Article updated: April 17, 2025
Data sources and social media coverage
Hootsuite Listening (powered by Talkwalker) collects data from an extensive list of sources. You can enable or disable specific source types in your project settings.
Go to Listening, select Settings
, select the General Settings tab, select Media Types, and then select the platforms you want to include in your results.
Data sources
Talkwalker collects data from a large number of online sources, including:
- online newspapers, magazines, and news sites
- TV and radio
- podcasts
- newsletters
- blogs
- forums
- Disqus (global comment platform for managing comments on blogs and news sites)
Social media
See the following sections for details on coverage for different social media platforms. You can use Boolean operators to narrow down your search results based on specific platforms. For details about Boolean operators for social media, see Platform-specific Boolean operators.
Listening automatically tracks Facebook mentions that match your Quick Search or Topic Insights queries using Talkwalker's Facebook catalog, an extensive repository of 100,000 indexed public Facebook Pages. Talkwalker collects organic posts from public Pages in the catalog, but does not collect comments or replies on those posts.
You can monitor Facebook Pages for which you have administrator permissions by connecting those accounts to Listening and then adding them as monitored channels. You can also monitor public Facebook Pages by adding them as public channels in Listening. Learn about connecting social accounts and adding channels to your Listening project.
When you add a Facebook channel, Talkwalker can retrieve posts from the previous 400 days. Data coverage for Facebook depends on the type of Page you are monitoring. See the following sections for more details.
Facebook post data
The following table describes the data collected for Facebook posts on monitored channels.
| Data | Owned Page | Public Page |
|---|---|---|
| Post content (owner and audience) | ||
| Post type | ||
| Post media (video, picture) | ||
| Post URL | ||
| Number of shares | ||
| Number of Facebook reactions | ||
| Number of comments | ||
| Content of comments (owner and audience) | ||
| Commenter's name | ||
| Commenter's profile pic | ||
| Post reach (actual) | ||
| Post impressions | ||
| Post link clicks | ||
| Engaged users | ||
| Complete video views | ||
| Number of Facebook followers | ||
| Page mentioned in posts (partial coverage) | ||
| Page mentioned in comments |
Facebook author data
The following table describes the data collected for Facebook authors on monitored channels.
| Data | Owned Page | Public Page | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Author type | Posts from a Public Page | ||
| Posts from a private user account | |||
| Public Page metadata | Name | ||
| Author URL | |||
| Bio | |||
| Profile picture | |||
| Private user metadata | Name | ||
| Author URL | |||
| Bio | |||
| Profile picture | |||
Facebook video data
The following table describes the data collected for owned Facebook videos on monitored channels.
| Data | Owned Page | Public Page |
|---|---|---|
| Total number of video views | ||
| Video views distributed by organic and paid | ||
| Complete video views | ||
| Complete video views distributed by organic and paid | ||
| Video views distributed by autoplay and click-to-play | ||
| Unique video viewers |
Facebook stories data
The following table describes the data collected for owned Facebook stories on monitored channels.
| Data | Owned Page | Public Page |
|---|---|---|
| Number of Facebook shares | ||
| Number of Facebook reactions | ||
| Number of Facebook followers | ||
| Number of Facebook post video views | ||
| Facebook engagement (sum of shares and reactions) | ||
| Facebook reach | ||
| Facebook impressions |
Listening (powered by Talkwalker) collects Instagram data from posts, comments, tags, stories, and mentions on owned Instagram accounts, posts on non-owned Business and Creator accounts (through public channel monitoring), and public Instagram posts (through hashtag tracking).
You can monitor Instagram accounts that you own by connecting them to Listening and then adding them as monitored channels. You can also monitor public Instagram accounts by adding them as public channels in Listening. Learn about connecting social accounts and adding channels to your Listening project.
Talkwalker uses its own methodology to infer location based on a model that takes several parameters into consideration, such as author bio content (including emoji flags), country code, domain URL linked from the profile, user name, and profile publications language.
Data coverage for Instagram depends on the type of account you are monitoring, and whether you are using hashtag tracking. See the following sections for more details.
Note: Instagram data is not available with Listening Basics.
Instagram post data
The following table describes the data collected for Instagram posts on monitored channels.
| Data | Hashtag tracking | Owned account | Non-owned account |
|---|---|---|---|
| Number of posts | |||
| Post captions | |||
| Post media | |||
| Instagram reels | |||
| Post type (photo, video, carousel, reel) | |||
| Post URL | |||
| Timestamp | |||
| Number of likes | |||
| Number of comments | |||
| Comments content | |||
| Potential reach | |||
| Actual post reach | |||
| Post impressions | |||
| Post engagements | |||
| Video views | |||
| Account mentioned in posts and reels | |||
| Comments on posts that mention account | |||
| Account mentioned in comments | |||
| Account tagged in media | |||
| Comments on posts that tag account in media |
Instagram author data
The following table describes the data collected for Instagram authors on monitored channels.
| Data | Hashtag tracking | Owned account | Non-owned account | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Author type | Posts from a Business or Creator account | |||
| Posts from a user account | ||||
| Author metadata | Name | |||
| Author URL | ||||
| Bio | ||||
| Profile picture | ||||
| Number of followers |
Note: You get posts published by other Business or Creator accounts or private users if you are tagged in the post or media. Additionally, you get comments on your owned posts, regardless of who writes them, as well as comments where your Page was tagged in.
Instagram Stories data
The following table describes the data collected for owned Instagram stories on monitored channels.
| Data | Hashtag tracking | Owned account | Non-owned account |
|---|---|---|---|
| Total stories | |||
| Story media | |||
| Story reach | |||
| Story replies | |||
| Story completion rate | |||
| Story total interactions distributed by taps forward, exits, or taps back |
Instagram Reels data
The following table describes the data collected for Instagram reels on monitored channels.
| Data | Hashtag tracking | Owned account | Non-owned account |
|---|---|---|---|
| Number of likes | |||
| Number of comments | |||
| Content of comments | |||
| Follower count | |||
| Reach | |||
| Number of times saved | |||
| Number of shares | |||
| Total interactions |
Note: When you connect an owned Instagram account to Listening or add a non-owned Instagram account as a public channel, Talkwalker adds reels from the past 400 days as historical data. For new hashtag channels, Talkwalker adds reels from the previous 24 hours.
Hashtag monitoring limitations
Instagram limits the number of hashtags you can track with Business or Creator accounts. Each linked Business or Creator account can track up to 30 hashtags within a rolling 7 day period. If you remove a hashtag from your tracked hashtag list before the 7 day period ends, it still counts toward the 30 hashtag limit.
In addition, keep the following in mind:
- Instagram does not provide a user name or user handle in API data. However, you can access the post manually by selecting the mention in the results.
- Only content published within the previous 24 hours is returned (no historical data is available).
- Instagram does not provide publication date or follower count for mentions returned with hashtag tracking.
Instagram Collab posts
Instagram Collabs allow Instagram users to co-author Feed Posts (including videos) and Reels with others. The co-authored post or Reel appears on the Instagram profiles of each collaborator, and is shared to each collaborator's followers. Instagram Collab posts list all Instagram handles in the header as the post’s or Reel’s authors.
While the co-authored content shows up in each collaborator's feed on Instagram, the Instagram API only delivers feed posts for the first author listed. If you are only monitoring the Instagram account of the second author listed in the post, the post won’t appear in your results.
Listening (powered by Talkwalker) collects video content, audience comments, and brand mentions on owned TikTok Business accounts.
To collect TikTok data for your topics, you must connect a TikTok account to Listening (to generate a token that allows Talkwalker to access the platform on your behalf), and then add the TikTok accounts you want to monitor as channels. Learn about connecting social accounts and adding channels to your Listening project.
Note: TikTok data is not available with Listening Basics.
TikTok post-level data
The following data is collected for owned video posts on monitored channels:
- Post content and URL
- Author name and profile URL
- Publication date and time
- Thumbnail
- Source country (based on language of content)
- Number of likes
- Number of shares
- Number of comments
- Comments on post, including:
- commenter name
- number of TikTok followers on commenter's account
- number of replies
- number of likes on comment
- Post reach (based on the total number of unique view of the video)
- Number of followers for TikTok profile (when the post was fetched)
- Number of video views
- Number of completed video views
- Video completion rate (as a percentage of total video views)
- Video length
- Video view time (total watch time for the video, aggregated across all video views)
- Average video view time (average watch time for the video across all video views
TikTok mention-level data
The following data is collected for posts that mention monitored TikTok channels (either in video posts or in comments):
- Post content and URL
- Post author name
- Publication date and time
- Thumbnail
- Comment count (for posts)
- Commenter name
- Number of likes (for both posts and comments)
- Number of shares (for posts)
- Number of video views (for posts)
- Reach (for posts)
- Number of followers on the TikTok account (for both posts and comments)
Listening (powered by Talkwalker) collects data from posts and replies on owned Threads accounts.
To collect Threads data for your topics, you must connect a Threads account to Listening (to generate a token that allows Talkwalker to access the platform on your behalf), and then add the Threads accounts you want to monitor as channels. Learn about connecting social accounts and adding channels to your Listening project.
Note: Threads data is not available with Listening Basics.
Threads post-level data
The following data is collected for Threads posts on monitored channels:
- Post content
- Post media (video, image)
- Post URL
- Timestamp
- Number of likes
- Number of replies (does not include replies to replies)
- Content of replies [??]
- Number pf reposts
- Number of quote-posts
- Number of views
- Number of followers for Threads profile (when mention was fetched)
Listening (powered by Talkwalker) collects X data from posts, replies, and mentions on both owned accounts and non-owned accounts (through public channel monitoring). You can also monitor the results of a search on X using keywords or hashtags.
You can monitor your own X accounts for advanced insights on your account activities by connecting those accounts to Listening. You can also monitor public X accounts by adding them as public channels. Learn about connecting social accounts and adding channels to your Listening project.
Talkwalker has access to the entire X Firehose, for full X coverage. However, the coverage provided by the X API depends on the type of monitoring. See the following sections for more details.
X post data
The following table describes the data collected for X posts.
| Data | Query tracking | Owned account | Non-owned account |
|---|---|---|---|
| Content | |||
| Type | |||
| Media (text, video) | |||
| URL | |||
| Replies count | |||
| Timestamp | |||
| Number of reposts | |||
| Number of likes | |||
| Number of quote tweets | |||
| Number of followers | |||
| Number of replies | |||
| Content of replies mentioning account (or mentioning keyword or hashtag) | |||
| Content of reposts mentioning account (or mentioning keyword or hashtag) | |||
| Content of quote tweets | |||
| Actual reach | |||
| Potential reach | |||
| Tweet impressions | |||
| Bookmarks | |||
| URL clicks (owner content only) | |||
| Profile clicks (owner content only |
X author data
The following table describes the data collected for X authors.
| Data | Query tracking | Owned account | Non-owned account |
|---|---|---|---|
| Name | |||
| Author URL | |||
| Bio | |||
| Profile picture | |||
| Verification checkmarks (blue, gold, or grey) |
Listening (powered by Talkwalker) collects Bluesky data from posts, replies, and shares. Talkwalker has access to the entire Bluesky Firehose, with historical data going back to January 1, 2025. The data is automatically available, so you don't need to connect a Bluesky account or add a public channel to begin monitoring Bluesky mentions.
Bluesky post data
The following data is collected for individual Bluesky posts:
- Post content
- Post media (video, image)
- Post URL
- Timestamp
- Number of shares
- Number of likes
- Number of replies
- Content of replies
- Engagement
- Quote-posts
Bluesky author data
The following author metadata is collected for individual Bluesky posts:
- Author name
- Author's Bluesky URL
- Author's handle
- Author profile picture
Listening (powered by Talkwalker) collects LinkedIn data, such as posts and comments, from LinkedIn Company pages for which you have Super Admin permissions.
You can only monitor owned LinkedIn pages and metrics. Listening only collects owned posts and their associated audience comments. Reposts of any content published by another Page are not included in your LinkedIn results. The engagement metric is only available for content published in the last 30 days.
When you connect a new LinkedIn account to Listening, Hootsuite fetches posts from the previous 400 days (to a maximum of 10,000 posts) as historical data. Learn about connecting social accounts and adding channels to your Listening project.
Note: LinkedIn data is not available with Listening Basics.
LinkedIn post data
The following data is collected for individual posts on owned LinkedIn Company pages:
- Post content
- Post type
- Post media (video, image)
- Timestamp
- Number of likes
- Number of shares
- Number of comments
- Number of clicks
- Number of impressions
- Content of comments (excluding comments on comments)
- Commenter’s name
- Video views (for video content)
- Unique viewers (for video content)
- Average view duration (for video content)
- Mentions of owned monitored organization (Company Page)
- Quote posts
Listening (powered by Talkwalker) collects mentions based on YouTube users, videos, and search terms.
You can monitor a specific YouTube channel, or an individual YouTube video, to get video metrics and comments. For individual videos, add the YouTube video URL as a channel to get the best coverage. Learn about adding channels to your Listening project.
You can also monitor YouTube results for one or more keywords that show up in video descriptions and comments. The search returns matching results directly from YouTube and not only the results that are already available in the Talkwalker database, so make sure that your keyword search is as specific as possible.
YouTube video data
The following table describes the data collected for YouTube videos.
| Data | Query monitoring | Video or Shorts | Channel |
|---|---|---|---|
| Video title | |||
| Video description | |||
| Author name | |||
| Video URL | |||
| Timestamp | |||
| Number of likes | |||
| Number of views | |||
| Number of comments | |||
| Content of comments (owner and audience) | |||
| Commenter's name | |||
| Commenter's avatar | |||
| Commenter's URL |
Note: For query monitoring, you get the video title and video descriptions on video posts. In addition, you only get the content of comments that contain the keyword or keyword phrase in the query.
YouTube user data
The following table describes the data collected for YouTube users.
| Data | Query monitoring | Video or Shorts | Channel |
|---|---|---|---|
| Number of posts | |||
| Number of owner comments | |||
| Number of audience comments | |||
| Number of views | |||
| Number of likes | |||
| Total subscribers | |||
| New subscribers |
Listening (powered by Talkwalker) has access to Pinterest data through crawling. You can monitor any Pinterest accounts or Pinterest boards (saved or pinned pins) when you add them as public channels. Learn about adding channels to your Listening project.
Pinterest mentions (and hashtags) that match your topic search term are included in your topic results. These mentions or hashtags come from either monitored accounts or boards, or from Talkwalker’s internal catalog, built from popular boards and top accounts.
Although you don’t need to generate an access token for Pinterest data, you need to add relevant Pinterest accounts or boards as public channels. When you set up a new Pinterest channel, you get a maximum of 30 days of historical data for created pins, and saved pins (for each board, up to 100 posts).
The following data is collected for each Pinterest mention:
- Author name
- Author profile photo
- URL
- Content
- Creation date and time
- Board name
- Number of reactions (Love, Good Idea, Thanks, Wow, Haha)
- Pins
- Repins (shares)
- Comments count (for each pin and repin)
- Number of followers
- Likes
Note: Engagement is the sum of the number of comments, number of repins, and reactions. Reach is the number of followers.
Listening (powered by Talkwalker) collects mentions from all active subreddits (and a large majority of historical top subreddits). Talkwalker has access to the Reddit Firehose through the Reddit API, which ensures full coverage. Reddit mentions that match keywords in your search terms are automatically included in your search results.
Note: Reddit data is not available with Listening Basics.
Listening provides the following data for each Reddit mention:
- Engagement (sum of comments and total votes; for posts prior to July 2024, number of comments)
- Upvotes
- Downvotes
- Total votes (sum of upvotes and downvotes)
- Subreddit subscribers
- Reddit Karma (user’s contribution to Reddit)
- Comments (by user)
LINE is an instant messaging and social media app which gained significant popularity in the JAPAC region, especially in Japan, where it has become the top-rated social media platform with a substantial user base.
Listening (powered by Talkwalker) maintains a pool of data from monitored LINE Official Accounts from which it matches results against relevant search terms.
Note: Only Official Accounts accessible from the browser can be included in Listening coverage. Listening cannot monitor accounts that are only accessible through the LINE app.
You can isolate LINE data by using a dedicated Boolean operator (sourcetype:SOCIALMEDIA_LINEOA) in your search query. You can search for results from specific accounts by using the author: or authorshort: Boolean operators with the account names.
LINE mention data
Listening provides the following data for each LINE mention:
- Author name
- Author profile photo
- URL (opens the account’s Mixed media feed on LINE as it is not possible to link directly to posts.)
- Content
- Publication date and time
LINE post data
Listening provides the following data for each LINE post returned in the results:
- Comments count
- Number of likes
- Number of shares
- Number of profile’s friends
- Number of profile followers (Note that not all Official Accounts have the number of Profile Followers available by default as this option needs to be manually enabled in the account’s settings directly on LINE.)
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