Once you have authenticated your social accounts in the Monitored Tab, you can now add Facebook pages, Instagram handles, hashtags, and X (formerly Twitter) handles to track. These will be added to your Explore searches to expand your Social Listening. If you do not add these to your Explore searches, expect to see fewer results populate.
Additionally, you can mark Facebook pages and Instagram handles as competitors. Why? To benchmark against and better understand where they may fall against key industry players and your brand.
Note: Meta requires you to have a Business Facebook account in order to see Facebook data.
This article will cover
Requirements
Before adding pages, handles, and hashtags to monitor and marking them as competitors, you must first connect your social accounts in the Social Connections Monitored Tab. Learn more about Connecting your Social Accounts.
Once you’ve successfully connected your accounts, it is time to start thinking about who you may want to monitor and/or mark as a competitor. Here are a few things to think about when making this decision
Who are our direct competitors?
Who are key industry players in our industry?
What are brands you don’t necessarily deem as direct competitors but perhaps aspire to be like?
What are hashtags we are using for a specific campaign or in general?
Are there hashtags often used throughout our industry?
The answers to these questions, as well as existing Explore searches are all you need to get started with monitoring and identifying competitors!
Setting Up Monitoring a Facebook Pages
To monitor Facebook pages, follow the below steps:
Go to the Account drop-down in the left-hand navigation bar
Select Social Connections
Navigate to the Monitored Facebook section
To add pages to monitor, select the + under Monitored Pages
Search for a Facebook page
Or switch to Paste a URL by clicking in the top right-hand corner
Note: You can paste up to 30 URLs when adding Facebook pages.
Click Add
Click Ok
Note: Upon setting up Monitored Facebook page(s), we will backfill 450 days of posts and comments, replies, and metrics will be refreshed after 12 hours and then once daily for 7 days thereafter.
Facebook's Data Policy
Facebook's Data Policy
Facebook has set policies for all third-party providers (Meltwater) when it comes to accessing public page content. Meltwater will continue to adhere to all of our partner’s terms of services and will make adjustments accordingly.
What does this policy mean for you?
Facebook requires you to add specific pages that you wish to monitor for competitive intelligence, industry listening or benchmarking. Expect to see less data in your search results if you do not take this action.
What is included when Monitoring Facebook Pages
What is included when Monitoring Facebook Pages
Facebook pages that you add will collect:
Posts
All comments per post at the time of collection
# of reactions at the time of collection
# of shares at the time of collection
# of comments at the time of collection
'At the time of collection' refers to the time you entered the details of Facebook Pages to be tracked within your account. Please note that replies to comments are currently not captured.
Upon setting up Facebook Page monitoring we will backfill 450 days of posts and comments, replies, and metrics will be refreshed after 12 hours and then once daily for 7 days thereafter.
Facebook Data Collection and Management
Facebook Data Collection and Management
To be able to monitor Facebook content, Meltwater (and all other providers) are audited to ensure compliance with approved use cases and receive whitelisted permission from Facebook. Our whitelisted permission is called Page Public Content Access and grants us access to retrieve data from Facebook APIs with "tokens" to poll public Facebook pages.
(1) By authenticating your Facebook page within Meltwater, you are creating a 'token' to retrieve Facebook data. Features of this use case are:
With the authentication process, you identify the URL/Facebook Pages to be monitored and ensure monitoring of 100% of posts on those pages
We will collect metrics and comments only once per post at the time of polling/monitoring. Polling of content occurs up to 12 hours after the post was created
Upon setting up Facebook Page monitoring we will backfill 450 days of posts
Setting Up Facebook Competitors
In addition to monitoring these pages in Explore searches, you can mark them as competitors to ultimately use in benchmarking reports. To mark your Facebook pages as competitors follow these steps
Go to the Account drop-down in the left-hand navigation bar
Select Social Connections
Navigate to the Facebook section
Select the + under Monitored Pages or Connections
Select OK
Note: If you do not see the competitor section, please contact your account manager to learn more.
Setting Up Monitoring Instagram Handles
To monitor Instagram Handles, follow the below steps
Go to the Account drop-down in the left-hand navigation bar
Select Social Connections
Navigate to the Monitored Instagram section
To add pages to monitor, select the + under Monitored Pages
Copy and Paste the Instagram Page Handles(s) you want to monitor
Click Add
Click Ok
Setting Up Instagram Competitors
In addition to monitoring these pages in Explore searches, you can mark them as competitors to ultimately use in benchmarking reports. To mark your Instagram pages as competitors follow these steps
Go to the Account drop-down in the left-hand navigation bar
Select Social Connections
Navigate to the Instagram section
Select the + under Monitored Pages or Connections
On the right-hand side of the pop-up toggle the page(s) you want to mark as a competitor to reflect teal
Select OK
Note: If you do not see the competitor section, please contact your account manager to learn more.
Setting Up Monitoring Instagram Hashtags
Through Instagram Monitoring, you are also able to monitor specific hashtags.
Suggestions for the types of hashtags you might want to add are:
Your brand name
Campaign Hashtags
Ambassadors
Competitors
Industry topics
Find out more about using Instagram’s Hashtag Monitoring.
Note: You can only add 30 hashtags per business account. If you delete one, Instagram's API places a hold on that hashtag for 7 days before it clears space to add another in it’s place.
To monitor Instagram Hashtags, follow the below steps
Go to the Account drop-down in the left-hand navigation bar
Select Social Connections
Navigate to the Monitored Instagram section
To add pages to monitor, select the + under Hashtags
Copy and Paste the Instagram Hashtag(s) you want to monitor
Click Add
Click Ok
Setting Up X (formerly Twitter) Competitors
X (formerly Twitter) does not require authentication like Facebook and Instagram do. To define a competitor on X (formerly Twitter) follow the below steps:
Select Add Account
Enter the X (formerly Twitter) handle(s)
Click Ok
Adding Monitored Pages, Handles, and Hashtags to Explore
Adding Monitored Facebook Pages to Explore
After adding Facebook Pages to monitor, it is very important to add these page names to your Explore searches. If you do not do this part, no Facebook data will be pulled into the search results. It may be easiest to compile a list of pages you want to add to your search to avoid back and forth between screens.
To add Facebook Pages to your Explore Searches, follow the below steps.
Select Explore in the left-hand navigation bar
Select the search you want Facebook data to pull into
In the search box, type the Facebook Page boolean operator site:"www.facebook.com/____ ". The Page ID follows www.facebook.com/. To find the Page ID, follow the steps outlined here.
Example: To search for a specific Facebook page, use the Facebook Page operator site:"http://www.facebook.com/130416910313263/*" that's outlined in the Complete Boolean Library.
Select Search
Select Save
Your search will now include posts, comments, and engagements from the page or pages you have added
Adding Monitored Instagram Handles to Explore
Similar to Facebook Pages, you need to add these Instagram Handles to your Explore searches in order to ensure Instagram data is included. It may be easiest to compile a list of handles you want to add to your search to avoid back and forth between screens. Follow these steps to add handles to your Explore searches
Select Explore in the left-hand navigation bar
Select the search you want Instagram data to pull into
In the search box, type the Instagram Handle boolean operator from:" ". Add the Instagram Page name within the quotations.
Example: To search for a specific Instagram handle, use the Instagram Handle operator from:"worldsailing" that's outlined in the Complete Boolean Library.
Select Search
Select Save
Adding Monitored Instagram Hashtags to Explore
To ensure the Instagram hashtag data is being pulled into your Explore searches, follow the below steps
Select Explore in the left-hand navigation bar
Select the search you want Instagram data to pull into
In the search box, type the Instagram Handle boolean operator hashtag:" " Add the Instagram Handle within the quotations.
Example: If you want to search for a specific Instagram hashtag, use the Instagram Hashtag operator hashtag:"sailing" that's outlined in the Complete Boolean Library.
Select Search
Select Save
FAQs
Are competitor pages counted against the monitored page limit?
Are competitor pages counted against the monitored page limit?
Competitor pages are not counted to the monitored pages limit. If you have a 10 pages limit for Facebook, only monitored pages are counted to that limit. For competitor pages there is a shared limit between Instagram, Facebook and X.
💡 Tip
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