Anomaly Detection helps you identify unusual changes in your online conversations before they become major issues. Using our AI-powered Social Intelligence Advisor (SIA), Mentionlytics continuously monitors your mention activity and notifies you whenever it detects behavior that significantly differs from your normal patterns.
You can manage your anomaly alerts by navigating to Settings → Notifications → Anomaly Notifications.
What is an Anomaly?
An anomaly is any unexpected change in your monitoring data that may require your attention.
In the context of social media and online monitoring, anomaly detection can identify:
Sudden spikes or drops in the volume of mentions.
Unexpected changes in sentiment, such as a rapid shift from predominantly positive to negative mentions.
These changes can indicate breaking news, viral content, successful campaigns, or potential reputation issues.
AI-Powered Anomaly Alerts
Anomaly Detection Alerts are powered by SIA and when an anomaly is detected, Mentionlytics sends an alert containing valuable context to help you quickly understand what is happening.
Each alert includes the following information.
Mention Volume Chart
A visual chart showing when mention volume began to deviate from normal levels, allowing you to compare the current activity against the expected baseline.
AI Summary
An AI-generated summary highlighting the most important topic or event responsible for the unusual activity, helping you understand the cause without manually reviewing every mention.
These insights allow you to react faster to emerging conversations and potential reputation risks.
Customizing Anomaly Detection Alerts
You can fully customize your anomaly alerts from Settings → Notifications. When creating or editing an anomaly notification, you can configure the following options.
Email Recipients
Choose which users should receive anomaly notifications.
Mention Trackers or Keywords
Select the trackers or keywords that should be monitored for unusual activity.
Channels
Limit anomaly detection to specific sources or exclude channels that are not relevant to your monitoring objectives.
Negative Mentions Only
Enable “Check for negative mentions only” if you only want to be alerted when negative conversations show unusual behavior. This helps reduce unnecessary alerts while keeping you informed about potential reputation risks.
Minimum Hours Between Alerts
Specify the minimum time between consecutive alerts. This prevents receiving multiple notifications for the same ongoing event or crisis.
AI Summary Language
Choose the language used for AI-generated summaries, allowing your team to receive insights in their preferred language.
Default Notification
Each tracker includes a default anomaly notification that can be edited or removed at any time.
You can review your existing anomaly notifications from the corresponding section of the Notifications page.
Why Use Anomaly Detection?
Anomaly Detection helps you:
Detect potential PR or reputation issues before they escalate.
Identify viral conversations as they emerge.
Monitor campaign performance in real time.
Understand the cause of unusual activity through AI-generated summaries.
Focus on meaningful changes instead of manually monitoring dashboards throughout the day.
Best Practices
Enable anomaly detection for your primary brand trackers.
Use “Negative Mentions Only” when your priority is reputation management.
Configure a minimum time between alerts to reduce notification fatigue during ongoing events.
Review the AI summary first to quickly understand why the alert was triggered.
Combine Anomaly Detection with SIA Crisis Alerts and scheduled email reports for a comprehensive monitoring strategy.