sales-skills/sales-communitytracker

CommunityTracker Platform Help

Step 1 — Gather context

If references/learnings.md exists, read it first for accumulated platform knowledge.

Ask the user:

1. What do you need help with?

   • A) Setting up keyword monitoring (choosing keywords, communities, filters)
   • B) Reducing noise / too many irrelevant signals
   • C) Tuning intent scoring to find real buying conversations
   • D) Competitor tracking and share of voice
   • E) Connecting CommunityTracker to CRM/tools via API or webhooks
   • F) Team workflows (assignment, notes, collaboration)
   • G) AI summaries and content generation
   • H) Plan limits and upgrade decision
   • I) Something else — describe it

2. Which plan are you on?

   • A) Free ($0/mo — 1 keyword, Reddit only, daily alerts, basic analytics)
   • B) Starter ($39/mo — 4 keywords, Reddit + LinkedIn + HN + GitHub, daily alerts, 5K mentions, ≤100 warm emails/mo)
   • C) Pro ($99/mo — 10 keywords, all communities, Slack alerts, Share of Voice, REST API)
   • D) Advanced ($199/mo — 20 keywords, full Community Intelligence, REST API, SoV exporter)
   • E) Not sure / haven't signed up yet

3. What's your goal?

   • A) Lead generation (find people looking for solutions like mine)
   • B) Brand monitoring (track what people say about us)
   • C) Competitor monitoring (track competitor share of voice)
   • D) Market research (understand community trends and pain points)

If the user's request already provides context, skip to Step 2.

Step 2 — Route or answer directly

• Social listening strategy or tool comparison → /sales-social-listening [question]
• Intent detection with CRM push and MCP server → /sales-catchintent [question]
• Developer-first monitoring with MCP on all plans → /sales-octolens [question]
• Widest platform coverage (30+) with ICP matching → /sales-buska [question]
• Multi-platform lead gen with auto-pilot mode → /sales-prems [question]
• Fast community monitoring with Boolean search → /sales-syften [question]
• Audience intelligence (where audiences spend attention) → /sales-sparktoro [question]

Otherwise, answer directly from the platform reference below.

Step 3 — CommunityTracker platform reference

Read references/platform-guide.md for the full platform reference — capabilities, pricing, data model, integration recipes, and workflow examples.

Answer the user's question using only the relevant section. Don't dump the full reference.

Step 4 — Actionable guidance

Focus on the user's specific situation:

1. Noise reduction — start with 3-5 high-intent keywords (problem phrases like "looking for a tool" or competitor names), use intent filtering to suppress generic mentions, review first 50 signals and add exclusion patterns
2. Quota management — consolidate overlapping keywords, disable keywords with low signal-to-noise, use broader terms with intent filters instead of many narrow keywords
3. Competitor tracking — set up share of voice dashboards tracking brand vs competitor mentions, monitor "vs" and "alternative to" conversations
4. Integration — API requires Pro ($99/mo). For cheaper API access, consider Octolens (API on all plans from $119/mo) or RedShip ($19/mo)
5. Team workflows — assign signals to team members, add notes for context, use Slack channels per signal type

If you discover a gotcha or tip not covered in references/learnings.md, append it there.

Gotchas

Best-effort from research — review these, especially items about plan-gated features and pricing that may change.

• REST API and Slack alerts are Pro-only ($99/mo). Free and Starter ($39/mo) get daily alerts only — API keys on those plans return 403 PLAN_NO_API_ACCESS. For cheaper programmatic access, Octolens (from $119/mo) or RedShip ($19/mo) both offer REST APIs.
• Auth is the X-API-Key header, not Authorization: Bearer. Keys are ct_live_-prefixed (generated in Settings → API). The endpoints are GET /api-posts and GET /api-intelligence — the older /v1/mentions path is deprecated.
• Starter's 4-keyword cap is tight. Most users need brand + competitor + problem phrase. Consolidate with broader terms or upgrade to Pro (10 keywords).
• Slack/Discord monitoring requires the communities to be public or you to be a member. CommunityTracker cannot monitor private Slack workspaces or Discord servers you haven't joined.
• Pricing changed (2026-06): a Free tier ($0, 1 keyword, Reddit only) now exists and Starter is $39 (was $29) with 4 keywords (was 3). Some blog/comparison copy still shows the old figures; the live /pricing page is authoritative. Verify current limits in your dashboard.
• Intent scoring is AI-based and imperfect. High-priority signals may include generic discussions. Always review before engaging — don't auto-act on every alert.
• Free and Starter get daily alerts only. Pro/Advanced add Slack alerts. If faster engagement matters, upgrade to Pro — but note the live pricing page describes Pro/Advanced as "Daily Slack alerts," so confirm the actual alert cadence in-dashboard rather than assuming real-time.
• No native Zapier app. Use webhooks to trigger Zapier/Make/n8n workflows.
• Share of voice only works with enough mention volume. If your brand/competitors get <10 mentions/week in communities, the metric won't be statistically meaningful.

Related skills

• /sales-social-listening — Social listening strategy across all platforms — tool comparison, monitoring setup, competitive intel, crisis detection
• /sales-buska — Buska — AI social listening for lead gen across 30+ platforms with intent scoring, ICP matching, Reply Studio, MCP server
• /sales-octolens — Octolens — developer-first social listening with API/MCP on all plans from $119/mo
• /sales-catchintent — CatchIntent — AI intent detection across Reddit, X, HN, Bluesky with CRM push, MCP server, webhooks
• /sales-syften — Syften — fast community monitoring across 15+ platforms with Boolean search, AI filtering, API, webhooks
• /sales-prems — Prems AI — multi-platform lead generation with AI intent scoring, auto-pilot, webhooks
• /sales-sparktoro — SparkToro — audience intelligence, channel discovery, persona development
• /sales-do — Not sure which skill to use? The router matches any sales objective to the right skill. Install: npx skills add sales-skills/sales --skill sales-do

Examples

Example 1: Set up community monitoring for a dev tool

User says: "I sell a CI/CD tool and want to find people on Reddit and HN asking for recommendations" Skill does:

1. Reads platform guide for keyword strategy and community selection
2. Creates keywords: "CI/CD tool", "looking for CI pipeline", competitor names
3. Selects communities: Reddit (r/devops, r/programming), HN, GitHub, Stack Overflow
4. Configures intent filter to prioritize buyer signals over general discussions
5. Sets up Slack notifications for high-priority signals Result: Signal pipeline generating qualified conversations from developer communities

Example 2: Push CommunityTracker signals to HubSpot via webhook

User says: "How do I automatically create HubSpot contacts from CommunityTracker signals?" Skill does:

1. Confirms Pro plan required for webhooks
2. Reads platform guide for webhook payload format
3. Sets up webhook URL pointing to a Make/n8n workflow
4. Maps post fields (source, title, body, ai_score, intent, url) to HubSpot contact properties
5. Adds a filter: only push high-priority intent signals Result: Automated pipeline from community signals to CRM

Example 3: Competitor share of voice is flat

User says: "I set up competitor tracking but the share of voice dashboard isn't showing useful data" Skill does:

1. Checks keyword coverage — are competitor names + variations all tracked?
2. Verifies community selection covers where competitors are discussed
3. Suggests adding "vs" and "alternative to" keywords for comparison threads
4. Recommends weekly review cadence and manual spot-checks
5. Notes that share of voice needs sufficient mention volume to be meaningful Result: Improved competitor intelligence with actionable share of voice data

Troubleshooting

Signals are mostly noise

Symptom: Dashboard full of irrelevant mentions that aren't buying signals Cause: Keywords too broad, intent filters not applied, or monitoring too many low-signal communities Solution: Review the top 50 signals. Identify recurring false-positive patterns (common words used in unrelated contexts, spam). Tighten keywords to problem-language phrases ("looking for a tool that..." instead of just product categories). Enable intent filtering to suppress generic mentions. Remove low-signal communities temporarily to see if quality improves.

Not getting enough signals

Symptom: Set up keywords but signal count is much lower than expected Cause: Keywords too narrow, monitoring only a subset of available platforms, or Starter plan limits community coverage Solution: Broaden keywords — use problem language ("how do I automate X") not just tool names. Check which platforms are active on your plan tier (Starter is Reddit + LinkedIn + HN + GitHub only). Add competitor names and "alternative to" phrases. If on Starter, upgrade to Pro for all community platforms.

API rate limit exhausted

Symptom: API calls returning HTTP 429 with code RATE_LIMIT_EXCEEDED Cause: The API enforces a single daily allowance of 5,000 requests with an hourly reset; polling-based integrations burn through it quickly Solution: Read the X-RateLimit-Remaining and X-RateLimit-Reset response headers and throttle as you approach the limit; on 429 wait until the reset time. Use larger page sizes (limit up to 100 on /api-posts) to cut call count and cache results locally. If the marketing-page webhook push is available on your plan, prefer it over polling.