Create a Basic Alert

Learn how to create and structure a Basic Alert in your account

Rodrigo Araujo avatar
Written by Rodrigo Araujo
Updated over a week ago

Mention Alerts are your monitoring tools that will fetch relevant data from the web and social media. You will need to create an alert in order to review data from the web. On top of this, Alerts will grant you access to features that are included in your subscription such as the Feed or Analytics.

In this article, you will learn how to create a Basic Alert. Basic Alerts allow you to monitor general topics on the web and social media using keyword searches and monitored pages.

This is a great alert to use if you are new to media monitoring or if you want to monitor a generic topic without using too many search keywords.

Here are the topics that will be covered in this article:


Basic Alert Configuration

Before you begin creating a Basic Alert, it is important to understand what you can monitor with this alert. Here is a breakdown of the features available within the Basic Alert:

Keyword Monitoring:

  • Monitor up to 15 search words or phrases:

    • 5 Required Keywords

    • 5 Optional Keywords

    • 5 Excluded Keywords

📖 For a complete overview of keyword boxes, you can check out this article: Basic Alert - Keyword Principles

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Sources:

Monitor the following sources for the alert:

  • Facebook (Only available on Pro, Pro Plus, and Company Plans)

  • Instagram

  • Twitter/X

  • Forums

  • Reddit

  • Blogs

  • Videos

  • News

  • Web

  • YouTube (Only available on Pro, Pro Plus, and Company Plans)

  • Pinterest (Only available on Pro, Pro Plus, and Company Plans)

  • TikTok (Only available on Pro, Pro Plus, and Company Plans)

  • Radio & TV* (Only available on Pro, Pro Plus, and Company Plans)

⚙️ Radio & TV monitoring is an add-on feature. Please contact [email protected] for more information on this feature.

❗ Basic Alerts do not monitor Historical Data. Mention will fetch new content that appears on the web after your alert is created.

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Monitored Pages:

Fetch all of the new posts from specific social pages and review sites:

  • Social Pages:

    • Facebook Business Page URLs

    • Instagram Business Account URLs

    • Twitter/X Account URLs

    • LinkedIn Business Page Urls (Only available on Company Plans)

  • Review Websites:

    • Mention has a dedicated list of 50+ accepted URLs available in your Alert.

  • Website URL:

    • Monitor a specific website URL that interests you.

⚙️ The number of URLs that you can add to your Basic Alert will be based on your Mention Subscription. Within your alert, you will have a quota bar to designate the number of pages available.

❗ Monitored Pages do not fetch Historical Data. Mention will fetch new content that appears on the web after your alert is created.

📖 To learn about this type of monitoring, please head over to this article: Monitored Pages in Alerts

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Additional Configurations & Filters:

  • Block any URLs that you do not want to monitor.

  • Filter data from your alerts with language and country filters.


Navigate the Alert Creation Page (Tutorial Video)

Now that you understand the configuration of the Basic Alert, you can begin creating your own alerts at any time. Feel free to check out this tutorial video to show you how to create your new Basic Alert with ease:


Overview of Alert Creation - Guide & Best Practices

In this section, we will go over the steps you will take to create your first alert and provide you with additional resources for multiple features included in your account:

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1. Open the Alert Creation page

To get started, head over to the top of your Feed and click on the Add a New Alert button. From the list of alerts, click on the Basic Alert option to open the Creation Page:

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2. Name your Alert

In the first tab, you can give your alert a title. The title of your alert will help you distinguish it in the Feed and in your Analytics:

When you write a title, you have the option of:

  • Choosing an auto-generated name from the drop-down menu

  • Choosing the 'use << >>" option at the bottom to pick the specific title you wrote.

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3. Keyword Configurations

The next section will be the Keywords tab where you can define your search query:

You have the option of adjusting the required, optional, and excluded keywords that you want to monitor on the web and social media.

⚙️ By default, the title of your alert will be listed as the first required keyword. You can remove this at any time to modify your query.

📖 The keyword boxes work together to create your search queries. For an overview of the keyword boxes and extra tips, check out this article: Basic Alert - Keyword Principles

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4. Alert Creation Assistant & Mention Preview

Within your Basic Alert, you have resources to assist you with keyword search creation:

  • Alert Creation Assistant: the assistant will suggest new keywords and hashtags based on the current words or phrases in your alert. You can use this assistant to find new search terms that will enhance your alert.

  • Mention Preview: the preview will display the estimated number of mentions you might receive over the course of 30 days. It will indicate your potential quota consumption for the alert that you are building.

The Assistant and Mention Preview will appear on the right-hand side of your alert:

💡 Mention Tip - The Alert Creation Assistant and Mention Preview will update in real time as you modify your query.

  • For the Assistant, the suggestions will change as you modify the keywords in your search boxes.

  • For the Mention Preview, you will see a button titled "Preview" which will refresh the preview with your new alert configurations.

⚙️ The Mention Preview will indicate the potential number of mentions you might receive over the course of 30 days. The number that you see in the preview is based on stored data from our database.

📖 For more information on the Alert Creation Assistant, check out this article: Optimize your Search with the Alert Creation Assistant


5. Sources & Blocked Websites

Next, you have the Sources section and Blocked Websites box:

The Sources section will allow you to choose the platforms and type of websites that you want to monitor. These are the sources your alert will monitor when the alert is created.

The Blocked Website box is where you can paste the URLs of websites you want to exclude from your monitoring.

We recommend turning off the sources you don't want to monitor and excluding websites in order to preserve your Mention Quota.

💡 Mention Tip - The Mention Preview will adapt to the sources your block. If you block a source, you can go back to the Mention Preview and preview the new amount of mentions you will receive. This is a great way to lower the expected Quota consumption of your alerts.

📖 If you would like to learn more about each Source that mention monitors, check out this article: Sources that Mention Keyword Crawls

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6. Apply Country or Language Filters

You can add Country or Language filters to your alert to specifically target the areas that interest you. This is another great way to conserve your Quota for mentions:

⚙️ Your alert is pre-set to monitor all countries on the web and social media. You can monitor up to 10 countries if you decide to modify your alert.

💡 Mention Tips

  • Unknown Countries Filter - Mention utilizes data provided by websites and social media to determine their country origin. Some websites might not include a country code in their configuration. You can utilize the Unknown Country filter to ensure that mentions are not missed if they come from a website without a country origin.

  • Alert Creation Assistant - the Alert Creation is available in the Countries and Languages tab. The Assistant will recommend the countries and languages that are popular with your search query in mind.

❗Mention cannot bypass VPN's or fake locations listed from websites and social media accounts. However, there are parameters built into your alert to ensure that you fetch the most accurate data when a language or country filter is applied.

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7. Choose your Monitored Pages

The next section the Monitored Pages where you can add social media and review website URLs to your alert:

This section is divided into two tabs:

  • Social Pages : monitor all new posts from social media pages

  • Review Websites : monitor all new posts from specific review websites

⚙️ To view the list of Review Sites that you can monitor, please head over to the Review Site tab and click on the button titled "list of supported sites":

💡 Mention Tip - Monitor Extra Content for Facebook & Twitter/X

  • When you add a Facebook Page URL, you have the option of fetching new comments that are shared to the posts from the page

  • When you add a Twitter/X URL, you have the option of fetching:

    • Replies to the tweets from the Twitter/X account you are monitoring.

    • Accounts that retweet the original posts of the URL you are monitoring.

📖 To learn about Monitored Pages, please head over to this article: Monitored Pages in Alerts


Thank you! If you have any questions, please contact [email protected].

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