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An illustration of AI spike analysis

Why Are Your Brand Mentions Spiking? AI Can Explain


Lance Concannon

Sep 26, 2023

It’s just another day at work, everything is going smoothly, nothing out of the ordinary for you to deal with, until… You get a Meltwater alert letting you know there’s been a significant spike in brand mentions! 

There’s no planned activity that could explain this, so the first order of business is to find out what has caused that spike so you can figure out what to do next. That used to mean spending a little time poking around Meltwater’s analytics tools to work out where all those brand mentions are coming from and what they’re about. But now, we’ve made it easier than ever to get to that insight. 

Meltwater customers now have access to our AI Spike Analysis feature, which will help you get to the bottom of that explosion of mentions in no time at all.

Let’s start by taking a look at the feature in action, using a simple example. In the following chart, you’ll see a trendline for online and social media mentions of the singer Taylor Swift, covering a 30-day period from late August to September 2023. 

AI Spike Analysis Screengrab

In the top right corner of the chart is the “AI Spike Insights” button; users can simply click this on any chart, and if any spikes are detected, they will be highlighted with the little lightbulb icon (as noted on the chart). 

To decide whether a spike even exists, our AI will compare the selected time period to a much longer previous period in order to calculate a baseline volume of mentions, and then focus on any points at which the mentions are significantly higher than that baseline. A further stage of statistical analysis is then performed to confirm the level of confidence that any anomaly is a genuine spike, and then, where a high level of confidence exists, those spikes are highlighted. 

In the above chart, we can see there are three highlighted spikes, including a prominent one around September 13. Clicking on the icon above that spike will bring up an insights panel, containing more information. 

AI Spike Analysis Detail

This shows us that mentions of Taylor on the 13th were seven times higher than average and that this spike was largely driven by increased mentions on Twitter rather than any other source. 

We can see that the #vmas hashtag appeared in around half of those mentions, which shows us that this spike was driven by her appearance at the MTV Video Music Awards on that date and that the sentiment of these mentions was overwhelmingly positive. The panel also shows us that a much higher-than-average volume of mentions originated from the United States. 

So, in just a few seconds, the AI Spike Analysis tool has given us a very clear idea of what that big spike in mentions is all about. Clicking on the “View more insights” link at the bottom will pull up an analytics side-bar focused on the date of that specific spike, so you can quickly delve into more detail if you need further context. 

Analytics Sidebar showing more detail about the mentions spike

This Spike Analysis tool is just one example of the many innovative ways we’re using AI in our suite of solutions to help our customers be more productive. We hope you find it useful!

If you'd like to see how it works, simply fill out the following form and we will be in touch to show you.

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