> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.getcitable.com/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Social Listening

> Monitor Reddit, Hacker News, and other communities for conversations about your category — then join them with replies that build citation authority.

Social Listening connects to community platforms and surfaces discussions your potential customers are already having. These conversations are valuable twice over: they reveal unmet needs and sentiment in real time, and participating in them — authentically and helpfully — is one of the fastest ways to build the citation signals AI engines recognize.

## Connected platforms

Social Listening currently integrates with:

* **Reddit** — subreddit monitoring for topic-relevant discussions
* **Hacker News** — technology and startup community conversations
* Additional platforms via MCP integration

Community content is highly valuable for AI citation. Reddit threads and HN discussions are machine-readable, long-lived, and frequently cited by AI engines answering category-level questions — which means a well-placed reply can generate citation value months or years after it's posted.

## How it works

Click **Scan Mentions** to pull the latest discussions from your connected platforms. Citable surfaces threads based on:

* Keywords and topic clusters you're tracking
* Subreddits or communities in your category
* Prompts from your active scan that map to community questions

For each thread you can see the platform, the post and its engagement metrics, and the sentiment of the conversation.

## Turning a thread into an outreach action

When you find a relevant thread — a question your brand can genuinely answer, a comparison discussion where you're not mentioned, a problem your product solves — you can draft a reply directly from Social Listening.

Replies are drafted in the voice of one of your [Insider personas](/concepts/personas): a founder, an engineer, a customer success lead — whoever is the most credible voice for that specific conversation. Citable drafts the reply; you review, refine, and post it yourself. The platform does not auto-post on your behalf.

After you post the reply, paste the live URL or click **Mark posted**. Citable then tracks whether that URL gets cited in AI responses over the following weeks.

## Platform-specific norms

Community platforms have strong norms around authentic participation. A few rules that protect your brand:

* **Reddit** — replies must be genuinely useful to the thread. Transparent product mentions are acceptable; promotional copy is not. A reply that adds real information and happens to mention your product is welcomed. A reply that reads like an ad gets downvoted and potentially removed.
* **Hacker News** — technical depth is expected. If the topic is in your product's domain, demonstrate expertise before mentioning your tool.

Violations of community norms can get accounts banned, which eliminates the citation value entirely. When in doubt, write the reply you'd want to receive if you were the person asking the question.

## Connecting sentiment monitoring

Beyond outreach, Social Listening surfaces the emotional tone of community conversations about your brand and category. A spike in negative mentions often appears in community data before it shows up in [Brand Sentiment](/features/brand-sentiment) scores — making Social Listening a useful early-warning system.