Using platform data and powerful modeling designed by data scientists who are experts in social media, Later's Social Listening tool delivers insights that enable you to spend less time analyzing content and more time creating it! 

This article covers how to set up Social Listening in your Later Social account, how it works, and the insights available.

Important:

• Social Listening is available on Later's Enterprise plan
  • Book a demo to get started
• Social Listening is currently only available on desktop (not on mobile)
• Brand Health is currently available for Instagram business and creator profiles, TikTok Business Accounts, Facebook Pages, and X (formerly Twitter) profiles
• Topics are currently only available for Instagram business or creator profiles, but more platforms are coming soon!
  • Due to API limitations, Instagram Stories are not included
• Social Listening data is updated hourly

What is Social Listening?

Social listening is a set of tools that provides insights by analyzing the interactions and sentiment surrounding social media content.

With an effective social listening strategy, you can:

• Track your overall brand sentiment
• Gather intel on competitors
• Monitor campaign performance
• Discover brand ambassadors and potential collaborators
• Validate your social strategy based on user sentiment
• Take steps based off of insights to manage your brand reputation

With social listening, you can uncover a variety of insights and intelligence that can be strategically applied to inform many areas of your business, from marketing to product development and more.

Later's Solution

Later's team of dedicated data scientists are continuously improving our proprietary data models that are powered by machine learning technology. These models are designed to process data from social media conversations that are then shared as impactful insights in our easy-to-use Social Listening solution.

Unlike other social listening solutions that offer information without direction, Later's Social Listening tool provides targeted insights to guide all levels of marketers in making impactful decisions regarding brand health, competitive analysis, and influencer campaign management.

Get Started With Social Listening Topics

Once Social Listening has been activated in your Later account, you'll need to authenticate your Instagram profile in order to set up custom topics. This step gives the tool the access it needs to provide tailored insights about your brand.

Authenticating your profile is quick and easy:

1. From Later for desktop, select Social Listening from the left sidebar
2. Select the Instagram business or creator profile you'd like to track insights for
   • If needed, refresh Later's connection to your Instagram profile first
3. Select Get Started

That's it! Next, you'll need to set up at least one topic to start collecting insights.

Create Topics for Instagram

One of the ways Later’s Social Listening tool delivers value is by reporting on saved topics that you set up for Instagram. Topics are custom search queries that you set up based on use-cases, which might include tracking a campaign or competitor. Each topic has filters applied so it will 'listen' for social media interactions matching your query. Social Listening topics will continuously gather, synthesize, and analyze new data over time.

To start gathering insights, you'll have to set up at least one topic:

1. From Later for desktop, select Social Listening from the left sidebar
2. Select Create New Topic in the sidebar
   
   Tip: The number of topics you have remaining is also displayed in the sidebar.
3. Enter a Topic Title
   • This is what will show in the list of topics in the sidebar, so choose something descriptive you'll easily recognize
   • This can be edited later
4. Under What topics do you want insights on?, add the keywords you'd like to track and select the + icon (or press Enter/Return on your keyboard) after each one
   
   Note: Due to API restrictions from Instagram, a maximum of 30 unique keywords (hashtags) can be queried within a rolling 7-day period per authenticated profile. This limit is also shared with Later's Search by Hashtag feature. Subsequent queries of the same keyword within 7 days don't count against the limit. If you reach your keyword limit, you may need to delete topics that are tracking keywords to free up space, and then wait for your limit to reset before you can add more. Learn more
   • You can also leave this section blank if you only want to track profiles in your topic (see next step)
   • Keywords can contain letters, numbers, and underscores (don't include the hashtag symbol)
   • By default, topic criteria is based on or logic—if you'd like to track certain keywords only if they show up together, you can add and between them
     
     Example: Entering 'beach' and 'vacation' separately will track posts containing either keyword, but adding 'beach and vacation' together will only track posts that contain both of those keywords. In either case, both 'beach' and vacation' will count towards the 30 keyword limit.

   

5. Under What profiles do you want insights on?, enter the usernames of any Instagram profiles you'd like to track and select the + icon (or press Enter/Return on your keyboard) after each one
   • You can also leave this section blank if you only want to track keywords in your topic (see previous step)
   • Only business and creator profiles can be tracked (not personal profiles)
   • Don't include the @ symbol
   • Content from these profiles will tracked in addition to any keyword topics entered above
6. [Optional] Select More Filters to:
   • Enter any keywords and/or profiles you'd like to exclude from your topic so that they don't influence your data
     • You may want to exclude terms that are similar to your keywords, but refer to different topics
       
       Example: If you're monitoring discussions about "Apple" the technology company, you might want to exclude terms like "apple pie" or "apple orchard" to avoid capturing unrelated content.
     • When entering exclusions, follow the same method described in steps 4 and 5 above
   • Link this topic to a Later Influence campaign by selecting Yes next to Is this a campaign for Later Influence? and entering your campaign's URL
     
     Tip: Linking your topic to a Later Influence campaign will activate the Creators Recommended For You section under Key Topic Insights. Learn more
7. When you're ready, select Create Topic to save your topic configuration and start collecting data
   • After creating a new topic, there will be a short delay while the initial data is processed—we suggest refreshing the page after 5 minutes
8. Repeat the steps above for any additional topics you'd like to set up

Edit Topics

To edit an existing topic:

1. Navigate to the topic and select the pencil icon near the top left of the page:
   
2. You can edit its title, whether the topic is for a Later Influence campaign, and if so, the URL of the campaign
   
   Note: It's not currently possible to edit a topic's filters (its tracked keywords, profiles, and exclusions). To change the filters for a topic, we recommend duplicating it to use as a starting point, then saving the duplicate with your updated filters. After that, you can delete the original topic if it's no longer needed (keeping in mind this will also delete its insights, which can't be restored).
3. Select Save

Duplicate Topics

To duplicate (make a copy of) an existing topic:

1. Navigate to the topic and select the copy icon near the top left of the page:
   
2. Update the topic title and/or any filters as needed
3. Click Create Topic
4. [Optional] Delete the original topic if it's no longer needed (keeping in mind that data from deleted topics can't be restored)
   • This can be helpful to free up keywords from your limit, if the original topic is tracking keywords that are no longer relevant

Delete Topics

To delete a topic:

1. Navigate to the topic and select the trash can icon:
   
2. Select Delete

Topic Insights

Once you have your Instagram topic(s) set up, you can analyze them across several sections that are detailed below.

Latest Posts

These are the most recent Instagram posts that match your topic, ordered from newest to oldest, along with how many likes and comments they've received.

If your topic contains keywords and/or profiles, it will initially display recent posts that match. New posts will continue to be collected each day.

Key Topic Insights

Under Related Words, a word cloud of the most frequently-used hashtags and keywords will be displayed. The larger the word, the more often it has been used. You can hover over each word to see exactly how many times it has been used: 

This can be useful for discovering new relevant keywords or hashtags that you might want to start tracking. (Similarly, if a word shows up that you don't want to track, you might want to consider adding it as an exclusion in your topic.)

New Instagram Posts From Your Topic plots how many Instagram posts matching your topic have been published each day since the topic was set up. Post Types next to it contains a pie chart breaking down what types of posts they were (Reels, Images, or Carousels) for the same time period:

This can be useful for analyzing how often your topic is posted about, as well as identify when there tend to be spikes in posts about it.

Top Performing Posts

These are the top-performing posts from the last 90 days that match your topic, based on the amount of engagement (likes and comments) they receive, ordered from most- to least-engaged.

Creators Recommended For You

These are creators we've identified as being potential good fits for future collaboration. Up to 50 creators will be displayed (10 per page), updated daily.

Select + Invite to Campaign to email the creator an application link to your Later Influence campaign.

Brand Insights

Social Listening’s Brand Insights monitor the overall health and performance of each of your connected Instagram and TikTok profiles and Facebook Pages.

To access Brand Insights:

1. From Later for desktop, select Social Listening from the left sidebar Brand Insights
2. Select the » (double chevron) icon to choose between your connected Instagram, TikTok, and X (formerly Twitter) profiles and Facebook Pages:
   

From here, you can toggle between the Brand Health and Brand Mentions sections, each of which is detailed below.

Brand Health

Discover how your brand is performing on Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, or X (formerly Twitter)—learn about the sentiment surrounding your brand, then take it a step further by diving into the exact posts and comments driving that sentiment.

Sentiment Snapshot

Sentiment is ranked on a proprietary scale, developed by our team of data scientists, from -1 (negative) to +1 (positive). Your brand's sentiment for the past 90 days (or since the date your topic was created) is plotted on the Sentiment Over Time graph using our proprietary scale, with red representing negative sentiment, blue representing neutral, and green representing positive. You can also hover over any date to show that day's exact sentiment score:

In addition, the Top Sentiment Drivers section below the graph displays the posts that have the highest impact on your sentiment score. Select any post to see how many likes and comments it has received; from there, you can also select See Detailed Post Performance to view its dedicated 2-week performance in a new tab.

Comment Monitoring

The Comment Sentiment section breaks down the sentiment of comments on your posts from the last 90 days. Same as above, the sentiment of a comment will be rated as positive (green), neutral (blue), or negative (red) based on our machine-learning model, and plotted in the pie chart accordingly.

Next to it, the Impactful Comments section contains comments on your posts from within the last 7 days that our data model identified as having the greatest impact on your sentiment score:

Performance Benchmarking

Benchmarking takes your profile's past performance and uses that data to predict its future performance. In addition, your actual performance (shown in blue) is then benchmarked against this prediction (shown in red):

Performance can be measured by any of the metrics contained in the dropdown menu, which includes:

• Reach: Unique accounts that viewed your posts
• Website Clicks: Unique accounts that clicked your Instagram bio link
• Profile Views: Times your profile has been viewed
• New Followers: Followers gained or lost

Brand Mentions

Find out who’s talking about you on Instagram and TikTok! Learn what they're saying and how they're saying it, and discover posts mentioning your brand that are receiving a high level of engagement.

The Mentions in Posts and Comments graph plots how many posts and comments by other profiles that your authenticated profile has been mentioned in over time. Next to it, the What You're Mentioned In graph breaks down the types of content where these mentions came from:

Top Posts You're Mentioned In lists the top posts (based on engagement) that your authenticated profile has been mentioned in, ordered from most- to least-engaged.

Comment Mentions Sentiment displays a breakdown of the sentiment of comments you're mentioned in (which may be on your own posts or posts made by others) from the last 90 days, based on our proprietary sentiment scale.

Next to it, Impactful Comments Mentions displays the comments you're mentioned in that have the greatest impact on your brand's sentiment from within the last 7 days. 

Themes From Your Mentions is similar to the Related Words section under Key Topic Insights,  displaying the most frequently-used hashtags and keywords from your mentions.

Profiles That Mention You displays a list of the profiles that mentioned you in a post or comment. Select View Profile to go to Instagram and explore their profile further.

Competitive Benchmarking

The Competitive Benchmarking tool allows you to compare the performance of up to 5 lists of Instagram accounts. Each list can contain 20 accounts.

Use this information to benchmark your account performance against key competitors and work on improving your competitive position. Your own account will also be included in this comparison automatically.

The following performance insights are compared:

• Followers: Number of followers on the last day of the selected date range
• Follower Growth Rate (%): Calculated based on the number of followers on the last day of the selected date range versus the first day
• Posts: Number of posts published during the date range
• Average Engagement Rate (%): Average engagement rate of all posts published during the date range (calculated as engagements ÷ by followers on the post’s publish date)
• Total Engagements: Total likes and comments on all posts publishing during the date range
• Likes: Total likes on all posts published during the date range
• Comments: Total comments on all posts published during the date range
• Share of Voice: The brand’s engagements compared to total engagements from all brands in the table (calculated as brand’s total engagements ÷ combined total engagements × 100)

At the top of the page, there will also be a leaderboard displaying the top competitors (out of those you’re tracking) for the following metrics:

• Highest Engagement Rate: Highest average engagement rate
• Most Talked About: Highest number of comments
• Most Active: Highest number of posts
• Largest Audience: Highest number of followers

To access and set up competitive benchmarking:

1. From Later for desktop, select Social Listening from the left sidebar > Competitive Benchmarking
2. Select the pencil icon from the top right or select Create New List
   
3. Under Competitor List Title, give your list a title
4. Under What competitors do you want insights on? enter the handle for any Instagram profiles you want to track, pressing enter after each one
   • These must be business or creator profiles (due to API limitations, personal profiles can’t be tracked)
   • You can track up to 20 competitors
5. Select which of your brands to compare with (if multiple)
6. Select Save Competitor List

By default, the last 7 days of data will be displayed, but the past 3 months of data will be available upon set up. You can adjust the date range from the date picker near the top right.

Future Insights

Discover upcoming trends in your industry with Future Insights, which help you get ahead of what’s coming by providing a clear view of current social trends, future industry-specific trends, and predicted hashtag performance.

Upcoming Trending Hashtags

This section displays top trending hashtags across social media. These aren’t related to a specific category, topic, or keyword.

Category Insights

This section contains insights based on your brand’s category. The AI-generated summary at the top describes the current trends and conversations happening overall in your category:

Note: {Category} in the screenshot above will be replaced with your specific category. Your category is automatically pulled from your profile data, but you can manually select a different one from the Future Insights settings by selecting the pencil icon from the top-right next to the date range:

Future Popular Trends and Future Niche Trends display word clouds and additional AI-generated summaries of popular future trends and niche future trends for your category, respectively. These insights can help you align your social strategy to what top voices are likely to be talking about in your category.

Future niche trends will always be smaller volumes than popular trends. Niche trends may be what a subset of your audience is interested in, or may fluctuate throughout the year based on holidays or seasonality. They also could be topics that might start to gain more traction soon.

Future Trending Hashtags

This section displays tables of hashtags, one for your category plus 2 other categories related to yours:

These are hashtags that are expected to be important or on-trend in the near future. You can choose to show predicted insights for the next 7 days or 14 days from the top-right. 

Hashtag Performance Predictions

This section displays the current and predicted growth of up to 10 specific hashtags that you select:

Based on current and future predicted performance, the hashtags are divided into the following sections:

• Growing: These hashtags are predicted to be on an upward trend in the upcoming week, regardless of the previous week (keep an eye on these!)
• Sustaining: These hashtags had some kind of trend (up or down) in the previous week, and are predicted to maintain that usage in the upcoming week
• Following General Trend: These hashtags are predicted to maintain their usual level of usage, based on the previous week
• Declining: These hashtags are predicted to be on a downward trend in the upcoming week, regardless of the previous week
  • This might be due to seasonal factors; for example, #summer2024 might start to decline as we enter into Autumn
• Not Enough Data to Track Trends: These are hashtags you’ve selected that don’t currently have enough data to be categorized into one of the above sections
  • For example, a hashtag for a particular campaign that hasn’t launched yet

You can manually select these hashtags when you set up Future Insights and change them at any time via the pencil icon at the top right of the page:

Export Social Listening Data

All Social Listening data can be exported in CSV file(s) using the export icon near the top-right of each page:

Tick the checkboxes next to the insights you'd like to include, then select Export to immediately download the file(s) directly to your computer.

Frequently Asked Questions

Are there any keyword limitations?

Due to API restrictions set by Instagram, only 30 unique keywords (hashtags) can be tracked per Instagram business profile at any given time. This limit applies over a rolling 7-day period, and is also shared with Later's Search by Hashtag feature. 

Subsequent queries of the same keyword within 7 days don't count against the limit, but new keywords can't be added until the limit resets. If you have topics tracking keywords on an ongoing basis, you may need to delete them to free up space and wait until your quota resets after 7 days. Once you free up some or all of your quota, you can start tracking more keywords. (If you've already reached the keyword maximum for your profile, you'll see an error when you try to create a new topic.)

To avoid hitting your keyword limit:

• Avoid using all 30 of your keywords at once in case you need to set up a new topic on short notice
• Use only the most impactful and relevant keywords when setting up your topic
• Be mindful of your use of Later's Search by Hashtag feature, since it counts against the same quota per profile
• Delete topics when they're no longer needed to free up keyword space
• If you have multiple Instagram profiles connected to your Later Social account, you can set up topics for each one (here's how), as each profile has its own keyword limit

How is sentiment measured?

Sentiment scoring is based on proprietary machine-learning models constructed by our dedicated team of data scientists. Sentiment is measured on a unique scale from -1 (negative) to +1 (positive), with neutral scores near the middle, specifically:

Why are my topics missing data?

Data begins getting collected and analyzed after you set up a topic. As a result, immediately after creation, new topics will have limited data available while metrics are collected and analyzed. In particular, any graphs that plot performance over time will take a few days to start populating actionable data, but you should start seeing initial insights shortly. (If you're not seeing data populate after a few minutes, try refreshing the page.)

As time progresses, your topics' data will become more comprehensive and relevant. To get the best value out of Social Listening, check back often to track how things are going—you'll uncover deeper insights and trends as time goes on!

Can I set up topics for more than one Instagram profile?

Yes, if you have multiple Instagram profiles connected to your Later Social account, you can set up Social Listening topics for each one.

If the other profile is in a different Access Group, switch into that Access Group and select Social Listening from the left sidebar. You'll be prompted to authenticate with an Instagram profile from that Access Group and then you can create a topic for it from there.

If the other profile is in the same Access Group, follow these steps:

1. From Later for desktop, select Social Listening from the left sidebar
2. Select Profile Settings at the bottom of the Topics sidebar:
   
3. Select the other Instagram profile
4. Select Get Started
5. Create a new topic for that profile
   • Any existing topics will continue to use the Instagram profile that was selected at the time they were created

Can I see Brand Insights for more than one profile?

Yes, Brand Health is available for all connected Instagram, TikTok, and X (formerly Twitter) profiles and Facebook Pages, and Brand Mentions is available for all connected Instagram and TikTok profiles.