Industry & Market Research Playbook
Track industry trends, surface key narratives, and sharpen your messaging.
This playbook shows you how to use Meltwater to research an industry or market, identify emerging trends, and monitor important shifts over time.
Before you begin, make sure you’re familiar with the Brand Monitoring Playbook. Industry research uses the same foundations, with a broader lens.
Before You Build: Set Your Research Focus
Industry research starts with questions, not keywords.
Before creating your search, choose one or two questions you want this research to answer. You’ll use these questions to guide your search building, results refinement, and data analysis.
Common industry research questions:
- What trends are shaping my industry right now?
- Which companies or brands are gaining attention?
- What new technologies or innovations are being discussed?
- How is my brand showing up in the broader industry conversation?
- Who is influencing this space?
- Which publications or outlets are driving the conversation?
- How does sentiment toward the industry appear to be shifting?
You don’t need to answer everything at once. Start with one or two questions that support your current research goals, whether that’s planning, messaging, thought leadership, or staying informed.
(Optional) Get Oriented with Brief Me on a Topic
If this is a new industry or topic, use Brief Me on a Topic in the AI Search Assistant to get quick context before building your search.
Use this to get oriented. Your saved Explore industry search is what powers ongoing tracking and trend analysis.
📺 Watch: How to Use Brief Me on a Topic in the AI Search Assistant
🔗 Step by Step: Create a Topic-Brief with Live Data
Pro Tip: See how our CEO uses Brief Me on a Topic in Insights unBoxed:
Step 1: Create an Industry Search
Open the AI Search Assistant and select Create Industry Search.
📺 Watch: How to Create an Industry Monitoring Search Usign the AI Search Assistant
🔗 Step by Step: Using the AI Search Assistant
This gives you a strong starting point without manually building a complex query.
Optional Support
If this is your first time building an industry search, the Industry & Market Research Checklist can help you think through scope, exclusions, and edge cases or check out our customers’ most commonly used Boolean for industry and market research: Industry & Market Research Boolean.
Once the results look good enough, save your search. Perfection comes later.
📺 Watch: How to Save a Search in Explore
🔗 Step by Step: How to Save a Search
Step 2: Refine for Industry Signal
Industry searches are broad by design. Refinement is how you separate the wheat from the chaff.
Focus on improving relevance:
- Identify and filter to top industry or trade publications
- Creating Author Lists to track key opinion leaders
- Exclude consumer noise or unrelated contexts
- FAQ article: How can I exclude keywords or make refinements?
- Our most commonly used Exclusionary Boolean Strings
The goal is a reliable industry view, not maximum volume.
Step 3: Identify Trends and Talking Points
Once your search is ready, shift from collecting mentions to making sense of patterns.
Revisit the research questions you defined earlier and use them to guide your analysis or prompt AI-powered research.
📺 Watch: How to Analyze Industry Search Results in the AI Search Assistant
Step 4: Monitor industry Shifts & Events
Industry research is an ongoing endeavor. Set up monitoring to catch important changes:
- Use Smart Alerts to flag sudden spikes or shifts
- Pro Tip: Set up an Industry Event Alert to be notified of brand crises, new partnerships, product launches, and other major business events in the space
- Schedule Digest Reports for regular industry scans
- Create Monitor Streams to keep industry coverage visible day to day
Check out the Monitoring Daily Media playbook:
Pro Tip: When monitoring industry shifts, check the Trends Center in Monitor to see which hashtags and topics are trending on platforms like TikTok and X – often an early signal of what’s coming next in media and public conversation. Read more about the Trends Center here.
Step 5: Share and Apply Your Insights
Depending on your role, you may need to:
- Summarize trends for internal updates or leadership briefings
- Inform messaging, positioning, or thought leadership
- Support campaign planning or content strategy
Check out the Reporting & Sharing Insights playbook:
Final Tip
Industry and market research isn’t about tracking everything.
It’s about building a focused industry signal and revisiting it often enough to spot change early.
Set it up once and let the patterns guide your next move