Set up your Listening project

With Listening (powered by Talkwalker), you automatically have access to Talkwalker’s vast library of data sources, including online news, newsletters, podcasts, blogs, and more. However, to get social media mentions in your search results, you need to add one or more access tokens to your project to authorize Talkwalker to gather data from those platforms on your behalf, and then specify which Pages and profiles you want to monitor.

You must have Hootsuite administrator permissions to connect social accounts and add channels for monitoring.

About access tokens and channel monitoring

Talkwalker uses access tokens to gather social mentions from platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn. Access tokens can be your own or tokens from another user who has approved access to the social media platform for Talkwalker.

When you connect a social account to Listening, a token is created that allows Talkwalker to access data from the social platform on your behalf.

Once you have connected your social accounts, you need to add channels to your Listening project so that Talkwalker can monitor specific Pages for mentions that match your searches. For more information on the kind of data that Talkwalker collects, see Data sources and social media coverage.

Keep the following requirements in mind for social media monitoring in Listening:

• Facebook: Your personal Facebook account must have full access rights to the public Facebook Page you want to monitor.
• Instagram: The Instagram Business account you want to monitor must be linked to a public Facebook Page for which you have full access rights.
• LinkedIn: You must have Super Admin access rights on the LinkedIn Company page you want to monitor.

Connect your social accounts

You must have Hootsuite administrator permissions and administrator permissions on the social account to connect it to Listening.

1. Go to Listening and then select Settings.
2. Select the Connected Accounts tab.
3. Select the social media platform you want to add. You can select from the following platforms:
   • Facebook and Instagram
   • X/Twitter
   • LinkedIn
   • Vimeo
   • Threads
   • TikTok
4. In the authentication window, enter your credentials to log in to the social platform.
5. Review and confirm the permissions that you are granting to Talkwalker on your behalf.

   Note: It's important that you grant all permissions shown by the social platform to ensure that Talkwalker can retrieve the content you want to monitor. Talkwalker won't post or edit content, or access any of your personal information or conversations.

6. Once the platform authenticates your credentials, close the window.

Invite another user to authenticate a social account

If you don't have access to the social account that owns the Page you want to monitor, you can invite the account admin or another person with access to the account to authenticate for you, either by sharing a link with them or inviting them to authenticate the account by email.

For example, if you need insights from a client's Instagram page, you can ask them to generate an access token that allows you to collect data for them. They don't need to have Listening to authenticate the social account. They can connect their account by following the instructions in the email or by clicking on the link you share with them.

1. Go to Listening and then select Settings.
2. Select the Connected Accounts tab, and then select Invitations.
3. Choose one or more platforms from the Social media channels list.
4. Choose the way you want to invite them to authenticate:
   • By shared link: Select Generate a link. In the Generate a link window, select Copy link, then share the link with the person who can authenticate the account.
   • By email: Enter an email subject, and one or more email addresses (separated by commas). Customize your message or use the default message, then select Send invitations.

Add channels to monitor

Add up to 100 channels to your Listening project so that Talkwalker can gather mentions that match your topic from specific social accounts and Pages. You can add public Pages and accounts as well as Pages and accounts that you own.

The data available from the channel may vary depending on the social network and its specific restrictions. See Data sources and social media coverage for more information.

The following table lists the types of channels you can monitor in Listening.

Add a channel

You must have Listening administrator permissions to add channels. If you or someone on your team requires administrator permissions in Listening, contact our Customer Support team for help.

1. Go to Listening, and then select Settings .
2. Select the Public Channels tab, and then select Add a new channel.
3. In the Add a new channel window, select the type of social channel you want to monitor.
   If there is no account for the social platform already connected to Listening, you need to authenticate with the platform to add the channel. Select the authentication link to proceed.
4. For Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, or TikTok, Listening displays a list of owned accounts that the connected token(s) have access to. Select the channel you want to add from the list. Otherwise, enter the URL of the channel or video (for example, YouTube) you want to monitor, or enter a keyword or hashtag.
5. Select a channel in the Suggestions list, and then select Add channel.