UPDATED 09/09/15

We have a winner, and a brand new Dashboard coming soon as a result.

The winning idea was submitted by Nathaniel Hansen of The Socializers, and his idea, the Trends Dashboard, captures the latest mentions surrounding a particular Query.

The Trends Dashboard is designed to work with topic-based Queries, providing real-time insights about the latest buzz and trends around any topic, event or industry.

Use it to discover the important conversations going on right now so you can jump onto valuable marketing moments or PR opportunities, or dive deeper into historical data to quickly analyze and identify the people, places and sub-topics that matter.

Nathaniel himself explains: “For instance, I applied a “fashion tech” Query to the Trends dashboard and was able to see images, mentions and individual Twitter authors talking about “fashion tech” or using the hashtag #fashiontech. The primary inspiration for the trends dashboard came from wanting to see the latest on particular topics…and, importantly, to see new authors and sub-topics emerging around those topics.”

Thank you for all of your entries, and look for the new Trends Dashboard in your account soon.

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This summer, we’re adding four new pre-built dashboards based on specific use-cases.

We’ve already released three. For the last one, we’re inviting you, our users, to submit your ideas. The best one will become a permanent feature in Brandwatch Analytics.

If you’d like some inspiration about how to build Dashboards that turn data into real results, come and join our webinar next week where we’ll be sharing the expert secrets that make truly great Dashboards.

Register Today 

July 30th London: 5pm BST | New York: 12pm EDT

Are you a master dashboard builder? Have you found a clever way to present your charts? Or are you a beginner, keen to learn more?

Whatever your level of experience, we want your ideas. It might be a custom dashboard you’ve been using for years, or it might be brand new.

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How to enter

It’s simple:

• Create a blank dashboard in Brandwatch Analytics.
• Design your own by adding components, charts and filters.
• Save your dashboard and download it
• Give your dashboard a name based on the specific use case it’s designed for (and write a short explanation if you like)
• Send it to us – [email protected]

If you shy away from fame and would rather we didn’t share your name or details you can ask for your submission to be anonymous.

As if boasting rights weren’t enough – we’ll also be sending the winner a Brandwatch goody-bag so you’ll have some swag to go with your new found swagger.

Entries are being accepted until the 6th August.

How to export and share a dashboard:

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What are we looking for?

Read on below for tips and tricks and some inspiration on how to get the most out of the dashboard creator – remember, the winning entry need not necessarily be complicated or high-tech. The key things we are looking for are:

• A strong, practical use-case, not just a pretty bunch of charts
• Clear and concise, it doesn’t need a hundred components, as long as it gets the job done.
• Something flexible, it should work for any similar Query
• Something original

Generally, we’ve found that the following are best to avoid when creating a custom dashboard to be shared and used in other Projects:

• Rules, Categories and Tags: these are fantastic in dashboards but they will not work on anyone else’s project (if you really want to included them, add a note explaining how they work)
• Multiple Queries: are necessary for comparing two different brands or topics but are difficult to save in a custom dashboard, stick to single Query ideas

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Make a dashboard on your own

There are several new ways to customize your Brandwatch Analytics dashboards to really make them your own, or to present your data in the fastest, most efficient and effective way for your needs.

Side-by-side components

Sometimes you need to be able to compare two different graphs at the same time. Or you might want to separate your data into two segments by using filters and look at them alongside each other.

This is simple to do now in your dashboard. Simply click on the top of a component and drag it to the same level as another component. Once you see the components sitting side-by-side simply release the mouse.

You can even try putting three components in a row.

Playing with the axes

You can create almost any chart your imagination can come up with by using the filters tab. The key is often in changing the x axis (For) or y axis (Show) to define how you want the data plotted.

You’ll usually want your y-axis to show volume, though you can also set it to other metrics such as unique domains or the accumulated reach of all mentions on Twitter.

In a line graph, the y-axis is simply the height, up or down of your line. In a bar chart it’s the length of each bar. And in a pie chart it’s the size of each segment.

What you plot on your x axis can drastically change what your chart is showing you.

Setting it to a time based metric will show how your data changes over time, but you can also compare mentions connected to specific categories or different Queries or demographic segments such as location, language or gender.

Filtering each component

Our component can succinctly display a wealth of information all at once. Sometimes, you’re only looking for a specific segment of your data. Easy to read charts and dashboards make use of our many filter options, to hone in the purpose of each component.

In our reputation management dashboard, we make heavy use of the sentiment filter. Applied to authors, this gives us individual components for our evangelists and for our detractors.

Author type, location, author profession, page type and mozRank are just of a few of the filter options available to you. Bear in mind, tag and category based filters may not be useable for the purposes of this competition.

Give your components a name

Naming each component and tab in your dashboard is a nice way to personalize it and help you and others understand quickly what it is you’re looking at.

Save and download your dashboards

Once you’ve built the perfect dashboard you can save it and download the file to use in a different project or share with colleagues. The video above explains exactly how it works.

With a saved file downloaded you can set up a new dashboard in Brandwatch Analytics and select ‘upload your own’ instead of one of the pre-existing dashboards. What’s more, this will work for any new Query you’ve selected, it doesn’t have to be the same one each time (though if you used categories or tags that don’t exist in your new Query to filter any charts they may not work anymore).

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See your own dashboard in the platform

Now you know how to save and download that ingenious dashboard you’ve been perfecting – send it in for your chance to see it included as a featured use-case dashboard in Brandwatch Analytics.

Whether it’s simple or complex, whether it’s a ‘Sales Lead Generator’ or a ‘Campaign Tracker’, whether it’s actually a use-case for your job or one you’ve made up, send us your most imaginative ideas.

But remember, the aim is to create a dashboard that shows real data that offers real value.

Send your entry, with a description of which use-case it’s designed for, to [email protected]

The competition is open until 6th August and we will be announcing the winner on 13th August.

Good luck!

 

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