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Rules-Based Automation for Explore and Owned Social Accounts
Cheyenne V. avatar
Written by Cheyenne V.
Updated yesterday

Streamline your daily workload by creating custom rules to automatically tag, adjust sentiment, or hide mentions in your Explore results based on the presence or absence of specific keywords.

Additionally, create rules to accelerate your workflow in Engage with Automation for tagging, sentiment change, and hiding posts.

This article will cover:

Note: An early version of this feature was released in June for Engage users to apply rules to messages in Conversations. Today it’s being made available (in a limited beta) for general search results in certain global markets. Customers with both Engage and Explore will be able to choose the type of content they want their rules to be applied to.


Automation Overview

  1. Click the Content drop-down in the left-hand navigation bar

  2. Select Automation

  3. Any existing rules will appear in the table. The table includes search and sorting options. Columns include:

    1. Name - name of the rule

    2. Summary - description of the rule

    3. Last edited by - the last team member to save changes to the rule

    4. Type - the rule type

    5. Last edit - the day and time of the last saved edit


Creating Rules

  1. Click the Content drop-down in the left-hand navigation bar

  2. Select Automation

  3. Select Create Rule

  4. Fill out the following fields

    1. Title - give your rule a unique title so you and others know it’s purpose

    2. Description - provide additional context on the purpose of the rule

    3. Select social accounts - select from your connected owned social accounts. These are the same accounts available in all other areas of Engage (Publish, Conversations, Measure)

    4. OR Select Explore Search - select from your saved Explore searches.

  5. Specify the criteria, conditions, keywords, and phrases

    1. If an incoming message

      1. Includes words or phrases - applies rule if any defined word or phrase is in the message

      2. Does not mention words or phrases - applies rule if any defined word or phrase is NOT in the message

    2. Conditions

      1. All - ALL words or phrases must be present in a message to apply the rule

        • Ex. Dog AND Cat must both be present

      2. Any - ANY word or phrase may be present in a message to apply the rule

        • Ex. Dog OR Cat may be present

      3. Keywords and phrases

        • Separate words and phrases with a comma or by pressing enter.

        • Individual words and phrases must be an exact match (e.g. 'car' does not include 'cars')

          Note: You can add multiple criteria to a single rule,

  6. Specify the action(s) that should automatically take place

    1. …then take this action

      1. Apply Tag - when the criteria selected in Step 5 match, automatically apply a tag to the message

        • Tags must already be created via the Content - Tags section to select them.

        • There is no limit to the number of tags you may select.

      2. Change Sentiment - when the criteria selected in Step 1 match, automatically change the sentiment of the message

        • You can only select one sentiment to apply

      3. Hide Post - when the criteria selected in Step 1 match, automatically hide the message on the native channel

        Note: You can add multiple actions to a single rule. For example, when a message matches the criteria, Apply tag, Change sentiment, AND Hide post.

  7. Click Create


Limitations for Owned Social Accounts

Hiding and Deleting

  • You can hide Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn Comments and Replies

    • Note: For LinkedIn, “Hide” will completely delete the native post.

  • All other social channels will NOT hide/delete (Google Business, TikTok, X, YouTube)

Note: Hiding Posts does not include direct messages (DMs).

Editing Sentiment

  • You can't edit sentiment for YouTube and TikTok (they don't allow us to detect sentiment at all - all will reflect "Not rated")

  • You can edit sentiment on all other social channels.

Note: Automation doesn’t work retroactively.


Editing and Deleting Rules

Editing Existing Rules

  1. Click the Content drop-down in the left-hand navigation bar

  2. Select Automation

  3. Hover over the rule you want to edit

  4. Click Edit

Deleting Existing Rules

  1. Click the Content drop-down in the left-hand navigation bar

  2. Select Automation

  3. Hover over the rule you want to edit

  4. Click Delete


💡 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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