What is Social Listening and how to get started?
Social Listening is CrowdReply's tool for discovering online discussions where your brand, competitors, or industry topics are being talked about. It helps you find the right conversations to join so you can build brand presence on the platforms that matter most for AI visibility.
You'll find Social Listening in the left sidebar, with two sub-pages: Mentions and Keyword Tracking.
What Social Listening does
Traditional social listening tools monitor when your brand is mentioned online. CrowdReply takes this further by connecting social mentions directly to your AI visibility strategy:
- Find relevant discussions — Discover Reddit threads (and soon Quora, Facebook) where people are discussing topics related to your product or industry
- Track keywords — Set up ongoing monitoring for specific keywords so you never miss a relevant conversation
- Spot engagement opportunities — Identify high-traffic threads where a helpful comment could boost your visibility
- Connect to AI citations — Many of the threads you find through Social Listening are the same sources that AI models cite. Engaging on them improves both your social presence and your AI visibility.
Social Listening vs. Citations
These two features complement each other:
| Citations | Social Listening |
|---|---|---|
Starting point | AI responses → which sources are cited | Keywords → which discussions exist |
Focus | Sources AI already uses | Broader conversations happening now |
Best for | Targeted, high-impact engagement | Discovering new opportunities and monitoring your space |
Use Citations when you want to engage on threads AI is already citing. Use Social Listening when you want to cast a wider net and find new conversations to participate in.
How to get started
Step 1: Set up keyword tracking
Go to Keyword Tracking and add keywords related to your brand, industry, and competitors. CrowdReply will monitor these keywords and surface relevant discussions.
You can:
- Add keywords manually
- Use AI-generated keyword suggestions based on your brand and industry
- Track up to 20 keywords on Starter, 5 on Growth, and 200 on Enterprise
Step 2: Browse your mentions
Go to Mentions to see discussions matching your tracked keywords. Each mention shows the thread title, subreddit, engagement metrics (upvotes, comments), and estimated search traffic.
Step 3: Engage on relevant threads
When you find a thread that's relevant to your brand, click Engage to create a task — posting a helpful comment through CrowdReply's engagement engine.
Step 4: Use Single Search for quick lookups
Need to check a specific topic without setting up tracking? Use the Single Search feature on the Mentions page to search for any keyword on the fly. If the results are useful, you can convert it into a tracked keyword with one click.
Platforms supported
Currently, Social Listening supports Reddit as the primary platform. Support for Quora and Facebook is on our roadmap and coming soon.
Reddit is the most impactful platform for AI visibility because AI models cite Reddit threads more frequently than almost any other social platform. Starting with Reddit gives you the highest-value engagement opportunities.
Updated on: 22/03/2026
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