social · listening

Social Listening & Engagement Triage

How to surface the right posts to engage with each day — instead of randomly scrolling. The goal is a short, scorable list ("here are your top 10 posts to comment on") rather than an open feed.

Contents

• When to use this
• The daily triage loop
• Scoring rubric
• Comment quality tiers
• Sources & light tooling (curl recipes)
• Per-platform notes
• Common workflows

When to Use This

Use listening when the goal is commenting and relationships, not posting. Typical asks:

• "Give me the top 10 posts I should comment on today"
• "Who's complaining about [competitor] right now?"
• "Find people asking for a tool like mine"
• "Surface posts from my 20 target accounts in the last 24h"
• "What's the conversation around [topic] this week?"

If the user wants to create content, use the rest of the social skill. Listening feeds creation (it surfaces angles, language, objections), but the output is different.

The Daily Triage Loop

A repeatable 20-minute loop the user (or you, on their behalf) can run each morning.

1. Pull — fetch new posts from defined sources (target accounts, keywords, subreddits, hashtags). See tooling.
2. Filter — drop anything older than 24h, low signal, or off-topic.
3. Score — apply the rubric. Keep top 10.
4. Draft — for each, draft a comment matched to the post's tier.
5. Post — user reviews, edits, posts. Mark which actually went live.
6. Log — track what you commented on and what got replies. This is your engagement loop dataset.

Output format Claude should produce:

TOP 10 POSTS — 2026-06-05

1. [Score 9/10] @author — LinkedIn — 2h ago
   "We just rolled out X and the team is loving it…"
   Why: ICP fit (B2B SaaS, 50–200 employees), buying-intent signal
   Suggested comment: [draft]
   Link: https://…

Scoring Rubric

Score each post 1–10 across five dimensions, then sum and rank.

Intent signal examples (high-value):

• "Looking for a tool that does X"
• "Why is [category] so painful?"
• "We just switched from [competitor] because…"
• "Anyone use [competitor] — is it worth it?"
• A complaint about a known competitor

Drop if any of these are true:

• Author isn't ICP and isn't an influencer
• Post is >24h old and already has 50+ comments (your comment buries)
• Generic motivational/AI-slop post
• Self-promotion thread where comments don't get reach
• You can't add anything beyond "Great post!"

Comment Quality Tiers

Match the comment to the post. Don't waste a tier-1 draft on a tier-3 opportunity.

Tier 1 — Relationship builder (target accounts, ICP, high intent)

• Add a specific insight or counter-example
• Reference your own experience with specifics (numbers, names, outcomes)
• Ask a thoughtful follow-up that invites a reply
• Length: 2–4 sentences, no link

Tier 2 — Visibility play (high-reach post, adjacent topic)

• Add one sharp insight in one sentence
• Pattern: "Agreed — and the part most miss is [X]"
• Length: 1–2 sentences

Tier 3 — Light touch (relationship maintenance)

• Specific reaction, not "Love this"
• Quote a specific line and react to it
• Length: 1 sentence

Never: "Great post!", emoji-only, "+1", LinkedIn-isms like "This is gold 🔥"

Sources & Light Tooling (curl recipes)

These are public JSON endpoints — no auth needed. Run them from bash, pipe to jq, and Claude can parse the output to score and draft comments.

Requires: jq (most recipes) and xmllint (RSS only). Install once:

# macOS
brew install jq
# xmllint ships with macOS; on Linux: apt install libxml2-utils

Reddit (free, scriptable)

New posts in a subreddit:

curl -s -A "listening/1.0" \
  "https://www.reddit.com/r/SaaS/new.json?limit=25" \
  | jq '.data.children[].data | {title, author, url: ("https://reddit.com"+.permalink), score, num_comments, created_utc, selftext: (.selftext | .[0:300])}'

Search across Reddit by keyword (last day, sorted new):

curl -s -A "listening/1.0" \
  "https://www.reddit.com/search.json?q=KEYWORD&sort=new&t=day&limit=25" \
  | jq '.data.children[].data | {subreddit, title, url: ("https://reddit.com"+.permalink), author, score, created_utc}'

Swap KEYWORD for things like "alternative to notion", "recommend a crm", your competitor names, or your own brand for mentions. Use quotes around multi-word phrases.

Hacker News (Algolia search)

Recent stories mentioning a keyword (last 24h):

SINCE=$(($(date +%s) - 86400))
curl -s "https://hn.algolia.com/api/v1/search_by_date?query=KEYWORD&tags=story&numericFilters=created_at_i>${SINCE}" \
  | jq '.hits[] | {title, url, author, points, num_comments, created_at, story_id: .objectID, hn_url: ("https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id="+.objectID)}'

Recent comments mentioning a keyword:

curl -s "https://hn.algolia.com/api/v1/search_by_date?query=KEYWORD&tags=comment&numericFilters=created_at_i>${SINCE}" \
  | jq '.hits[] | {author, comment_text, story_title, hn_url: ("https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id="+.objectID)}'

Bluesky (free, public API)

Search posts by keyword:

curl -s "https://public.api.bsky.app/xrpc/app.bsky.feed.searchPosts?q=KEYWORD&limit=25&sort=latest" \
  | jq '.posts[] | {author: .author.handle, text: .record.text, likes: .likeCount, replies: .replyCount, url: ("https://bsky.app/profile/"+.author.handle+"/post/"+(.uri | split("/") | last))}'

RSS for blogs, podcasts, YouTube channels

For target accounts that publish to RSS (most blogs, all YouTube channels):

# YouTube channel feed (replace CHANNEL_ID)
curl -s "https://www.youtube.com/feeds/videos.xml?channel_id=CHANNEL_ID"

# Generic blog feed
curl -s "https://example.com/feed/" | xmllint --xpath "//item[position()<6]" - 2>/dev/null

LinkedIn & X — use the browser

LinkedIn and X don't expose useful public APIs, but you can drive a real browser session. dev-browser (MCP, already in the global setup) and Playwright both maintain persistent state — log in once, the session stays alive, Claude can navigate the authenticated feed.

dev-browser workflow (preferred — already wired up):

1. User logs into LinkedIn / X once in the dev-browser session
2. Claude navigates to a target URL (feed, profile, saved search, hashtag)
3. Claude reads the accessibility tree / page text, extracts posts
4. Claude scores using the rubric and drafts comments
5. User reviews and posts manually (don't auto-post — high-stakes, bot detection risk)

Useful URLs to feed dev-browser:

Tips:

• On X, build a private list of target accounts and use the list URL. Far cleaner than the algorithmic feed.
• LinkedIn's /recent-activity/all/ URL is the cleanest way to see one person's posts without the algorithm.
• For both platforms, scroll programmatically (dev-browser supports it) to load more posts before extracting.

Paid alternatives if you don't want to drive a browser:

Still closed (no good path):

• Instagram & TikTok — closed APIs, browser automation is detectable and risky. Use native saved searches / hashtag follows.

Per-Platform Notes

LinkedIn

• Browser-driven (dev-browser with persistent session) — see LinkedIn & X — use the browser
• First-hour comments matter most — algorithm weights early engagement heavily. Prioritize posts <2h old from target accounts.
• Comments with 5+ words get more reach than reactions
• Replying to other commenters can put you in front of their network
• Tag the author in your reply only if it adds context

Twitter/X

• Browser-driven (dev-browser) — build a private list of target accounts and point dev-browser at the list URL
• Reply within first 30 min for max reach on big accounts
• Quote-tweet > reply when adding substantial value
• Threading your reply (multi-tweet) signals effort
• Don't pile on dunks — relationships > clout

Reddit

• Read the subreddit rules before commenting (some ban self-promotion outright)
• Earn karma in the sub before linking to anything you own
• Long, specific answers win. AMAs and "help me decide" threads are gold
• Never lead with your product — answer the question first

Hacker News

• Comment quality bar is high; low-effort gets downvoted fast
• Founders commenting on threads about their product is welcomed if you're transparent
• Search for past discussions of your category — they're often dormant gold mines

Bluesky

• Smaller volume but high engagement-to-follower ratio
• Tech and indie-hacker communities are active
• Custom feeds (like Bluesky's "Following" + topic feeds) replace algorithmic search

Common Workflows

"Give me my top 10 posts to comment on today"

1. Pull from: target account RSS/saved searches + Reddit (relevant subs) + HN (last 24h)
2. Score with the rubric
3. Output top 10 with suggested comments

"Find people complaining about [competitor]"

1. Reddit search: "competitor name" -site:competitor.com sorted by new
2. HN comment search for competitor name
3. Bluesky search for competitor handle/name
4. Score by intent signal (high if switching language: "moving from", "alternatives to", "frustrated with")

"Surface brand mentions from the last week"

1. Reddit search for brand name
2. HN search (stories + comments) for brand name
3. Bluesky search for brand name + handle
4. Output as: reply needed (yes/no), tone (positive/negative/neutral), suggested response

"Find target-account posts I missed"

1. Maintain a list of target accounts with their RSS / Reddit usernames / Bluesky handles
2. Fetch each source's recent posts
3. Filter to last 24h, output sorted by score

Setting Up the Source List

The user should maintain a list of sources somewhere persistent at .agents/listening-sources.md (or .claude/listening-sources.md). Claude reads it when running the daily loop.

A ready-to-fill template lives at listening-sources-template.md. Copy it into the project and edit. The source path depends on how the skill was installed:

# Plugin / marketplace install (most common):
cp .agents/skills/social/references/listening-sources-template.md .agents/listening-sources.md
# .claude/ install:
cp .claude/skills/social/references/listening-sources-template.md .agents/listening-sources.md
# Working inside the marketingskills repo:
cp skills/social/references/listening-sources-template.md .agents/listening-sources.md

The template covers: brand/category, ICP (for scoring), target accounts per platform, intent keywords, subreddits, saved-search URLs, and a do-not-engage list.

Source: https://github.com/coreyhaines31/marketingskills/skills/social/references/listening.md · v2.2.0 · MIT License (c) 2025 Corey Haines.