GETTING STARTED

How rules work

Every rule is evaluated the same way, on every new event SocFlow sees for a connected or watched account.

1. Trigger (WHEN)

The event a rule listens for — a mention, a new follower, a keyword appearing in a post, a new post from a watched account. Triggers are checked on a recurring poll (or, where a platform supports it, a webhook) — not instantly on every platform.

2. Filters (IF)

Optional conditions that narrow a trigger down — matching only certain keywords, only accounts above a follower count, only posts above a certain age. A trigger with no filters fires on every matching event.

3. Action (THEN)

What SocFlow does once a trigger and its filters match: reply, post, send a DM, apply a label, or send you a notification. Which actions are available depends on the platform and whether the account is connected — see platform rules for what's safe to automate.

New rules never backfill history

When you create a rule, SocFlow records a baseline of everything that already exists at that moment (existing followers, existing posts, existing mentions). Only activity that happens after that baseline can ever trigger the rule — SocFlow will never reply to, DM, or label something that was already there before you turned the rule on.

SocFlow also applies a few automatic protections on top of every rule's own logic — duplicate-content checks, per-contact cooldowns, and automated-account disclosure. Those are covered in built-in guardrails.