Social listening is a tool for monitoring digital conversations. It helps understand what customers are saying about brands, products, and industries.
In Socialbakers, you can monitor social media content when you set up a query set consisting of keyword-based queries. The outcomes of such queries are listening mentions.
Once created, the query sets and queries:
- Can be used as data sources in Analytics and Content Hub.
- Can be managed in Community.
How to Create a Query Set and Queries?
Query sets define what content you want us to monitor for you, where we should search for it, and for how long it should collect the data.
The query sets are created in a three-step query set wizard in which you specify your keyword-based queries, set up your data sets, name the query set, and define the date ranges.
The process of setting up the whole query set is as follows:
Step 1: Setting Up a Query
A query is the base of each query set.
Queries are keyword-based and they are defined by a name and one or more text-based rules that specify what you want to monitor within each of them.
When naming your query, make sure the name is unique for the given query set. However, there might be queries with similar names as long as they are parts of different query sets.
- What is a keyword?
A keyword can be anything written in the text field: for example a word, a #hashtag, or a @mention.
To enter a keyword, write it down in the text field and press enter.
There’s no limit for the number of keywords; however, the maximum length of all the keywords combined can’t exceed 700 characters.
Keywords aren’t case-sensitive, so there’s no need to type both KEYWORD and keyword.
You can set up advanced conditioning and select whether the keywords should be included or not in the monitored posts. However, make sure each of your queries consists of at least one 'Include Condition' - It’s not possible to use Exclude Condition only.
- Are there any limits?
There’s a limit for the total number of queries (no matter if they are running, scheduled, paused, suspended, or done) per Listening package, for the basic package the limit is 10 queries.
Another limit is set for the number of active queries (those running or scheduled); for the basic package, it’s 5 queries.
Also, each query set can consist of up to 10 queries.
Step 2: Defining the Data Sources
When setting up a query set, you can choose what social media you want to monitor. There are three options to choose from – Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.
All three are selected by default, however, you can choose only one or combine them in a preferred way.
Also, an advanced settings option allows you to enrich the data set or narrow it down.
Learn more about the data sources and the advanced options of their combinations in this dedicated article.
Step 3: Summing Up the Query Set
In the last step, name your query set and specify how long you want it to run. Also, there’s the option to turn on the community management and, in some cases, you’d need to review the volume of expected content.
- Name and dates of the query set
There are no limitations for naming a query set as long as it’s not the same as the name of an already existing query set.
By default, the start date is set to 'now' and the end date as 'never'. You can schedule the date range for a specific day in the future (for example, for a specific campaign running during a limited time) or stop collecting data on a certain date.
- Community management
For users who would like to manage the detected listening mentions, there’s the opportunity to turn the Community management on for Listening. This triggers sending all the listening mentions to the Incoming feed in Content Hub from where the community managers can respond to the content.
- Reviewing the expected number of listening mentions
In some cases, it might happen that the query set could exceed the limit of your Listening package.
Before your query set starts running or is scheduled, we estimate the number of listening mentions it would collect. In case we expect a higher volume, we let you know so that you can narrow down your settings.
Once you reach the limit number of listening mentions, the query set gets temporarily suspended and it renews at the beginning of the following month.
When you reach the limit and the query set is suspended, we inform you in the settings’ overview table:
Query Set Status
Based on the scheduled dates and the limits of your account, the query set can be found in five different statuses – Running, Scheduled, Paused, Suspended, and Done.
- Running – The query set is collecting data within the specified date range.
- Scheduled – The query set will start collecting listening mentions on the scheduled date.
- Paused – This query set was paused by a Socialbakers’ user and it isn’t collecting any listening mentions.
- Suspended – The query set isn’t collecting any data because of reaching the monthly limit for the number of listening mentions. The data collection will be renewed at the beginning of the next calendar month when the limit renews.
- Done – The query set has already ended and it isn’t collecting any listening mentions.
What is an active query? - The status of the query set influences the status of a query. From time to time, we might refer to a limit of active queries.
Active queries are those that are running or scheduled as a part of a running or scheduled query set. Your Listening package defines the limit; you can increase it by contacting your account manager.
When Does the Data Collection Start and How Long Do You Keep the Data?
The query sets start collecting data depending on the date chosen in the last step of the query wizard: immediately (if the user chooses now as the start date) or on the scheduled date.
- It’s not possible to monitor data historically, before the day of the query set creation.
It can take up to a few hours (but less than a day) before the data is available for further use in Analytics and Content Hub. In Community, the data is usually available almost immediately, but it can take up to a few minutes.
For Analytics and Content Hub, the data is stored for 12 months; in Community feeds for 90 days after being collected.
Who Can Create Query Sets and Queries?
Only the users with the right to manage query sets and queries can create and edit them. Users without this permission can only review the already created query sets and queries in the respective sections.
Account admins have permission to create query sets and queries by default.