Boolean Generator — User Guide

What is this tool?

Tubular's Boolean Generator turns plain language into a Boolean search query automatically. Type what you want to research and the tool infers relevant language, hashtags, and related terms — no Boolean syntax knowledge required.

Note: The Boolean Generator is not currently integrated with audience demographic or creator-level filtering. Filters like platform, location, and audience must be applied manually via the left side filter panel.

What can I use this for?

Brand, competitor, and community tracking

Build baseline queries that track brand mentions and products. The tool expands brand names, community language, and niche vocabulary automatically — making it useful for both broad competitive monitoring and tracking how specific audiences talk about a topic.

Good inputs:

• "energy drink culture and gaming"
• "mindful athletes or wellness culture"
• "millennial parenting"
• “[BRAND NAME] product reviews”
• “Gen-z festival fashion”

Tip: If your brand or topic is ambiguous, add a word of context — "Jaguar car brand" rather than just "Jaguar". If an audience has a distinct way of talking about a topic, naming them helps the tool use the right vocabulary — "Gen Z fashion" will expand into slang like drip, fit check, and slay rather than generic fashion terms.

Broad industry and topic research

Cast a wide net across a new or unfamiliar vertical. The tool surfaces the full landscape of conversation around a category, including the specific language communities use.

Good inputs:

• "artificial intelligence"
• "financial services or personal finance"
• "toys and board games"
• "science and technology education"

Tip: Start broad, then regenerate with more specific language in your prompt once you've identified the terms that matter most to your use case. You can also copy your boolean to the clipboard and edit directly within the search box.

Campaign, seasonal, and event research

Identify cultural spikes, pinpoint optimal campaign launch windows, and track fan conversation around timely moments — from seasonal shopping behaviors to award shows and tours.

Good inputs:

• "back to school shopping"
• "holiday gift guides"
• "music festival fashion"

Best practices

Focus your input on topic and context

The tool works best when your input describes the conversation you want to track — not the format it comes in. Words like videos, posts, content, clips, and tutorials are automatically ignored since they describe format, not topic. Demographic words like "Gen Z" or "millennial" are used to shape vocabulary behind the scenes but won't appear as search terms in the output.

Be specific and add context

Vague inputs return broad queries. The more precisely you describe your topic, the more targeted your results. If your topic could mean more than one thing, add a clarifying word or two to point the tool in the right direction.

Use exclusions intentionally

Describe exclusions directly in your input when you need to remove noise from your results. Include dates or seasons explicitly when recency matters — the tool does not add them automatically.

Exclusion examples:

• "golf lifestyle NOT video games" → removes golf video game content
• "financial services NOT crypto" → removes cryptocurrency content from a broad finance query

What the tool does not do

• Does not apply filters — platform, location, audience, and topic filters must be set manually via the left side filter panel
• Does not filter by audience demographics — queries search video metadata, not viewer data
• Does not filter by Creator or Creator attributes — use Creator Intelligence and/or About the Creator filters from the left filter panel for specific Creator attributes
• Does not guarantee exhaustive term coverage — treat the output as a strong starting point and refine as needed

If you want to do some further manual refining on your Boolean searches that the Generator has created, you can find some additional Boolean tips in our Help Center.

FAQs

Why does my query look different from what I typed? The tool infers intent rather than matching your words literally. By design, it expands your input to include language people actually use when discussing that topic — including slang, hashtags, abbreviations, and related terms.

Why are some of my words missing from the query? Words like videos, posts, content, and tutorials are automatically dropped because they describe format, not topic. Demographic words like "Gen Z" or "millennial" may also be dropped as direct search terms but are used to shape the vocabulary of the query behind the scenes.

My results feel too broad — what should I do? Regenerate with a more specific input. Add audience context, a product name, or a subcategory that defines what you're actually looking for. For example, "fitness" is broad — "strength training for beginners" is not.

My results feel too narrow — what should I do? Try a broader or more categorical input. Instead of a specific product name, describe the category it belongs to. You can also remove audience modifiers if they're over-scoping your results.

Tip: Use OR in your input rather than AND – this will tell the generator you are looking for a broader search.

Can I edit the query after it's generated? Yes. The Boolean Generator is a starting point. You can manually edit the output to add or remove terms, or add NOT exclusions before running your search. You can also edit your prompt to regenerate a new Boolean query that is more aligned with what you are searching for.

Does this tool work with the platform filters? Not automatically. The Boolean Generator builds the keyword query only. Filters like platform, location, audience demographics, and topic must be applied manually via the left side filter panel after generating your query.

Can I use this to track a specific creator? You can use this to track the conversation around a specific creator or brand, but not to filter for their content directly. The tool searches video metadata and is not integrated with creator-level filtering. Use Tubular's filters in the left panel for more search refinement.