Choosing keywords

Selecting the right keywords is the most important steps for successful social listening.

General Tips

🎯 Be specific Avoid overly broad industry terms like "marketing", "software" or "broker". These will clutter your inbox with irrelevant posts and quickly use up your monthly quota.

🔍 Test and tweak If you're not seeing any hits after a few hours or days, try broadening your keyword. If you're getting too much noise, narrow it down. This process often takes a few rounds to get right. If you want to get started fast, consider creating both broad and narrow listeners for the same terms. They will give you duplicate notification, but you will be able to compare better what works well for you.

🪙 Use long-tail keywords Long tail keywords may generate fewer hits, but the posts they surface typically have higher intent or relevance. However, keep in mind that your keyword will only trigger matches if its used exactly as you define it. Generally, the keyword should be mostly used to narrow down the monitored content, while the AI filtering step does the fine selection.

Types of Keywords to Monitor

1. Your Brand and Product Names

Your own name is one of the most important keywords to track. If someone mentions your company, you want to know.

Example: We monitor for "Redmonitor" to catch brand mentions across platforms.

These are terms your audience uses when talking about the space you're in.

Example: At Redmonitor, we track "social listening" and "social media monitoring".

If you run an email marketing tool, you might monitor "email deliverability" or "email bounce rate".

Those type of discussions generate great opportunities for engaging with potential customers.

3. Your Competitors' Names

Tracking your competitors can uncover powerful insights and opportunities:

Spot user complaints — jump in with a better alternative.
Get content inspiration from their social strategy.
See what customers love — use that to inform your roadmap.

Example: A post saying "Looking for alternatives to [Competitor]" is a perfect chance to join the conversation.

Final Tip: Start Small, Then Expand

When starting out, don't track everything at once. Begin with 3-10 focused keywords and refine as you go based on the types of posts that come in.