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A mention is one post, comment, article, episode or review that contains one of your keywords. Octolens collects mentions from every platform your keywords run on and stores each one once, even when it matches several keywords.

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What each mention includes

Review mentions also carry the star rating and any reply from the business. See Customer reviews.

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Relevant and all mentions

Octolens collects every mention that matches a keyword, then the AI decides whether it’s relevant to your business. Your feeds, the Dashboard and alerts show relevant mentions by default. Mentions the AI marks not relevant stay in the All mentions feed, so you can check what it filtered out.

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What you can do with a mention

  • Mark it relevant or not relevant. Your feedback updates the mention and helps the AI on your workspace.
  • Mark it engaged once someone on your team has replied or acted on it, so others can skip it.
  • Bookmark it to come back later.
  • Send it on. Feeds route mentions to Slack, email or webhooks, and the API and AI assistants can read them.

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Your monthly mention quota

Every Octolens plan includes a monthly mention quota. On paid plans, Flex mentions are on by default: when you go past your quota, collection keeps running and each extra mention costs your plan’s rate.

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What counts toward your limit

Every mention Octolens collects for your keywords counts as one, whether the AI marks it relevant or not. That’s why your mentions used counter (in the sidebar and in Settings → Plans & Billing) is almost always higher than what you see in your feeds or on the Dashboard. Not-relevant mentions are hidden from view by default but still count against your quota. To see everything that’s been collected:
1

Open the Dashboard

From the sidebar.
2

Switch the Mentions over time chart to Relevance

Use the breakdown control in the top right of the chart. The bars split into relevant and not-relevant mentions.
3

Filter by keyword

Use the keyword picker above the chart to see which keywords drive the most volume.
Keyword context doesn’t reduce mention intake. The Keyword context field in Keyword Settings helps the AI decide what’s relevant, but it does not stop mentions from being collected. To reduce usage, use the include and exclude rules below.

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How mention intake works

When you sign up and choose keywords during onboarding, Octolens looks back 7 days and collects older mentions per platform. For any keyword you add later, it also goes back 7 days. These first mentions from onboarding and new keywords don’t count toward your monthly quota. Every new mention after that counts as one.
Watch broad keywords during onboarding. After onboarding, check the All mentions feed to see how many mentions are coming in and whether the volume fits your plan. Then adjust your keywords as described below.

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Reduce your mention usage

If a keyword uses too much of your quota, open its Keyword Settings from the Keywords page (click Edit on its row) and use any of these:
  • Posts must ALSO include (ANY OF / ALL OF). Require additional terms alongside your keyword. For example, Cursor ANY OF coding, AI, IDE filters out posts about computer mice.
  • Negative terms. Exclude mentions that contain certain words. For example, Cursor NOT mouse, click.
  • Negative authors. Exclude specific accounts: your own company accounts, employees, or known noisy posters.
  • Wildcard negative terms. Exclude patterns like beta.* to filter out version strings or substrings.
  • Exact match. Keep this on for common-word brands so partial matches don’t pull in unrelated posts.
  • Case sensitive. Turn it on for acronyms (e.g. RAG) so you don’t catch every use of the lowercase word.
For cleanup across every keyword, use Global settings for negative terms, negative authors, allowed subreddits, excluded subreddits, and excluded GitHub repositories. You can also pause a noisy keyword from its row on the Keywords page. The keyword stays in your workspace but stops collecting mentions until you resume it.

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What happens when you go over your limit

We email you when you reach 80% of your quota and again when you go over it. With Flex mentions on, Octolens keeps collecting and bills each extra mention at your plan’s rate: $0.013 on Pro, $0.01 on Scale. To control the cost, open Settings → Plans & Billing and set a monthly spend cap or turn Flex mentions off. With Flex off, new mentions pause until your next billing cycle. For a bigger quota, upgrade your plan.

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Edge cases worth knowing

Deleted keywords still count this cycle. Mentions collected this billing cycle from a keyword you’ve since deleted still count against your quota, but they don’t appear on the Dashboard, which only shows active keywords. This can make Dashboard totals look lower than your “mentions used” counter. Your own company posts can count. If your own posts match your keyword, they count too. Add your handles as Negative authors in Keyword Settings, or in Global settings, to exclude them.

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Why am I not getting mentions?

If you see zero or very few mentions but your counter has plenty of headroom, it’s almost always a keyword setup issue.

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1. Incorrect use of “Posts must ALSO include” (ANY OF / ALL OF)

This is the most frequent cause. With include terms added, Octolens only looks for posts where your keyword appears together with the additional terms. It does not look for the keyword alone. Common pitfalls:
  • ALL OF instead of ANY OF. ALL OF requires every extra term to appear in the post. It’s strict and usually works best with one extra term.
  • Exact match on additional terms. Each extra term must appear in the post exactly as written.
  • Quotation marks. Writing "AI" looks for the literal text with quotes. Don’t quote.
  • Comma-separated, not space-separated. Use ai, AI, artificial intelligence, not ai AI artificial intelligence.
  • Don’t repeat your keyword as an extra term. That requires the term to appear twice in the same post.
  • Broad keywords with AND/OR. Because of API limits, very broad keywords (e.g. Brand, Hiring, Strategy) combined with extra terms may miss posts. Use a narrower keyword instead.

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2. You’ve reached your monthly mention limit

If you’ve hit your quota and Flex mentions are off, new mentions pause. See What happens when you go over your limit.

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3. Keyword spelling or formatting errors

Check your keyword for typos, accidental quotation marks, or special characters.

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4. Case sensitivity is turned on

With Case sensitive on in Keyword Settings, only exact-case matches show up. Keep it off unless you’re monitoring an acronym (e.g. RAG) or a case-specific brand.

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5. Broad keywords may hit platform or API limits

Some platforms and APIs cap how many mentions they return when a keyword is too broad. A narrower keyword (e.g. brand tracking tool instead of brand) gives more relevant and consistent mentions. See Tracked Platforms for platform-specific limits.
We’re happy to review your keywords and settings with you. Email hi@octolens.com or write in the in-app chat. You can also book a 15-minute call with Charlotte and we’ll do it live.