Opened Explore and saw...nothing from Instagram? No Facebook posts showing up in Monitor? You're not alone!
If you’re not seeing content from Facebook or Instagram in your searches, dashboards, or alerts, it’s usually because your Meta accounts haven’t been connected via Monitored Social Connections.
Let’s Talk About Meta’s Rules
You might expect Meltwater to automatically track all public Facebook and Instagram content, right?
To protect privacy, Meta only shares content with trusted third-party tools like Meltwater if you first confirm that you're a valid Facebook or Instagram user.
What Are Monitored Connections?
Monitored Connections are how you give Meltwater permission to track public content from:
- Your own brand pages
- Your competitors’ pages
- Instagram hashtags
This lets Meltwater collect data from those sources and include them in:
- Explore searches
- Analyze dashboards
- Daily Digest emails
- Monitor feeds
- Reports and Alerts
🎥How to Connect Your Accounts: Quick Set up Video
Want to see how it's done in under 2 minutes?
Check out this short walkthrough showing how to connect your Facebook and Instagram accounts:
Then follow these steps to connect your accounts in Meltwater:
- In Meltwater, go to Account from the left-hand nav
- Click Social Connections
- Select the Monitored Connections tab
- Under Facebook or Instagram, click Add Account
- Follow the prompts to log in via Facebook and give permission
- Under the Monitored Pages, click the + sign to add the specific public Facebook/Instagram pages + Hashtags
That’s it! You’ll now see the page listed on your Meltwater screen and posts matching the keywords being monitored within Explore.
💡 Note: You may authenticate using a personal Facebook login, but Meltwater does not gain access to your personal account—only public data from approved brand or competitor pages.
Things to Know
- Connections expire after 60 days or 1 year (Meta’s policy). We’ll remind you to reconnect.
- Private profiles or personal posts cannot be tracked—only public pages and business profiles.
Common Mistake:
“I typed in the brand name in Explore but still see no IG posts.”
- That’s because Instagram content is only available after you connect it.
- Even if a post is public, Meta doesn’t allow tools to collect it unless permissions are granted via Monitored Connections.
In Summary:
| If You Want To See... | You Need To... |
| Posts from your Facebook Page | Connect your Facebook account under Monitored Connections |
| Instagram campaign hashtags | Add them under Instagram > Hashtags |
| Competitor content from FB or IG | Add their public pages under Monitored |
| Anything from Instagram in Explore | Connect an Instagram Business account first |
💬 Still have questions? Drop them below this post and we’ll be happy to help!