What is a Signal?
A Signal is an automated monitor that monitors Professional Social Network (or Reddit/YouTube) for activity you care about — and brings it to you, so you never have to search manually.
Written By Kevin Lawrie
Last updated About 2 hours ago
The short answer
A Signal is a saved search or monitor that runs on a schedule. Each time it runs, it collects posts, reactions, comments, or contact changes that match your criteria and saves them in your results. The type of data that is captured by your signal is determined by you, when you create and configure the signal parameters.
Think of it like a Google Alert, but for social activity — and with far more control over what you track and what happens with the results.
What can a Signal track?
Signals can monitor many different types of activity:
New posts published by specific LinkedIn profiles or company pages
Posts that mention a person or company page
Posts containing specific keywords or hashtags
Reactions and comments on posts
Job changes at tracked profiles
Reddit threads and posts matching your keywords
YouTube videos and comments mentioning your topics
How a Signal works (step by step)
Here is what happens from the moment you create a Signal to when results appear in your account:
Step 1 — You define the Signal Choose what type of activity to track, who or what to monitor, any keywords to filter by, and how often to check.
Step 2 — The Signal runs on schedule At the time you set, the platform automatically checks for new matching activity. You can also trigger a manual run at any time.
Step 3 — Results are collected Matching posts, reactions, comments, or contacts are saved in your Signal Results view.
Step 4 — Actions are triggered (optional) If you connected integrations (like HubSpot or Slack), the platform can automatically notify your team or push contacts to your CRM.
Key terms to know
💡 Tip: You can have as many Signals as you need. Many users create one Signal per use case — for example, one to track a competitor's posts, one to monitor a key hashtag, and one to watch for job changes at target accounts.
⚠️ Note: Signals only collect activity going forward from when they first run (based on your lookback period). The only time they discover and capture historic data is the first time the signal runs.