Creating Monitors

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Drive brand conversation, improve customer engagement, leverage influencers, and provide crisis management to enhance the overall customer journey.

To build a new monitor:

  1. From the Listen tab, click Monitors.
  2. Click Create Monitor.
  3. From the Name & Rules tab, enter a name for your monitor.

    We recommend naming your monitor something relative to the data or campaign. You can update the name of your monitor at any time.

  4. Under Rules, click Add Rule Group. Within each rule group, you’ll create a set of rules. Monitors crawl all social media posts on the web and only show you the results that meet the defined rules.
  5. Build a rule group. Select:
    • Include posts with or Exclude posts with
    • Any or All
    • Rule Type.
      We recommend starting with these basic rules:

      • Contains any of these keywords: your brand name, your brand hashtag AND your industry.
      • Includes this domain: your website.
      • Limit posts to this Twitter profile: your Twitter page.

      Then, layer in more specific criteria based on what you are looking to monitor.

      It’s important to define monitor parameters clearly, otherwise you may receive a large amount of mentions and other data that are not relevant to your goals.

      Rule Types include:


      Rule Type Description Example
      Best Practices Include:
      - Separate multiple values with a comma (i.e., happy, happiness, etc.).
      - Capitalization doesn't matter because rules are not case sensitive.
      - “All" Rules will require a post to contain every keyword that is in your rule in the same post.
      Words This is the most common rule type used in creating monitors. Type any keywords, hashtags, @mentions that match the topic you want to monitor, separated by commas. Do not put quotes around keywords. If any keyword in this list matches, the mention will be pulled into the monitor feed. Keywords match a mention only when the whole keyword is found in the mention, partial keyword matches are not supported. In order to perform a partial-word match, use the Characters rule type. santa cruz, bikes, #santacruzbikes


      Rule Type Description Example
      Character Sets This rule type matches a string of characters or partial words found in a mention. Mentions containing at least one of these character strings will match your monitor and be ingested. Character Sets is most useful for languages that do not typically use white space to separate words. In Western languages it often results in more matches than are wanted.

      By adding a Character Set to your query, you will not be able to get a monitor preview.      		 Enter the partial word "hap" and the platform will match "happy," "happiness," "happened," "Chapel," etc.


      Rule Type Description Example
      Proximity Proximity allows you to match posts based on the proximity of two or more case-insensitive words in order. If any of the proximity rules match, the mention will be ingested. In order to match proximity rules with more than two words, all the words in the group must be found in order, separated by no more than the specified number of non-matching words.

      Helpful tips:
      - Commas are used to separate proximity groups and are not used between words in a single group (e.g. 3 engineering videos, 2 videos research).
      - Use quotes to designate compound words (e.g. 5 "peanut butter" jelly)
      - A proximity of 6 is the maximum.      		 If the sentence is "Engineering started to show videos of new research," you could match this sentence by adding the rule “3 engineering videos.” This rule matches because the words "engineering" and "videos" are separated by only 3 words.


      Rule Type Description Example
      Languages Use this rule to choose which languages to target. If a mention was written in any of the languages checked, it will match the monitor and be ingested. Language options include: All, Unknown, and 60+ individual languages.


      Rule Type Description Example
      Domains Use this rule to provide a comma-separated list of domain names or URL prefixes to match. This rule performs prefix matching on all URLs found within a mention's body text. If any of the URLs found in an incoming mention start with any of the provided domains or URL prefixes, the mention will be added to this monitor's feed. myblog.com, yourblog.com, https://twitter.com/Reputation_Com


      Rule Type Description Example
      Networks Use this rule type to target specific data sources. Only mentions originating on the checked networks will match the monitor and be ingested. Options include: All, Facebook, Instagram, Reddit, Blogs, News, RSS, Stack Overflow, and Twitter


      Rule Type Description Example
      Social Profiles Use this rule type to target specific users on social media. Choose one network/data source and then provide a comma-separated list of usernames for that network. Only mentions authored by those accounts will match the monitor and be ingested. @bdpuptown, @Reputation_Com (Twitter checked in my Networks rule)


      Rule Type Description Example
      Locations Use this rule type to target specific locations. This rule will match the location where the mention originated. This rule only matches social networks where location data is collected and reported and only matches mentions that have location data attached to them. Check as many countries or states/provinces as you like and only mentions originating there will be ingested. Options include over 240 countries and 57 states and provinces.


      Rule Type Description Example
      Map Regions Use this rule type to target specific coordinates on a map. This rule will match the location where the mention originated. This rule only matches social networks where location data is collected and reported and only matches mentions that have location data attached to them. Mentions that fall within the prescribed radius of the point(s) provided will be matched. Near Phoenix (25.0 mile radius)


  6. Under Monitor Preview, click Preview to view sample real-time Twitter posts captured by the current rule set. Identify if the sample mentions match your goals.

Expect to adjust your monitors monthly! As your business goals and priorities change, adjust your monitors to gather relevant data for that time.

Historical Data

Historical Jobs are the only way to retroactively pull data into monitors.

Historical Jobs only pulls historical data from Twitter.

To pull in historical Twitter data:

  1. From the Listen tab, click Monitors.
  2. Click the ellipsis (…) on a monitor.
  3. Click Historical Jobs.
  4. Adjust the date range and click Request Estimate.

    Up to 1 year of data can be pulled at a time.

  5. Click Request Data to pull in the historical data.

    Your account will be billed for the mention amount requested.

After requesting the data, an open request is visible documenting the progress. Depending on the number of mentions, it will take a while to process the request. Once the request is finished, it will show up under completed requests and the data will be accessible in the overview.

Monitor Settings

Click the ellipsis (…) on any monitor to edit its settings.

Settings include:

  • Topic Matching – Fine tune what information is pulled into each monitor.
    • Ignore Shared Posts – Enables the monitor to disregard any re-shares and only pull in original mentions.
    • Only Track Verified Accounts – Only track accounts that have the little blue checkmark on Twitter.
    • Only Track Posts with Media – Only allow posts with videos, pictures, etc.
    • Include Comments with Matching Posts – Pulls in first-level comments (not comments made to original comments) associated with a matching mention pulled into your monitor. Each comment counts as its own separate mention.
  • Collections – Edit which collection(s) a monitor is contained in.
  • Auto-Pause – Set a date or volume threshold to auto-pause the monitor.
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