Why do we care about query writing?

Query writing is one of the most important skills a social listening professional can have. It sets the quality and relevancy of the project and can greatly affect its outcome. Currently though, there is little education or community support beyond each technology platform for those looking to learn this critical skill.

BUT we know there are a lot of talented query writers out there who can share their skills. That’s why we challenge you to enter the first ever social listening query writing competition.

Show off your boolean prowess and be in with a chance of winning $500.

Who can enter?

The competition is only open to individuals working at:

  • Brands and organisations
  • Agencies
  • Freelancers or independent consultants

Competitors cannot:

  • Work for a social listening technology provider
  • Have any formal affiliation to a technology platform.

How does the competition work?

There are 50 places available in the competition and two prizes will be awarded – one for agencies and one for in-house professionals. The competitors will be selected based on their applications.

Competition entry closes on Sunday 9th July.

The 50 successful competitors will be given a research question to write a query for.

From Monday 17th July, they will have three weeks to work alone on writing a query that will return the most comprehensive and relevant set of data.

To enable a fair comparison, all competitors will use YouScan to write the query. They will be given free access to the platform for the duration of the competition, and trained how to use it.

The entries will be judged by our panel of experts from Listen + Learn Research and the two winners will be announced during an online awards ceremony. Each winner will receive a prize of $500.

Post event, all entrants to the competition will be invited to join a query writing group within the SI Lab community so they can share ideas and advice together.

Meet the judges

Priscila Silva
People and Operations Manager, Listen & Learn Research
Mike Jaxa-Chamiec
Director of Research, Listen & Learn Research
Jeremy Hollow
Founder & CEO, Listen & Learn Research
Dr Jillian Ney
Founder, The Social Intelligence Lab

What are the judging criteria?

Entries will be judged according to relevancy and breadth.

  • Relevancy rate: the percentage of comments stemming from your query that matches the criteria set out in the research question.
  • Breadth: the total number of comments, calculated as the total number of comments returned from the query over the last month x the relevancy rate.

Scores will be awarded for each category.

If more than one competitor achieves the same score a winner from this group will be chosen at random.

Full details of the judging criteria will be shared with the 50 selected participants ahead of the competition.

Enter the competition

Competition entries for 2023 are now closed. Follow for updates on competition progress.

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