Skip to main content
Skip to article
  • Qualtrics Platform
    Qualtrics Platform
  • Customer Journey Optimizer
    Customer Journey Optimizer
  • XM Discover
    XM Discover
  • Qualtrics Social Connect
    Qualtrics Social Connect

Building Dashboards with Social Data

Was this helpful?


This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

The feedback you submit here is used only to help improve this page.

That’s great! Thank you for your feedback!

Thank you for your feedback!

Qtip: This support page describes functionality that we intend to release starting August 20, 2025. Qualtrics may, in its sole discretion and without liability, change the timing of any product feature rollout, change the functionality for any in preview or in development product feature, or choose not to release a product feature or functionality for any reason or for no reason.

About Building Dashboards with Social Data

Once your social data has loaded in your dashboard, you can customize the dashboard however you want. We have many dashboard support pages across this website that you can use. However, to make things easier, we’ll show you some common widget setups used specifically with social data.

Before you can customize your social dashboard, you need to create your dashboard and map your social data. See also the list of social data available and recommended field types.

General Dashboard Resources

In the next few support pages, we’ll cover some useful dashboard setups that can help you make the most of your social data. However, you’re also free to use the data however you want. Below, we have some general dashboard resources that can be helpful:

As we go through the following use cases, we’ll also link out to widgets and functionality, such as bar widgets, response tickers, Text iQ in dashboards, and more.

Displaying Top-Ranked Social Posts

In this section, we’ll show you how to display the top 5+ social media posts with the most engagement.

  1. Create a horizontal bar, vertical bar, or table widget.
  2. For the Metric, we recommend a sum of comments or likes.
    horizontal bar chart with metric set to the sum of the like count
  3. Set your Y-Axis to threadId.
    thread ID on the Y axis, with top 5 values set up

    Qtip: Make sure threadId is set to the Text Set field type.
  4. Select Enable top/bottom N values.
  5. Select Top.
  6. Set the number of top posts you want to see. Here, we chose 5.
  7. Add a Filter.
    widget filter for data type set to Post
  8. Select the field for dataType.
  9. Set the value to Post. This makes sure you’re focusing on individual posts, instead of comparing posts to comments and replies.
  10. Go to Display.
    axis sorting adjusted in the widget's display tab
  11. Open Axes.
  12. Under Sort axis by, set this to Value and Descending.
    Qtip: On a table, you can click headers to change how the widget is sorted.
  13. Under Data values, you can also display exact counts so bar charts are easier to skim.
    option to show data values is enabled, showing numbers next to each bar of the bar chart

Show the specific social media post when an ID is selected

By letting the top ranked posts widget act like a filter, you can let dashboard visitors click on post IDs to learn more. (And click again to remove the filter.) You can use this functionality to display the text of the post itself as well as other information about the post.

Qtip: This functionality will filter the entire dashboard page when a part of the widget is clicked. Because of this, you should group widgets you want to be filtered together on the same page.
  1. Edit your top-ranked posts widget.
  2. Select When you select a widget data point, apply its filters to the entire dashboard temporarily.
    widget check box named When you select a widget data point, apply its filters to the entire dashboard temporarily
  3. Add a response ticker widget.
  4. Set the Content to the Content field.
    response ticker with social data inside it
  5. For the other fields, you can add whatever details you want. For example, any of the “count” fields could be the ticker value, and the subtitle could be the social media source.
  6. Add a Filter.
    widget filter for data type set to Post
  7. Select the field for dataType.
  8. Set the value to Post.

Analyzing Social Media Posts with Text iQ

Comments tend to have a varying range of content, which makes use of Text iQ and its enrichments a great choice for analysis. Using Text iQ, you can uncover trends in your brand’s social media activity.

The field you’ll analyze in Text iQ is content, since this is where the text of the post or review is stored. For step-by-step guides to text analysis and related dashboard widgets, see the following:

Analyzing All Posts and Comments in a Thread

You can view a post and all of its related comments using the field called threadId. The threadId is the same for all posts and comments that come from the same thread.

Qtip: You’ll want threadId mapped as a text value for this solution. If you already have it mapped as a text set for use in other widgets, you can always map a second copy of the field – just make sure to give it a different name. For example, “Thread ID for Filtering.”

Creating a dashboard filter

  1. Create a dashboard filter.
    building a filter for thread ID
  2. Set the field to threadId.
  3. You can rename this field to something simpler to understand, like “Thread ID Filter.”
  4. Once this is set up, your dashboard visitors can now use the filter.
    pasting a value into the Thread ID filter

Displaying posts, comments, and thread IDs

These steps show an easy way to display posts, connected comments, and their threadIDs, so you can use these in your filters. However, you can also add any other widgets you want on your page for comment analysis. We recommend a Word Cloud, a Text iQ Bubble Widget, and / or a Text iQ Table Widget.

  1. Create a response ticker widget.
  2. Give it a name that shows this widget is for browsing posts.
  3. Set the Content to the Content field.
    response ticker with social data inside it
  4. Make sure the title or subtitle is set to threadId, so you can easily copy this information.
  5. For the other fields, you can add whatever details you want. For example, any of the “count” fields could be the ticker value, and the subtitle could be the social media source.

FAQs