Step-by-step workflow guide for investigators

Discourse Monitoring

Discourse Monitoring tracks public conversation around a specific topic — identifying who is talking, what narratives are forming, and where sentiment is shifting. This guide walks through how to configure a case from scratch, from initial search setup to filter-based analysis. You'll leave with a live, structured monitor ready to surface operationally relevant discourse.

Before you start:

First steps

  • Cast a wide net first and refine later. False positives are acceptable early on.
  • Identify related organizations, key figures, and any known controversies before setup. These will become filters, not primary searches.
  • If you're unsure what hashtags or terms the community uses, ask Echo before setting up the case.

Platform limits

  • 4 hour-backfill only — when you create a new case, Monitor retrieves posts from the previous four hours only and cannot go further back. 
  • Max 5 languages per search – never leave language blank
  • Filters narrow down your view of already collected messages, they do not affect how much data is pulled in.
  • X, Instagram, Facebook, Snapchat have monthly caps
  • Cases auto-pause — set to long enough to gather sufficient intel.

Access

  • Open Maltego Monitor from maltego.monitor.com or app.maltego.com
    Note that you need a Maltego ID to log in.
  • Make sure your plan includes access to Maltego Monitor (only Maltego Enterprise customers have Monitor included in their plans).

Resources

This guide assumes basic familiarity with Monitor. Feature names link to the documentation where needed. It helps to have the following pages open before you start: 


Video Overview

Watch a real discourse monitoring case being set up in Monitor for the NASA Moon mission from scratch — searches, filters, and refinements included. Then follow the step-by-step guide below to build your own, or skip the video and jump straight to the steps.

To enlarge, double-click on the video.

Step-by-Step Guide

1. Set up your searches


Search Example Query Key Notes
Primary topic
"NASA Artemis" OR "moon mission" OR "moon landing"
  • Use Echo AI to identify relevant keywords for your search.
  • Start with the broadest relevant terms.
  • Add hashtag variants where relevant to pick up Facebook and Instagram content.
  • Include common variants — different communities will use different terms for the same subject.
Related accounts
@NASA @esa @AstroVictor
  • Add the official accounts of organizations and individuals directly involved in the topic.
  • Check posting frequency later to decide whether you need filters for high-volume accounts to keep results manageable.

2. Refine and analyze

Once your case has been running for 24-48 hours, it is time to add filters to narrow down search results more effectively. 

This section explains three refinement techniques: adding filters, working with the word count, and sentiment analysis for more targeted monitoring.

Add filters

Add related organizations, figures, and discourse topics as filters rather than standalone searches. This lets you see what is being said about them in the context of your topic, without creating a new search and pulling in all unrelated mentions. Include name variants and hashtag forms.

For the NASA mission, we can go with the following filters:

SpaceX OR "Elon Musk" OR =Elon Musk= OR #elon

=Blue Origin= OR Bezos

"no women" OR women

Track the word count

In the dropdown menu, choose the word count. Monitor will display all the most used words in the data it collected. This gives a quick read on the dominant terms in the content stream. If it surfaces only terms you already knew, it may not be useful at this stage.

Sentiment analysis

If the word count isn't informative, move to sentiment analysis in the same dropdown menu. It splits results into positive and negative sentiment.


Prioritise negative sentiment. This is where the  emerging criticism, controversy, or hostility tends to emerge. Positive sentiment is worth reviewing, but treat negative as the primary signal.

Watch for unexpected associations. Review negative results for related figures or organizations that weren't in your original setup. If they appear consistently, add them as filters to track that thread specifically.

Optional steps

Other guides you might find useful:

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