace?

The workspace is a private team space where you can create search queries that will allow you to monitor different brands or topics, view digital dashboards, gain insight and analysis, and collaborate around social media data and analysis. You may have multiple workspaces within the same account. Larger organizations and/or agencies with many clients, may have teams/clients with their own workspaces. An example might be a company like Nike having one workspace for Dance and one for Basketball: these teams may not work closely enough with each other to want to share a workspace.

Searches purchased for an account may be allocated across workspaces in increments of five by any account administrator. Each workspace can be branded and customized: with an image in the upper left hand corner of the page, an image in the upper right hand corner of the page, and via customizable home page messaging.
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How and what social media content does Scout Labs cover?

Scout Labs obtains its data via a combination of webcrawl, data licensing, and API access. Users are welcome to suggest any source to Scout Labs and we will attempt to add it to our dataset. This may not always be legally or technically possible, as in the case of protected Twitter updates, but our system sends out email to verify the presence or absence of sources submitted for consideration.

As of 2/8/2010:

Blogs: Approximately the top 12M English language blogs, with a focus on blogs active in the last 6 months and containing at least one incoming link

Forums: Approximately the top 2M English language forums by activity

Twitter: Real time results from the Twitter search API; sampled historical data representing approximately 5-10% of the total Twitter feed. Twitter restrictions prevent us from making this 100% of the full feed. Only Microsoft and Google have access to the full feed at the time of this writing

Social Networks: Some Facebook, LinkedIn, Seesmic and Ning coverage, as submitted by our users. This coverage is surfaced in the "Blogs" tab at present.

News: Coverage of mainstream news sources such as NYTimes.com and Wired.com

Comments: Comments from approximately the top 1M English Language news and blog sites

Photos: Coverage of top photo sharing sites including Flickr, SmugMug, Zoomr and Picasa

Videos: Coverage of top video sharing sites including YouTube, Metacafe, Vimeo, DailyMotion, Flickr, MetaCafe, Revver, Veoh, Heavy, and Gamespot
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Can I have a list of all the sources you track?

We do not publicize a list of all the sources that we track. We will help users to determine if a particular source or list of sources is covered or coverable; please contact us at support@scoutlabs.com if this is your situation.
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Can I add sources/content?

Yes, you may submit sources through the application. It takes roughly 24-48 hours to process each request. You will receive a confirmation email letting you know if the source submission was successful, and if successful we will begin collecting data from that source from that point on. We cannot go back in time to collect historical data from newly submitted sources.
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Do you cover non-English content?

Not at this time, at least not on purpose. Because we do advanced language processing for things like sentiment detection and quote extraction, English is the only language we currently support. Sometimes you will see some non-English items appear; these usually have some English elements, such as being partly written in English, or containing English names/photo labels that fall into a gray-zone, linguistically speaking.
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How real time is real time?

For external photo and video sites, access is as fast as their APIs, which are generally as 'real time' as their sites are. For most websites, our data is somewhere between 1 second and 1 hour old, depending on how frequently we crawl that particular site. Some less popular sites may be crawled at a lower frequency, taking up to 4 hours from publication time to appear in the application.
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How do alerts work? Are they real time too?

You can choose to receive an alert for any saved search, and you can choose to receive it daily, weekly or monthly. Alerts include top posts, new words, top positive and negative sentiment items, most recent Tweets, and so forth. If there isn't any new content within that time 'frame you won't get an alert. Real time alerts are not yet available.
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How do I make my search results more relevant? Can you help?

Try adding more relevant terms to get better results at the top. If this works, consider making some of your relevant terms required. After you review your results, exclude words that are not useful, like spam keywords you see, or other corresponding terms that are not relevant (see the drop down help menu on the search form as an example). You are also more than welcome to ask us for help with this. That's what we are here for. Support is free and can be accessed via support@scoutlabs.com or at 888 620 6220 M-F.
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How do you handle spam?

Scout Labs has a very sophisticated spam identification algorithm. We take two-pronged approach: we first look at spammy domains (domains with a high proportion of spam content) and use an editorial process to either allow or disallow their content. This is useful, but will never be completely effective at catching new domains full of spam, or spam coming from legitimate domains, before the user sees it. So Scout Labs computes hundreds of document based features to assess whether each and every mention is or is not spam, analyzing things like the number of words per sentence, the variability in length of sentences, the presence or absence of punctuation, the length of the longest sentence, the presence of porn words, etc. to determine if a post is likely spam. If so, users will not see the result in their main results set, but users can review the items labeled as spam and 'retrieve' them to the main message display; likewise, users may designate 'legitimate' results as spam and remove them from the results set. This helps Scout Labs refine spam detection measures.
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What browsers do you support?

We officially support Internet Explorer 7+, Firefox 3+, Safari and Chrome on a variety of operating systems. We do not explore IE6 (see our blog post here: http://www.scoutlabs.com/2010/01/26/scout-labs-discontinuing-support-for-ie6-and-adding-chrome/ ) If you use Internet Explorer 6, especially an outdated version, application features may be missing or poorly optimized. We do not officially support Opera, iPhone and other mobile applications.
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What is Hide spam / Show spam?

Hide spam is the default setting for search results. Show spam will show you everything our algorithm have classified as spam as well as anything users of your workspace have marked as spam.
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Why isn't my search turning up any results when there are results on Google?

One reason might be that you defined your search too narrowly, marking too many terms required. Try toggling the terms you have chosen to include from required to relevant and see if that affects the results.

Another tip is to try breaking up unique phrases. A search for the exact phrase 'video gaming headsets' will return far fewer results than a search for posts that include 'video', 'gaming' and 'headsets' (3 words on three separate lines, all required). Unique phrases are a great way to find consumer insight, however they can be difficult to work with. Contact us if you need support on this.

Also noteworthy: Google has been indexing articles since the late 90's, and we have not. This includes non-social media content, which we do not cover. Many of the results Google returns tend to be old and outdated, which you do not need, and they do not let you access more than the top 1000. We keep you up to date by indexing the last 6 months and you can review every piece of content that we find.
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Why are there fewer results in Scout Labs than in Google?

Scout Labs is focused on searching social media, in English, today, so the closest comparison would be to a Google Blogs search for posts in English (for the same time period)- not to a general Google web search. Even when you are comparing apples to apples, you may see big differences in the number of results. The reason: In an effort to show you what's most important to pay attention to, we focus our indexing efforts on the sources that have a lot of readers or get a lot of attention. We don't prioritize the indexing of the little tiny blogs that have never had an inbound link, say. If you tell us that's an important one (using the Add a Source link), we'll be sure to grab that for you and grow our list from there. What's more, we have aggressive porn and spam filters running which also may account for some differences between us and Google. But the main takeaway is: if there is a source you want Scout Labs to monitor and you don't think we have it, tell us. We'll try and get it for you.


One final reason might be that you defined your search too narrowly in Scout Labs, making too many terms required. Our search form does not work like the Google search box, and takes some getting used to. Try toggling your terms from required to relevant and see if that affects the results. If you need help setting up your searches, reach out to us at support <at> scoutlabs <dot> com.
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Why is there is so much spam?
We are waging a war on spam like you wouldn't believe. Please let us know if your results are tainted by spam, and we will help you work it out. Some keywords can be more spammy than others. You can also choose to "Remove" any blog result you no longer want to see. Click the "x" next to any post to remove it from your workspace forever.
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Why don't I see the full content of a blog post?

As with any reader, some blogs limit the amount of content that can be published externally. Some blogs allow all content to be published externally, some only allow 1 sentence and a 'more about this' link.
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Can I customize/brand my workspace?

Yes! You can name your workspace however you like. When you sign up, you will be assigned a random #. But we highly suggest you rename your space with your company name, brand name, or a client's name, for example. You may also add a logo, or customize the home page messaging.
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Do you offer white-labeling?

Light white labeling is included with all Scout Labs accounts. You are able to add one or two logos to the header, customize the name of the workspace, and add homepage messaging.
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Do you offer an API or data integration?

As of February 2010, we have no API available. We are routinely asked to develop and release one, but there is no target date for an API release at this time. We will certainly note your interest in an API product if you contact us at support@scoutlabs.com.
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How do I report a bug?

Click on the Give Feedback link located in the footer of the application and tell us about the problem, or fill out the form the application presents to you whenever there's an error. We always appreciate it when our users notify us that there's a problem. If you are feeling really ambitious, take a screen grab and email support <at> scoutlabs <dot> com. We will follow up if necessary.
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How are your email alerts different than Google Alerts?

Google Alerts tend to notify on all sorts of events, not all of them social media related, and not all of them recent. Scout Labs Alerts are comprehensive and intended to provide a summary of what is in the application without you having to go there. Alerts contain new frequent words, top new posts, new posts with +/- sentiment, tweets and more. We like to think of them as Google Alerts on steroids.
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Can I search for a URL or exclude a URL from my search results?

You can enter a URL (ex. nike.com) and you will see blog and other results containing that URL. But searching for a URL will not bring back results from that URL. Search is strictly keyword based. Same goes for exclusions.
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Can I use Scout Labs on my Mobile?

We don't officially support mobile use, but we use it on our iPhones all the time. Our email alerts are plain text and will read clearly on any phone without trouble.
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Some of the images and elements in the application are not displaying correctly, what is going on?

The information your browser stores is sometimes old, incomplete or corrupted. Deleting your browser's cache and cookies often fixes issues you can have with the Scout Labs Application, especially after a new version is released. Since we release code every week, if not more often, you may need to relaunch your browser or clear your cache to get the most up to date site experience.
Here's some browser-specific instructions on how to do it:

In Firefox on PCs:
  1. Sign out of the Scout Labs application and close all other open browser windows.
  2. Click on the Tools menu at the top of your browser and select Clear Private Data...
  3. Select both the Cookies and Cache checkboxes.
  4. Click on Clear Private Data Now.
In Firefox on Macs:
  1. Sign out of the Scout Labs application and close all other open browser windows.
  2. Click the on Firefox menu at the top of your browser and select Preferences...
  3. Select the Privacy tab.
  4. Click on the Clear Now... at the bottom of the dialogue box.
  5. Select the options Cache and Cookies in the new dialogue box.
  6. Click on Clear Private Data Now.
In Internet Explorer 6.x:
  1. Sign out of the Scout Labs Application. Close all other open browser windows.
  2. Click on the Tools menu at the top of your browser, and select Internet Options.
  3. Click on the General tab at the top of the dialogue box.
  4. Click on Delete Files under 'Temporary Internet files.'
  5. Select the option 'Delete all offline content.'
  6. Click on the OK button.
In Internet Explorer 7:
  1. Sign out of the Scout Labs Application and close all other open browser windows.
  2. Click on Tools in the Internet Options menu.
  3. Select the General tab.
  4. Click on Delete under 'Browsing History.'
  5. Under 'Temporary Internet Files,' click on Delete Files.
  6. Click on Delete Cookies.
  7. Click on the OK button.
In Safari:
  1. Sign out of the Scout Labs Application. Close all other open browser windows.
  2. Open the Safari menu on your browser's toolbar.
  3. Select Empty Cache.
  4. Click on Empty in the dialogue box.
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Can I format my text in the discussions and the agency co-branding area?

You definitely can! It's easy to have text bigger, in bold, have links,... If you know HTML, you can use basic HTML code to format, or you can use the Markdown syntax. For example:

<b>Welcome on Nike's Workspace</b>
Feel free to contact <a href="mailto:phil@email.com">Phil</a> if you have any questions regarding the tool.

or

**Welcome on Nike's Workspace**
Feel free to contact [Phil](mailto:phil@email.com) if you have any questions regarding the tool.

will render like that in the application:

Welcome on Nike's Workspace Feel free to contact Phil if you have any questions regarding the tool.

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Features and Functionality

What is a search?

A search is a keyword or phrase (or bundle of keywords and phrases) used to retrieve social media content. You can have multiple required terms, exclude terms, and use most Boolean operators within the search form. Scout Labs enables ad hoc search- you can change your searches whenever you want, optimize existing ones, or just experiment, and get back 6 months historical data in seconds.
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What is a mention?

A mention can be any piece of content that we retrieve that matches your search criteria, including a blog post, Tweet, forum post, comment, photo, video, or news article.
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How do you calculate Volume?

Volume is the sheer # of mentions we have in our index that match your search criteria. Volume is quantified and can be visualized in the graphing tools. It can be broken down by social media type: blogs, forums, Twitter, and news..
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What is % of Index?

% of index is the % of all social media mentions your search matches. We provide this graph because the total number of sources we are tracking is rising over time as more and more people participate with social media. So while Obama may have had 100,000 mentions six months ago, and 150,000 mentions today, he may be at a steady mention rate of 2% across all social media content over that six month period.
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What is Share of Voice?

Share of Voice is a comparative measure that shows the relative volume of different searches in a time range. We often see it used to compare competitors, such as NetFlix vs. Hulu vs. Blockbuster, brand attributes or product features, such as iPhone: Apps, iPhone: Touchscreen, iPhone: Service.
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What are Duplicates?

A duplicate is a mention that has the same exact content and permalink as another item in the index. This often happens when an author posts the same content to the same website multiple times.
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How do Quotes work? Why aren't there any for my search?

In order to generate quotes, we need to find content that matches specific criteria. For example, in order for the system to find a "Love" quote, it would need to find the required keyword/s in proximity to the word Love, or adore, or another expression of emotion. For example: "I really love my iPhone." Think of it as a giant focus group of all social media content. It may take a day to generate quotes for a new search. If there are no quotes after a day, it may be that we have not found someone expressing an opinion that matches our criteria for a quote.
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Where do I go to delete my searches?

In the upper right hand corner of the search box, you'll see a small icon that resembles a gear. Click on that to manage your searches, add folders, sort searches into folders, etc.
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What are Assignments?

Assignments are a workflow tool that allows you to assign content items to other members of your workspace. There are various statuses for assignments such as 'please respond ASAP' or 'closed.' When something is assigned an email will be sent to the user given the assignment. Assignments may be exported from the application. Assignments are only available with Professional level plans.
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What are saved items?

Saved items are kind of like bookmarks. If you save something, it can be tagged and will be saved in the application for as long as you have an account, even if it falls outside the rolling six month timeframe of data we provide.
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Can I export data or reports?

If you subscribe to the Professional level plan, you have access to various data exports: Mentions, Sentiment, Graphing data, Quotes, Assignments, etc. All of these can all be exported via .csv or in some cases .html. Graphs and other visualizations from the application can be used in reports as well, by screenshotting the applicable graphic and pasting it into an offline report.
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What is sentiment and how does it work?

Sentiment reflects the opinion of an author about the entity you have selected. Negative sentiment is, for example, a spiteful statement made against your brand, vs. positive sentiment, which would be an expression of praise, or satisfaction with your brand. Neutral sentiment, is neutral. Most of the mentions we see are neutral, meaning either the keyword or phrase you specified is mentioned in passing, without an opinion expressed, or that there is not enough evidence of sentiment for us to make a good judgment of positive or negative opinion.

Sentiment is scored using natural language processing techniques. For additional statistics and explanation: We wrote a full blog post that explains how we score sentiment here.
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Can I change sentiment value?

Yes! Sentiment is meant to be an interactive feature. Computers are not always accurate when it comes to interpreting human expression, which is why users of the Scout Labs app will benefit from verifying and overriding the Sentiment score if needed. Every time you change a machine scored value for sentiment, you generate the data we use to improve the accuracy of our overall algorithm.
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What is importance?

Importance is calculated with a ranking algorithm that takes into account the relevance of the mention to your search, our proprietary editorial opinion of the source, and other metadata, such as inbound links of followers, as available. It's a great feature because most users, once they get above a few dozen mentions in a week, need to focus on reading the most important social media content, as opposed to all of the social media mentions out there.
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Frequent words - What is it, and what does does "new words" mean?

In the Frequent Words list, the length bar for each word represents its frequency in the result set. New words are marked in orange, and represent words that are new within the specified timeframe. You can click on any word in the frequent words like to filter results down to only those that contain the selected word. They sometimes signify new trends and are something to keep an eye on.
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How does Remove This Result work?

Removing a result removes a post from your search results forever. It does not remove it from your workspace forever, only from that search.
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Can I use Boolean operators in the search box?

The only operator we support within a search box is 'OR' - we interpret any 'OR' as an operator. For instance, if you put Coke or Pepsi in one box and make it required, we will return mentions that include either 'Coke' or 'Pepsi.' A phrase within the search box that is encapsulated by quotes will be read as a phrase even if it contains an 'or.' 'Coke or Pepsi' will find only the phrase, and not the individual words.
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Can I sort results by Geo-location?

We currently do not have this feature enabled. The reason for this is as follows: Traditionally methods rely on IP address identification for geo-location; but this doesn't work for much social media (not everyone on Twitter is geolocated at their colo in San Francisco). Some social media content is tagged with the geographical location of the author. But the percentage of posts/mentions that have information appended is very small, and we have seen even that small amount of data to be highly inaccurate. We likely will not have this feature until coverage and accuracy are greater than they are today.
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How do I give feedback or share my ideas for improving the application?

Click on the Give Feedback link in the application footer and send us any ideas you have -- content you'd like to see, graphs or visualizations that would be useful, reports you'd like to create, enhancements to alerts, etc. The product team reviews every idea we get and prioritizes the brilliant and the popular ones.
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Is Support free? How do I access it?
It's free! We want to help you get your searches set up, your colleagues participating, your alerts flowing. Contact us via email (support@scoutlabs.com) or phone M-F during PST business hours (888 620 6220).
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Accounts and Billing

How does the 14-day free trial work?

You sign up, and we'll notify you via email when your trial period is up and your billing is about to begin. We will charge you on the 15th day after you begin your free trial. There is a 3 day grace period for a full refund.
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What's the difference between the Standard and Professional plan?

The Standard plan offers wide coverage of social media sources, interactive graphs, automated sentiment scoring, quote extraction, 3 months of live data, email alerts and a maximum of 5 users. It's good for smaller teams that need visibility and metrics. The Professional plan includes all that plus 6 months of historical data, workflow/assignment tools, data exports and reports, and unlimited users. It's good for teams that need assignments, more data, and export options.
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How does monthly billing work?

Once your free trial is over, we will bill you for the first month of service. We'll continue to bill you in full on the same day of each month. We accept Visa, MasterCard and American Express. If you prefer to pay via invoice, or would like to take advantage of discounts we offer for annual prepayment, please contact us.
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Do you have agency pricing?

Scout Labs was designed with the agency-model in mind. You can create 'workspaces' - one for each of your clients, where you can:
- add your own logo / contact info
- name the online workspace whatever you like
- add your clients' logo to the workspace
- extend your clients access - give them a log-in to the app and sign them up to receive robust email alerts
- do work on their behalf - curating the conversation, tagging things, assigning important to docs like 'needs response', etc.

Most companies who resell us just charge a flat monthly fee to companies, which include access to a private social media workspace (Scout Labs) and their services/time on top, for Scout Labs set-up and ongoing management and reporting. In this way, we don't have official licensing deals. We just offer deep discounts based on the volume of searches that you use, across all your clients. Check out our current 'plans' page for more info. http://www.scoutlabs.com/plans/
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Can I pay by invoice/PO??

Sure. Contact your account manager, email us at support@Scoutlabs.com or call us at 1-888-620-6220 to request this option.
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How safe is my credit card information??

Scout Labs' payment process is PCI DDS compliant (to the October 2008 standard), which is pretty darn safe. The downside of all that security is that your billing information is not available to customer support people at Scout Labs, so if there's a problem with your card, you'll need to log in to the application and resubmit your credit card number and expiration date. Please do not email us (or anyone else on the internet) with this information.
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I want to cancel my account, how will you refund me?

If you cancel after your subscription has begun, and after the 3 day grace period, the account will be available to you for the remainder of the service month, and will close officially after that. You can always reopen your account. Just login, enter new payment information, and you're back in business.
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How do I reset my password or change the email associated with my account?

From your profile page, which can be found by clicking on your name in the upper right hand corner, you can edit your username, email, icon photo, and other preferences under the EDIT tab. Directly to the right of the EDIT tab is the PASSWORD tab, which is where you can go to change your password.
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How do I upgrade, downgrade or cancel my account?

You must be an account admin to do this. If you are an account admin, from within any workspace, go to the Accounts link in the top right nav, Select an account, and follow the link to upgrade /downgrade or Close this account. If you upgrade, you will be charged the new monthly rate for your plan starting immediately. If you want to downgrade to a plan with fewer searches than you are currently paying for, your account must fit within the new parameters to make those downgrade options available. For example, if you have an account with 25 active searches, and you want to downgrade to the 10-search plan, please delete 15 active searches first from your workspace(s), then have an admin go to the Accounts link in the top right nav, select the account name and then click the Workspaces tab to the right of the Overview tab, and then remove 15 searches using 'Remove 5 searches'. Once you have 15 searches that are unallocated, return to the overview page and the downgrade option will be available to you
If you are not an account admin, you won't see any of these options. You'll need to contact your account admin.
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Can I get more workspaces?

Sure! You can have as many workspaces as your number of searches divided by 5. Have an admin go to Accounts link on the top right and go to the Workspaces tab to the right of Overview. Remove 5 searches so that you have 5 searches unallocated and you should see an option to add a workspace.
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If I have a multi-workspace plan, how do I delete one of my workspaces?

If you want to delete a workspace, go to accounts link on upper right, choose the account with the workspace, select Workspaces (to the right of Overview), and the option to delete is to the right of each workspace. You will be asked to confirm, because deleting a workspace deletes all objects associated with it - searches, saved items, users, discussions, etc. You can then add searches to another workspace or create a new workspace.
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How do I become an account admin?

If you signed up for the account and submitted payment information, you are the account admin. Any account can have as many admins as it likes, but a current admin needs to invite or create other admins. The Admin can click the Accounts link at the upper right, choose the account and select Users (to the right of Workspaces). You can invite new admins (or enable current workspace user as an admin) there. If you need further assistance with this, contact support <at> scoutlabs <dot> com .
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How do I invite people or add other users?

Click on the Users tab, in the upper left nav and you will see an option to invite new users. Enter the user's email and send. Professional plans allow for unlimited users.
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Can I delete a user?

Any admin user can delete any other user, and any regular user can delete any regular user- but admins can always add themselves back into an account they have admin rights to. For example, if you don't want the 'Scout Labs Support' member to show up in your workspace anymore, or any other user, you may delete them in the Users tab in the upper left nav. (Any user with an @scoutlabs.com email are not counted toward the user limit for Standard plans.) There, you will see a list of all the users of the workspace and next to their name will be the option to 'remove'. If you do delete the support user, please note that you might have to invite us back in at some later date in the case that you need technical assistance.
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How do I update the billing information for my account?

If you are an account admin, you may update your account information by going to the Accounts link, selecting the relevant account, and clicking on the Billing link. This will give you access to the payment information on file for this account. A regular user cannot access the accounts page nor see billing information.
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Contact us

support@scoutlabs.com
Phone
1.888.620.6220
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