The first question you probably have is: how many posts and comments can I gather overall?

• The only limitation to the number of posts and comments you can gather is related to how many Phoenix credits you have left in your project – we discuss that limitation here.
• You can cap the number of posts and comments you want to gather if you have a reason to do so (e.g. you just want a smaller selection to work with).
• Other than that, there is no cap to the number of posts or the number of comments that can be gathered, but sometimes the data collection will time out and you will get some incomplete data. We try our best to monitor the data collection process so this doesn’t happen too often.

<aside> 💡 If you think there is data missing from a gather you run on the Phoenix platform, please get in touch to discuss this with us at [email protected]

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With that said, there are limitations to what we can gather, and these are different for each social media platform, which are discussed below.

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One limitation applies to all platforms: we only collect data from public accounts; we never collect data from private accounts.

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We will be adding gather options for YouTube, Telegram and Instagram in 2025. In the meantime, if you have a way to get social media data on your own, you can use the manual upload function to bring it into the Phoenix platform. Find out how here:

Manual Upload for Social Media Data

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<aside> <img src="/icons/thought-dialogue_blue.svg" alt="/icons/thought-dialogue_blue.svg" width="40px" />

We have noticed that some people confuse a gather that uses keywords with a classifier that uses keywords. Here are some ways to help you distinguish:

• A gather collects data; a classifier applies a class (or label) to the data you have collected.
• You do not collect any new data when you apply a keyword classifier, you simply apply a label to each bit of data you already have collected that contains the keywords.
• If you gather data from a list of accounts and then you apply a keyword classifier to that data, you will find out when the accounts in your list post using the keywords you defined in your classifier. For example, when does the Build Up Facebook page post the word “peacebuilding”? </aside>

Facebook gather

Phoenix has three ways to collect data from Facebook.

• Facebook posts from a list of accounts:
  • You will need a list of accounts (public pages or groups; no private accounts) that you want to collect posts from. This is relevant if you are interested in understanding what certain people or institutions are sharing on Facebook.
  • You will be able to select the date range for posts (going as far back as you want) as well as the maximum number of posts you want to collect from each account (you can set this as high as you want).
• Facebook posts from a list of keywords:
  • You will need a list of keywords or phrases that you want to appear in the posts you collect. This is relevant if you are interested in understanding a topic.
    • If you enter more than one keyword, the search will find posts that contain all of them. For example, a gather for junk food would look for posts containing both words.
    • If you want to run a gather that contains either junk or food, then you will need to create two separate gathers: one for food and one for junk
  • You cannot search for posts in a specific period of time; you will collect the most recent posts, and you can set the maximum number of posts you want to collect.
  • You will not get the number of shares for posts collected in this way.
  • The “country of search” option does not give you the geolocation of the post. That is, even if you set it to “USA” it may still show you posts from Germany. However, it is useful to set the country of search to the location you are most interested in as you will likely get better results.
• Facebook comments from a list of Facebook posts:
  • You can collect Facebook comments from a list of Facebook posts. IMPORTANT: Phoenix will only show you comments for posts you have already gathered. The best way to do this is to:
    • Run a gather for Facebook posts (using accounts or keywords)
    • Find the Facebook posts you want comments from, using the Explore tab
    • Then run a gather for the comments on those Facebook posts
  • You can decide how many comments you want from each post, whether you want to collect the most relevant or the most recent, and whether you want to include replies to comments. Note that due to restrictions by Meta, we are only able to collect 10 comments per post plus their replies.

Instagram gather

Phoenix has two ways to collect data from Instagram.

• Instagram posts from a list of accounts:
  • You will need a list of accounts (public; no private accounts) that you want to collect posts and comments from. This is relevant if you are interested in understanding what certain people or institutions are sharing on Instagram and the type of comments these posts receive.
  • You will be able to select the date range for posts (going as far back as you want) to the current date, as well as the maximum number of posts you want to collect from each account (you can set this as high as you want).
  • You will also be able to select the number of comments you would like to collect from each post and the number of child comments (replies on comments) that you would like to collect from each comment.
• Instagram comments from a list of Instagram posts:
  • You can collect Instagram comments and child comments from a list of Instagram posts. IMPORTANT: Phoenix will only show you comments for posts you have already gathered. The best way to do this is to:
    • Run a gather for Instagram posts (using accounts gather above)
    • Find the Instagram posts you want comments from, using the Explore tab
    • Note down the post IDs of the posts that you are interested in.
    • Then run a gather for the comments on those Instagram posts
  • You can decide how many comments you want from each post, and whether you want to include replies to comments.