Hello, Boolean Wizards! I’m back again this week with another behind the scenes peek at the boolean behind the Meltwater blog entry: From “girl dinner” to “the Roman Empire”: A look back at the viral phrases of 2023.
2023 was quite a year for memes, and what better way to show off the capabilities of Meltwater’s social listening and media intelligence tools than to analyze some of the social media conversations that went viral this year. In the linked article, the Meltwater marketing team used a series of searches to visualize the top viral phrases of the year and share context for anyone looking to put viral hashtags and other trends to work strategically.
Want to learn how to create the searches behind this article? Here’s how you can do your own social listening around the top viral social media phrases from 2023.
How to do social listening around the viral phrases of 2023
The marketing team brainstormed some of the phrases they’d watched over the year, and came up with the following list to search in Explore:
- Girl dinner
- “Girl math” and “boy math”
- The Roman Empire
- The Ick
- Nepo baby
To set up each of these searches, the steps will be the same; the only thing that will change is the exact boolean string you’ll need to use. For each phrase you’d like to analyze, follow the following steps:
Step 1: Create an Advanced Search in Explore
Step 2: Copy and paste the Boolean string for that phrase into Explore.
Step 3: Adjust the date range
Our team searched January 1 to November 27, 2023. Some of these conversations are still going strong, so if you search up through today you might find even more interesting trends.
Step 4: Apply Filters
- Next to “Filter set” below the search box, click “Source type” and select all types except for Product Reviews, Request for Proposal, and RSS.
- Our team also filtered by “Language.” Click the Language dropdown and select English.
- Click Search to view the results!
Step 5: Save your search and return to the Explore home page
Boolean strings for each viral phrase
Copy and paste these boolean strings into Explore to search any of these viral phrases.
Girl dinner:
("girl dinner" OR #girldinner) NOT (RT OR QT OR Shipt OR "roman empire")
Girl math / boy math:
("Girl math" OR "Boy math" OR #girlmath OR #boymath) NOT (RT OR QT OR "including ‘ Girl Dinner ’ and ‘Girl Math’.")
The Roman Empire:
("the roman empire" NEAR/5 ("think* about" OR "thought about")) NOT (RT OR QT OR "Broma Bakery" OR (United NEAR/5 flight*) OR "joe-man empire" OR "fall of the Roman empire" OR Sauerkraut OR history)
The Ick:
((get* OR got OR give* OR gave OR has OR hav*) NEAR/5 "the ick") NOT (RT OR QT)
Nepo baby:
("Nepo Baby" OR #nepobaby) NOT (RT OR QT)
How to visualize and compare the viral phrases of 2023
Now that you’ve created the searches for each of the phrases you want to study, it’s time to put together your comparison search!
Step 1: From the Explore home page, click “Create” on the “Compare Search” tile.
Step 2: Select “Add Search” to add your individual searches that we added above
Step 3: Adjust the date range
(again, the article used January 1 though November 27, 2023)
Enjoy your Share of Voice breakdowns and visualizations! 🙌
Sound off in the comments 🗣️
- Our team’s search for “The Roman Empire” attempted to make this broad term more specific and searchable. Have you run into trouble tuning a search for a broad term to something more targeted? Share your frustrating searches in the comments, let’s brainstorm solutions!
- What’s your favorite meme or viral phrase of 2023? Did it make this list? If not, how would you search it in Meltwater?
