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Getting Started with Social Media Monitoring

Facebook, X, Instagram, YouTube, Blogs, Forums, Reviews, Comments - understand results with and without Premium Social Package (PSP)

Cheyenne V. avatar
Written by Cheyenne V.
Updated over 4 months ago

Meltwater's Explore for Media Intelligence, Premium Social, and Explore monitoring options deliver the world’s most sophisticated social media monitoring, allowing access to a much wider range of social media and editorial content.

This article will cover:

Looking for a short course on social media listening, including the fundamentals of using Explore? Check out our Academy Courses.


Social Sources

The following social sources are enabled for Explore for Media Intelligence within all Meltwater accounts:

  • Facebook

  • X

  • YouTube Videos

  • Blogs

In addition to basic social listening, the Premium Social Package (PSP) content add-on also provides monitoring capabilities for:

  • Instagram

  • Product Reviews

  • Comments

  • Forums

We also have a prerecorded Webinar on 'How the Instagram Algorithm Works' that you can access via our Resources page here.

For users of the Explore feature, you'll have monitoring capabilities across all the above-listed sources plus:

  • Reddit

  • Twitch

  • Pinterest

Learn more about Data Sources in Explore.

If you don't currently have PSP or Explore included in your Meltwater agreement, please reach out to our team via Live Chat within the Help button for more details.


Overview of PSP Sources

The Premium Social Package monitors Facebook, YouTube, X, Blogs, Instagram with the addition of the below:

Product Reviews

Product review sites are web pages where users can rate products. They may be dedicated product comparison sites or the review sections of large e-commerce companies like amazon.com.

For example, some of our hospital clients use PSP to monitor Product Reviews as expecting parents often visit these sites when selecting a hospital to read about personal experiences with maternity services offered.

By monitoring Product Reviews, you can gauge customer satisfaction and gain deeper insights into your products and competitors by tapping into over 300,000 reviews pulled in daily.

Forums

Forums are sites from around the world where users can publicly discuss any type of topic.

A client of ours that is in the Food & Beverage industry specializing in gluten-free products is able to follow a bundle of forums solely focusing on the gluten-free diet.

By pulling in around 2.3 million forum posts per day, you will have access to more targeted content in regards to your topic of interest.

Comments

On many websites (news and blogs primarily) users can leave comments at the bottom of the page.

Many of our College and University clients will read the Comments of University Rankings articles to gain insight into what prospective students think of certain schools.

By monitoring these comments, you will be able to gain deeper context-specific understanding of your brand by instantly sifting through approximately 2.5-million comments pulled into our system each day.


Search Setup

In order to set up your Social Media Searches follow the steps outlined in your product specific guide below:

You will need to ensure your Source Filter is set properly.

If you'd like to search for specific social handles or influencers within your keywords, learn more about The Complete Boolean Library.


X (formerly Twitter) Subscriptions

X Subscriptions offer you access to more posts rather than a sample of posts. Our throttling capability ensures that your account will never exceed the total number of posts allowed per day. Your daily post limit can be reviewed at the bottom of your Account Details page.

  1. Click Account in the left-hand navigation bar

  2. Navigate to Account Details

You'll be alerted with our in-app messaging when you have hit your daily post limit, allowing you the opportunity to fine-tune your searches so that you stay below the limit. The alert message will say:

'Your account has exceeded the daily limit of posts. If you want to increase your daily volume, please get in touch with your Customer Success Resource.'


X (formerly Twitter) Engagement Metrics

You are able to view X engagement for your posts right in the content stream within Monitor, Explore, and Analyze for both saved and ad hoc searches. A drop-down within the content card will display the number of replies, reposts, bookmarks and likes. Content can also be sorted by the aggregate engagement numbers (Highest engagement on top) in the sort drop-down menu.

These metrics are visible within Monitor, Explore, Analyze and Tags pages and on two widgets (Content stream Maximized and Social Reach). If your subscription includes the Premium Social Package, Engagement metrics for posts are also available in export reports! It is displayed in a separate column and shows the SUM Engagement value.

The data in your X Metrics

Engagement metrics for Posts begin displaying after it has received at least one repost and they are refreshed afterwards each time a post is reposted.

Note: Engagement metrics on posts directly from X's firehose are displayed from March 16, 2021, forward. If a historical post is reposted after this date, the metrics will also be updated. For example, if a post in the firehose from September 2020 is reposted today, the metrics will update. But if that post receives no reposts, the metrics will remain at 0.

Engagement Metric "0" on Reposts: Reposts will always show zero as an engagement value because by default they can’t have Likes, Reposts, Replies. When you click on the repost document in the Content Stream, X will redirect you to the original post and you can see its engagement metrics though. Note: This only applies to Repost. Quote Posts are treated as original Posts and receive engagement metrics.


Social Reporting Widgets

Within Dashboard there is a group of widgets designed specifically to further analyze social media results. These include insights into:

  • Social Reach

  • Social Reach vs Social Volume

  • Top Poster by Reach

  • Top Social Posts

To learn more about social reporting, please review our Overview of Dashboard Widgets article here.

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YouTube Data Changes (2020)

As of February 2020, YouTube content will no longer be displayed within Dashboard Widgets other than Media Exposure and Google Analytics. Each year, social channels require developer audits to retain access to APIs. Additional enrichments Meltwater formerly processed will be deprecated to remain compliant with YouTube's terms of service. Historical YouTube videos will also have these enrichments removed.

More details on YouTube’s Terms of Service can be found here. Meltwater is updating the processes to comply with the following:

Using Your YouTube content

All YouTube content continues to be monitored, saved in Search folders, and distributed to you via your preferred notification method.

Search Folders

YouTube is monitored as a source within social media searches and matches your keywords with the details in each video's title or description. Learn more about Editing and Updating a Boolean String.

Videos within your search results can also be shared with other stakeholders to keep them informed, learn more about Sharing Articles from Explore.

Notifications

To ensure you are staying across the latest YouTube content relating to your social media searches, we recommend setting up one of the following alert methods that work best for you:

  • Spike Detection

  • Company Events

  • Industry Events

  • Top Reach

  • X (formerly Twitter) Influencers

  • Sentiment Shift

  • Every Mention

  • Follow a Post

  • RSS Feed

  • Page Engagement

  • Likely Boosted

  • Breakout Post

Learn more about Getting Started with Alerts.


💡 Tip

Need more help? Feel free to reach out to us via Live Chat or check out our Customer Community.

Find answers and get help from Meltwater Support and Community Experts.


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