Customizing Listening Topic Insights

After you create a Topic in Sprout Social Listening, it gathers data so you can observe trends, uncover patterns and gauge emotional response with regards to particular keywords, hashtags, brands or industries.

You can view Topic Insights for any Active or Archived Topic. Archived Topic data is only available for the time period that Topic was active.  

Customizing Topic Insights

To view the insights that your Topic query pulls in, click the name of the Topic from the Listening screen in Sprout. You can also see a list of your active Topics in the Left Bar on the screen. 

The first time you go to review insights for a Topic, it can feel like there’s a lot to look at. To make the data more manageable and meaningful, start by selecting the date range you want to view insights for. You can select a custom date range for comparison by clicking on your desired dates. Once you select your date range, comparison metrics appear in the Topic Summary.

If you want more details, click and then click About these Insights to get a glossary with definitions, tips and tricks about your insights. 

Filter Menu

Use filter groups from the filter menu to further customize your insights. When you select filters, the message data you see throughout the Topic Insights (Performance, Conversation, Themes, and Messages) gets updated based on the filters you select. 

With the Sources filter, you can select which network and competitors you want to view insights from. If no network or competitors are selected, you see insights from all networks and competitors in the main screen. Select a particular network and/or competitor to only see those insights.

Use the Themes filter to isolate messages that relate to a certain Listening Theme. If no Themes are selected, you see insights from all Themes in the main screen. Select a particular Theme to only see those insights. 

Use Keyword filters to include or exclude keywords in the message insights. For instance, if you have a Brand Health Topic for your coffee company, but only want to review insights for messages that contain your brand name, enter your brand name in this box.

Apply additional filters to narrow your insights even more: Sentiment, Smart Categories, Content Type, Message Type, and Spam Classification.

Uncovering deeper Topic Insights

You can use data from the messages that appear in Insights to uncover trends in messages returned from your Listening Query. 

Hover over charts to view all messages associated with that metric or chart.

Highlight a word or phrase (up to three words) in a message to view all messages containing that word or phrase, include the word or phrase as a filter, exclude the word or phrase as a filter or exclude the word or phrase from your Topic Query.

Click a message author name to view messages from that author or include or exclude that author as a filter.

Topic Insights FAQ

How much historical data do I receive for a new Topic?
30 days of data is pulled automatically for all networks except Instagram. This should give you enough data to decide if your Topic is set up properly.

How far can data be backfilled?

Historical backfill data limitations are different. Please reference this article for more information on historical backfills for each network.

How often is data collected?

• X: New X messages brought in within two to three minutes of creation.
• Facebook: Checked once every four hours.
• Instagram, YouTube, Tumblr, Reddit: Checked once every four hours.
• Web: Checked once every 24 hours.

Why isn’t there engagement data for pulled X posts?
Engagement data is updated for X posts anytime there is a repost. If we don't receive a repost, or replies and likes happen after the last repost, we won't have the most recent number.

Why are some messages or comments not picked up by my Topic even though they contain the keyword?
It depends on the network. X is the only network where we are confident we will receive every message. Other sources are sample based, which is a limitation of the networks.

Why aren’t some Instagram messages being pulled when the Topic keyword is in the caption?
We find Instagram messages by hashtag. Even if the keyword appears in the post, it may not contain the hashtag meaning Instagram won’t send us the data.

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