Brandwatch crisis alert in Slack: spike and sentiment monitor

PromptCreate workflow

Build me an agent-based workflow that acts as a Brandwatch crisis early-warning system for our brand and posts structured alerts into a Slack channel when something starts trending against us.

Trigger: cron, every hour during business hours in our timezone (for example Monday to Friday, 8am to 7pm). The agent should stay silent on weekends and outside business hours.

On every run, the agent should:

1) Use Brandwatch List Projects to find the project the comms team uses for brand monitoring, then Brandwatch List Queries to find the brand-monitoring query inside that project. Resolve the project and query by name (the names should be configurable inputs to the workflow, for example project name 'Brand Monitoring' and query name 'Acme Brand'). Cache these IDs across runs if possible so we are not re-resolving them every hour.

2) Call Brandwatch Get Chart Data twice against that query: once with the days dimension to pull daily mention volume for the last 8 days, and once with the days x sentiment dimensions to pull daily counts split by sentiment (positive, neutral, negative) for the same 8 days. Use the most recent full day as 'today' and the 7 days before that as the baseline.

3) Compute two signals: (a) a volume spike when today's mention count is more than 2x the 7-day baseline average, and (b) a negative-sentiment surge when today's share of negative mentions is materially higher than the baseline share (for example >1.5x the baseline negative share, or negative share >30% with a meaningful absolute volume). Either signal counts as a crisis trigger. Make these thresholds easy to edit at the top of the instructions.

4) If neither signal fires, do nothing and exit silently. Do not post a 'nothing to report' message.

5) If a signal fires, call Brandwatch Retrieve Mentions for the same query, scoped to the last 24 hours and filtered to negative sentiment, sorted by reach descending. Take the top 3 mentions. For each, capture the author handle, the audience reach, the URL, and a short excerpt of the post text (trim to roughly 240 characters).

6) Compose a Slack alert and post it to a designated channel (default #brand-alerts, but make the channel name a configurable input) using Slack Bot Send a Message. The message should include: a clear headline like ':rotating_light: Brand crisis signal: Acme Brand' with the offending signal type, a one-line summary of why it spiked (for example 'Mentions are 3.4x the 7-day average, with 58% negative sentiment vs 22% baseline'), the top 3 example mentions as bullets with author, reach, the trimmed excerpt, and the URL, and a 'Recommended next step' line such as 'Have comms review the top driver post and decide on a public response within 30 minutes.' Format with Slack mrkdwn so links are clickable and key numbers are bold.

7) Keep the message tight and skimmable. Cap example mentions at 3 even if more are negative. Avoid posting raw API data or IDs. The reader is the head of comms, not an analyst.

Inputs the workflow should expose: Brandwatch project name, Brandwatch query name, Slack channel, business-hours window and timezone, volume-spike multiplier (default 2.0), negative-sentiment multiplier (default 1.5), absolute negative-share floor (default 30%), and an optional Slack user or group to @-mention for severe alerts (for example when volume is >5x baseline).

Be defensive: if Brandwatch returns no data for the baseline window, skip the spike check for that run rather than alerting on division-by-zero. If the query or project name cannot be resolved, post a one-time setup error to the same Slack channel and stop.

Additional information

What does this prompt do?

Checks your brand query in Brandwatch every hour during business hours and compares the last 24 hours of activity against the prior 7-day baseline.
Detects when mention volume more than doubles, or when the share of negative posts climbs sharply, so a brewing crisis cannot slip past unnoticed.
Pulls the top driver posts behind the spike, with author, audience reach, link, and a short excerpt, and posts a focused alert to your designated Slack channel.
Stays silent on quiet hours so the comms team is not numbed by noise and pays attention when a real alert lands.

What do I need to use this?

A Brandwatch account with at least one brand-monitoring query already set up.
A Slack workspace and a channel like #brand-alerts for the comms team.
A short list of who should be paged or tagged when an alert fires.

How can I customize it?

Tighten or relax the spike thresholds, for example require triple normal volume instead of double, or alert on any day with more than 30 percent negative sentiment.
Change the schedule to run more often during launch weeks, or only on weekdays during business hours in your timezone.
Swap the destination channel, add an @here or @channel ping for severe alerts, or route different brands to different channels.

Frequently asked questions

Do I need Brandwatch's Signals add-on for this?

No. This agent recreates the most useful part of Signals using your existing Brandwatch queries, and delivers the alert in Slack instead of email so your team actually sees it.

Will it spam the channel during a real crisis?

It runs once per hour during business hours, so at most you get one alert per check. You can also set it to suppress repeat alerts for the same query within a short window.

What counts as a spike?

By default, the agent flags an hour when the last 24 hours of mention volume is more than double the daily average from the prior 7 days, or when negative sentiment grows sharply against the same baseline. You can tune both thresholds.

Can I monitor more than one brand or product?

Yes. Point the agent at a different Brandwatch query for each brand and route each one to its own Slack channel.

What if the day is quiet?

Nothing is posted. The agent stays silent unless a spike or sentiment surge is detected, so the channel stays high-signal.

Catch a brand crisis before it trends.

Connect Brandwatch and Slack once, and Geni watches your brand for spikes every business hour and posts a structured alert when something is breaking.

Explore more prompts Create workflow