Getting Started With Engage - Classic
Engage displays message content both from your social network pages or accounts and your Listen topics, and lets you perform actions on those messages. For example, you can see the number of likes and comments for a Facebook post, or assign a message to another person on your account so they can take action on it, to mention just a few. Messages will come in from the channels you have added as social properties in Workflow & Automation.
Important Note: This documentation describes the Engage User Interface in its classic form. For equivalent documentation describing the Engage User Interface in its new form, refer to Getting Started with Engage.
In this article:
The Engage Interface
· Message Info
· Sorting Messages
· Filters
Social Network Specifics
· Main Gear Icon
· Facebook Pages of which you are an Admin
· Twitter Streams
· LinkedIn Pages
· Instagram Accounts
· Weibo Pages
Click a link above to get directly to that section, or scroll down and start reading!
The Engage Interface
When you first navigate to Engage, you'll see your message Inbox, which works a lot like an email inbox. The messages coming in from all your channels will appear in the Messages section, with the most recent messages appearing at the top.
MESSAGE INFO
Looking at your message stream, you'll see basic information about yours messages at a glance.
Unread messages appear with shaded blue with the channel name in bold, with an indicator circle on the left of the message. The number inside the indicator circle tells you how many unread messages there are in the thread. For example, if the message is a Facebook post with 20 comments and the circle says 4, there are 4 comments in the thread that have not been read by an Engage user yet.
Read messages appear without shading and are slightly grayed out. Don't worry, you can still take actions on these messages! Read messages display this way to let you know visually which messages have already been looked at by a member of your team. This way, you can easily make sure work isn't being duplicated.
You'll also see:
- Channel Type (displayed as an icon)
- Channel Name
- Author Name
- Short preview of the message
- A thumbnail preview of an image or video, if any are included in the message
- Like and comment counts for Facebook, LinkedIn, and Instagram; retweet count for Twitter
- Timestamp for when the message was published
NOTE: Your owned messages (the messages from your social properties) will remain in your inbox indefinitely. However, if you don't take action on your non-owned messages, like messages coming in from Listen, they will be deleted from your inbox after a week. This is to help make your inbox more manageable!
SORTING MESSAGES
You can view your messages either from newest to oldest, or oldest to newest. Just use the drop down at the top of the message list to choose what you want! By default, your messages are sorted newest at the top.
FILTERS
You can filter your inbox so you only see certain messages you want by using the Filters section, which is covered in the Filtering Messages help article.
Searching Your Messages
The search box at the top of the message area lets you search all of your messages. You can narrow down your search in by doing the following:
- While searching the Inbox, click on the filters listed on the left sidebar, such as Archived, Hidden, or Deleted.
- Within the search box, expand the search by clicking the down arrow and select All, Username, and/or Message Body options.
Once you start your search, any messages matching your search terms will appear, with the term highlighted.
You can search for a full or partial term, but only a term that has 5 characters or more will return partial matches. Anything less will be searched as an exact term.
Here are some search shortcuts so you can find exactly the messages you want.
- Including a - before a search term will exclude it from your search.
- Using * with a search term makes it a wildcard search. Here’s an example: Car* would return messages with “cars” and “carrots”. *at* would return “Athens” and “fat”.
- Including your search in quotes finds that exact term only. For example: “kit” would return all mentions of “kit” but not “kittens”.
- Using OR with multiple search terms will return messages with either of those terms. So, for example, if you search Cats OR dogs, you will get messages that contain cats or dogs.
- Using AND with multiple search terms will return messages containing both search terms only. So searching cats AND dogs will show you only messages that mention both cats and dogs.
Viewing a Message
To read a message, click anywhere in the message preview to open it. You'll see the message, as well as any comments, and any attachments. Comments and replies display in chronological order, unless you have replies to comments turned on for your Page (Facebook only - change this setting on Facebook). Selecting this feature lets your Facebook Page's comments display in ranked order (instead of chronological) with the most popular comments at the top. (For more info on how to select this option, see the Social Properties help article.)
Click anywhere outside of the message to return to the message stream, or click the X. Use the arrows onscreen or your left and right arrows on your keyboard to navigate through all messages in your stream. Messages are marked as read after they are opened.
NOTE: If you want a message to appear unread, click Mark as Unread in the message drop down.
New Messages
When a new comment or reply is made to a message that has already been read, the message is moved to the top of the list with an indicator circle to alert you that there is a new message in a thread that you have already read. When you open that message, only the unread message appears with an indicator circle. If there are multiple comments on that post, then the message viewer automatically scrolls down to the unread messages for your convenience.
When new messages are received while you are in the platform, you are notified at the top of the message streams that there are new messages. Click the notification to view new messages in the list.
Locking a Message
If you are concerned that multiple users might be trying to work on the same message at the same time, then message locking will solve this problem./p>
On each message, you'll see the 
icon. If you start working on the message, click the lock icon and your name will appear next to the lock, so no one else can work on it.
NOTE: You don't have to open the message to lock it. Click the lock in the message list.
If a message needs to be reassigned, an admin can open the message, and reassign it in the Assigned to area.
NOTE: Message locking has to be enabled for your account, so if you want to use this, have an admin check the appropriate box in the Accounts section of Workflow & Automation. For more info on this, see the Account Tab help article.
Social Network Specifics
The different social networks that you see as channels in Engage have specific options and actions you can perform on them.
For full information on the actions you can take on specific messages, check out the Taking Actions on Messages help article.
Main Gear Icon
When you are viewing a specific Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, or Instagram channels, or Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, or Instagram as a channel types, you'll see the following options in the main gear icon:
- Export - Emails you an exported file of the messages (must be from a specific channel). You can filter this list before you export it.
- Mark all as read
- Mark all as unread
- Archive all - Move all messages to the Archive folder.
Facebook Pages of which you are an Admin
If you are the admin of a Facebook Page, all messages that appear on the Page's timeline will display in this stream, including status updates or admin posts, non-admin posts from outside users, and comments made on any of those posts. You can see the number of likes and comments for a post directly in the stream as well as when you click into the message. You also see private messages made from outside users to the page.
Twitter Channels
You see all tweets published to your account, as well as the number of retweets for your tweets, plus all the tweets published by others that are mentioning you, and also any direct messages sent to you. You can sort your Twitter messages by tweets, mentions, and direct messages.
If the tweet you are viewing is part of a conversation you have been having on Twitter, you can see the entire history of that conversation right inside the message. Just click the text labeled "Show History", and the conversation will expand to show all the tweets in the conversation.
LinkedIn Channels
You will see all updates published to your company or showcase page, as well the number of likes and comments on those updates. You can read and reply to comments on your updates, but you cannot delete comments due to an API limitation.
NOTE: Engage only collects likes and comments on the last 100 updates you have made to your company or showcase page.
Instagram Accounts
You will see all photos published to your account, as well as the number of likes and comments on those photos. You can read and reply to comments on your photos, and you can delete comments.
Weibo Pages
You will see all posts made to your account, as well as the number of likes and reposts on those posts. You can read and reply to comments on your posts, and you can delete those comments, and follow the user who posted it.