HotGrinds Frequently Asked Questions

• Do I need to provide the targeted websites?
• Does HotGrinds Opinion Grinder access Facebook and Twitter?
• How does the Opinion Grinder work?
• How often do you refresh the Sentiment Dashboard?
• How many people can access the dashboard?
• What kind of reports does HotGrinds provide?
• What browsers does it work with?
• How long does it take to become proficient with HotGrinds?
• Is the service secure and private?
• Can I customize the dashboard?
• Can I move a posting from positive to negative or the other way?
• How do I look at my results over time or compare results?
• How do I benchmark my results against my industry?

Do I need to provide the targeted websites?

• You do not need to provide your own list of websites, but your guidance can help you get the results you want. For example, if there are sites you want to exclude (such as employee-focused sites), or specific sites you care about, you should let us know when we set up your project.
  
  We can also process any structured or unstructured data that you provide.

Does HotGrinds Opinion Grinder access Facebook and Twitter?

• Out of respect for privacy, we only access postings that are publicly available. On Twitter, this is most 'tweets' while on Facebook, it is only postings that are 'published' to the world at large and available without requiring a username/password login.

How does the Opinion Grinder work?

• The HotGrinds Opinion Grinder automatically captures specific topics of importance, and the degree to which opinions are positive or negative. It displays the results of this analysis using visual dashboards that include heat maps, time series graphs, barometers, and competitor benchmark reports. You can also drill down on conversations or sources to take immediate action.

How often do you refresh the Sentiment Dashboard?

• In most situations HotGrinds refreshes dashboards once per month. Because our customers use this information to collaborate, create presentations and guide strategy, refreshing the data unexpectedly could create confusion.
  
  We can arrange a more or less frequent refresh rate for your specific business purposes. For example, the following projects may have different refresh rates:
  • Product launch analysis might require a one-time analysis only
  • Reputation/brand management: Ongoing analysis with monthly (or more frequent) refresh and reporting
  • Campaign management: Tracking the effectiveness of a campaign requires monthly or more frequent refreshes over a given period of time

How many people can access the dashboard?

• There is no per-user pricing, so you can have as many people as you want access the dashboard.

What kind of reports does HotGrinds provide?

• HotGrinds includes standard reports with its opinion mining solutions, delivered regularly after the data refresh. In addition, HotGrinds offers a customer report generator with the Sentiment Dashboard. This process creates PDF or PowerPoint reports that can be used for presentations and collaboration.
  
  Some customers use HotGrinds in addition to their own analysis platforms, while others repackage and distribute the HotGrinds reports to their customers, together with their own analysis.

What browsers does it work with?

• HotGrinds works with any browser, but we suggest using the latest version of Firefox or Internet Explorer. We do minimal testing on other browsers.
  
  The dashboard requires only Flash; it leaves no footprint or cookies on the client, and you can cache the analysis for offline viewing.

How long does it take to become proficient with HotGrinds?

• You can learn to navigate the dashboard in an hour or two. Becoming skilled at mining and interpreting your data might take a day or two. HotGrinds provides training with all subscriptions.

Is the service secure and private?

• HotGrinds is committed to maintaining the privacy of its customers' data. The service is hosted in a co-location provider with strict access security and network security measures. The HotGrinds application partitions customers' data to ensure privacy. Only our application is accessible through the Internet; access to the data servers requires a secure VPN connection.
  
  You control access security to your data; the access credentials can be included in a link to your dashboards, or you can put access to your dashboard behind an account and password. In addition, we can put an upper limit on the number of people who can access an account within a time period.

Can I customize the dashboard?

• By using the custom report generator provided with the dashboard, you can change the grouping and presentation of categories in the PDF or PowerPoint reports.
  
  In addition, we offer a library of widgets that you can customize by applying filters (time-based analysis, users, Alexa ranking, site, etc.), zoom views (setting level of granularity, positive only, negative only, etc.), views by ontology (semiotic, semantic, vertical ontology, etc.) and customizable report options (by concept, site, year, month).
  
  And if that's not enough, we can customize the dashboard widgets specifically for business as an additional services engagement.

Can I move a posting from positive to negative or the other way?

• Yes, you can swap postings between positive and negative if you feel the recasting function has categorized it inappropriately.

How do I look at my results over time or compare results?

• Using the dashboard, you can split the screen and set up each side with a different time frame, or different products, in a side-by-side fashion for comparison. This is particularly useful for tracking the effectiveness of campaigns or brand repair over time.

How do I benchmark my results against my industry?

• The Web Barometer is designed to benchmark your results against your industry as a whole.

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