# First steps

{% hint style="success" %}
This guide is a support in your discovery of the tool, get in touch with your account manager to have an overview of Visibrain's advanced features.
{% endhint %}

## What do you want to monitor ?

As a monitoring tool on social media, Visibrain gives you access to an huge amount of social data. To properly monitor your topics, you need to decide what kind of watch you want to do : 

{% content-ref url="use-cases/brand-monitoring" %}
[brand-monitoring](https://help.visibrain.com/~/revisions/Sg0jEnRI9hg61KE4OFRP/use-cases/brand-monitoring)
{% endcontent-ref %}

{% content-ref url="use-cases/competitors-monitoring" %}
[competitors-monitoring](https://help.visibrain.com/~/revisions/Sg0jEnRI9hg61KE4OFRP/use-cases/competitors-monitoring)
{% endcontent-ref %}

{% content-ref url="use-cases/industry-monitoring" %}
[industry-monitoring](https://help.visibrain.com/~/revisions/Sg0jEnRI9hg61KE4OFRP/use-cases/industry-monitoring)
{% endcontent-ref %}

{% content-ref url="use-cases/influencer-detection" %}
[influencer-detection](https://help.visibrain.com/~/revisions/Sg0jEnRI9hg61KE4OFRP/use-cases/influencer-detection)
{% endcontent-ref %}

{% content-ref url="use-cases/event-monitoring" %}
[event-monitoring](https://help.visibrain.com/~/revisions/Sg0jEnRI9hg61KE4OFRP/use-cases/event-monitoring)
{% endcontent-ref %}

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You can answer many monitoring needs with Visibrain, it will be important to discuss all of this with your account manager to help you get started.

## Create monitoring topics

Once your monitoring needs are defined, we can start using the platform and [create your first *Topic*.](https://help.visibrain.com/~/revisions/Sg0jEnRI9hg61KE4OFRP/platform/create-a-new-topic)

####  Checks to make before submitting your first *Topic*

* [x] Did I choose my monitoring language correctly?
* [x] Did I include parentheses if needed ?
* [x] Did I include Twitter accounts of the brands, institutions or influencers I want to monitor?
* [x] Did I write all the spelling variants of my keywords, including accents?
* [x] Did I check the amount of data captured over the last 30 days?

## Third step : Data Analysis 

Once your monitoring *Topic* is live and the data has been retrieved, you can start using the different features of the platform to analyse it.

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You will find below a video to help you navigate the platform. 

{% embed url="<https://www.loom.com/share/39e67ecd16044ed2b4962273599ca7f1>" %}

**Playing with the time period**

Selecting a time period on Visibrain allows you to precisely target the data to analyze by focusing on a specific moment or a recent trend (such as a monthly, weekly, or even the last 24 hours view).

{% embed url="<https://app.playplay.com/app/video/visibrain/how-to-use-the-time-period/558298df-136a-43ef-864a-bdd8107f1f0e>" %}

#### Click on an item to get more information

You can click everywhere on the platform to easily get more details about what you are looking at (who shared this tweet ? What do people say about this article on Twitter ? What is behind this peak of activity ? etc).

**Use several sorting options**

Posts, articles and users can be sorted by many indicators to give you the maximum level of information about your monitoring *Topic*.

**Use filters to go in depth in your analysis**&#x20;

You can use [*Filters*](https://help.visibrain.com/~/revisions/Sg0jEnRI9hg61KE4OFRP/platform/filters-subtopics-and-filter-library) to detect low signals and easily find what you are looking for, even in a *Topic* with several thousands of posts. We have more than [150 *Filters*](https://help.visibrain.com/~/revisions/Sg0jEnRI9hg61KE4OFRP/useful-documents/list-of-operators-to-add-filters) you can use according to your needs.

## After that ?&#x20;

If you want to know more about Visibrain's platform, go on the [**Guide's platform**](https://app.gitbook.com/s/7gsihb5HLG1gcRHm99nq/guide/topics) section to learn how you can use the filters in *Explore*'s section, setting up alerts, reports and create smartboards.&#x20;

{% content-ref url="platform/explore" %}
[explore](https://help.visibrain.com/~/revisions/Sg0jEnRI9hg61KE4OFRP/platform/explore)
{% endcontent-ref %}

{% content-ref url="platform/alerts" %}
[alerts](https://help.visibrain.com/~/revisions/Sg0jEnRI9hg61KE4OFRP/platform/alerts)
{% endcontent-ref %}

{% content-ref url="platform/reports" %}
[reports](https://help.visibrain.com/~/revisions/Sg0jEnRI9hg61KE4OFRP/platform/reports)
{% endcontent-ref %}

{% content-ref url="platform/smartboards" %}
[smartboards](https://help.visibrain.com/~/revisions/Sg0jEnRI9hg61KE4OFRP/platform/smartboards)
{% endcontent-ref %}