Why keyword alerts miss the posts you're looking for
Keyword alerts are the usual way to watch Facebook groups: list some words and get told when a post contains one. They're simple, and they miss a lot. People asking for help don't use your words, and plenty of posts that do use them aren't asking for anything.
The same need, in different words
Here's one need, a small business that wants a website, written the way people actually post it:
- "Can anyone recommend a web designer for a small business?"
- "I need someone to set up an online shop for my candles."
- "Our Squarespace page looks so dated. Who could refresh it?"
- "How do I get my bakery to show up on Google? All we have is an Instagram page."
- "Our WordPress site was hacked last night. Does anyone know someone who can fix it?"
A keyword list built around "website" and "web designer" catches the first post and misses the rest: an online shop, a Squarespace page, showing up on Google, a hacked WordPress site. You can keep adding words, but every need has more phrasings than any list can hold, before counting typos, abbreviations and slang.
Other languages
Many groups post in more than one language, especially local, expat and community groups. A keyword list has to be written again for each language, with its spellings and transliterations, and it still misses posts that switch language halfway through a sentence.
The word without the need
The opposite problem is noise. Add enough words to catch the requests and you also catch posts like these:
- "I build websites for small businesses. Message me for a free quote!"
- "We just launched our new website, have a look and tell us what you think."
- "The city website says Main Street is closed until Friday."
The first is another designer advertising, the second is someone sharing finished work, the third mentions a website in passing. Each one looks like a match to a keyword alert. Sorting them out by hand is the scrolling you were trying to avoid, and an alert you learn to ignore stops being useful.
Matching by intent instead
Intent matching starts from what you're looking for, not the words for it. In GroupSignal you write a monitor as two plain sentences, one for what to find and one for what to leave out:
- Find
- people asking for someone to build, redesign or fix a website or online shop for their business.
- Ignore
- web designers and agencies advertising their own services, and people sharing a site they've already launched.
AI reads each new post in your groups against those sentences, much as you would. The candle shop, the dated Squarespace page and the hacked WordPress site all fit, because each one is someone asking for help with a website; the designer's ad doesn't, because that's what Ignore describes. A post can match in another language too, and there's no keyword list behind any of it.
Each match arrives in your inbox with a short explanation of why it fits, so you can judge it without opening every post. When the AI can't decide, as with the bakery that wants to show up on Google but may only want advice, it marks the post as a Possible match instead of guessing.
What intent matching doesn't do
- It reads what's written. A post that says only "Recommendations please!" gives the AI as little to go on as it gives you. It may arrive as a Possible match, or not at all.
- It can be wrong, in both directions. You review every match before acting, and when you see a pattern you can sharpen the monitor; writing a monitor shows how.
- New wording applies to new posts. Changing a monitor doesn't re-check posts that have already arrived.
- Sometimes a word is enough. If what you track really is one exact term, such as a product name, a keyword alert may be all you need. Facebook's own keyword alerts are only for a group's admins and moderators (what they do and who can use them).