How Monitoring Works

Everything you need to know about how Elfenfarm finds and collects posts from social media platforms.

Reading time: ~5 minutes

Two Types of Platforms

Elfenfarm monitors two fundamentally different types of platforms:

🔎 Keyword Search Platforms

These platforms have public search APIs. Elfenfarm searches for your configured keywords and returns matching posts.

Channel/Page Platforms

These platforms don't offer keyword search. Instead, Elfenfarm downloads all recent posts from your connected pages and then checks which ones match your keywords locally.

Channel platforms store all your posts regardless of keywords. Keyword matches are shown as badges, but nothing is filtered out — you always see your complete channel activity.

Geographic Scope

Keyword Search Platforms: Global by Default

Reddit, YouTube, Bluesky, and Mastodon search worldwide. There is no geographic filter at the API level — these platforms don't reliably support it.

Territory Filtering: Scoring, Not Blocking

If you configure territories in your campaign setup, posts are scored for geographic relevance after collection:

• 0.8–1.0 — Mentions institutions, cities, laws, or politicians from your territories
• 0.5–0.7 — Territory-specific references beyond shared language
• 0.2–0.4 — Topic overlaps but no geographic markers
• 0.0–0.1 — No connection to your territories

Language alone is never a territory signal. German is spoken in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, and elsewhere. A post in German doesn't automatically relate to any specific country.

Posts with low territory relevance are not deleted — they remain available but can be filtered in the post list.

Language Filtering: Hard Filter

Unlike territories, the language filter removes posts entirely. If your campaign is set to German and French, posts detected as English or Spanish are deleted during analysis. This prevents noise from irrelevant languages.

Manual vs. Automatic Collection

Manual Collection

You click "Search for Posts" to trigger a one-time scan across all configured platforms. Results appear within minutes.

Important: Some platforms have strict time windows:

• Reddit and Discord only return posts from the last 24 hours
• If you skip a day, those posts are permanently lost

Recommendation: Run manual search at least once daily to avoid gaps.

Automatic Collection (Premium/Enterprise)

With automatic collection enabled, Elfenfarm monitors continuously:

Automatic collection ensures no posts are missed, even on platforms with short time windows like Reddit.

How Posts Are Filtered

Each post goes through several stages:

1. Collection — Raw posts are fetched from the platform API
2. Keyword Matching — Posts are checked against your keywords using fuzzy matching (handles typos, plural forms, word order)
3. Language Filter — Posts in languages not configured for your campaign are removed
4. Sentiment Analysis — Each remaining post is analyzed for sentiment, alignment, and rhetorical style
5. Territory Scoring — If territories are configured, geographic relevance is assessed
6. Priority Calculation — Posts are ranked by urgency based on sentiment, engagement, recency, and relevance

Only posts that pass keyword matching (step 2) and language filtering (step 3) are kept. Territory scoring (step 5) adds information but doesn't remove posts.

Tips for Best Results

• Be specific with keywords — "climate policy Switzerland" finds more relevant posts than just "climate"
• Use keyword groups — Combine AND/OR/NOT logic for precise filtering
• Run daily if using manual collection — especially important for Reddit and Discord
• Consider automatic collection — Prevents gaps and ensures continuous monitoring
• Set language filters — Reduces noise significantly, especially for common keywords
• Use territories for scoring — Helps prioritize geographically relevant posts without losing global context

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