Movements
Movements: what changed
Knowing that a topic exists is not enough. The useful question, week after week, is what moved. That is what the movement answers: a badge telling you, for each topic, why you should look at it now.
A topic carries only one movement at a time. The rules below are evaluated in order, from the strongest signal to the weakest, and the first one that matches wins.
# 🌱 New
The topic itself did not exist before this period. This is the first time it appears, across any of your accounts.
Not "it's back": "it's appeared". A new topic has no past by definition, so there is nothing to compare it against — which is why this rule is evaluated first.
What it tells you
A concern that was not in your base at all. Often the consequence of a release, a pricing change, or a competitor's move.
# 📈 Accelerating
The topic is well above its own usual pace, measured over the previous twelve weeks.
This is the most important one to understand, because it is not a measure of growth. A topic running at 200 mentions a week that gains 20 does not fire: that is its normal variation. A topic going from 4 to 10 mentions does fire: for that topic, it is an event.
Why not a simple percentage
A "+50%" threshold would rank by volume: the biggest topics carry the biggest swings and would surface every single week. You would always see the same ones, and you would stop looking. Comparing each topic against its own normal is what makes the genuine surprises surface.
Three guards keep false alarms out:
- at least 3 mentions in the period — otherwise going from 1 to 2 would fire constantly;
- at least 4 weeks of history — with no established normal, there is no anomaly to observe;
- a perfectly steady topic is not declared abnormal over one extra mention.
What it tells you
Something happened on this topic, this week, that is out of its ordinary. It is the most actionable of the four.
# 🔀 Spreading
Accounts that had never raised this topic are starting to.
An account is "new" on a topic if its very first mention, ever, falls inside the displayed period. This movement catches a slow contagion the other two cannot see: the topic is known, its volume is flat, but it reaches more and more accounts. The volume is stable; the reach is not.
At least two accounts must be involved — a single-account topic does not "spread".
What it tells you
An irritant leaving its original circle. Often the best moment to act: still small in volume, already widespread.
The New accounts column shows exactly the number that triggers this badge.
# Stable
Everything else — and the vast majority of topics. Shown as a dash: badging almost every row would bury the three that matter.
# The "What's new" shortcut
The What's new button in the filter bar applies the last 7 days and keeps only the topics carrying a movement, in one click. It is the view to open on a Monday morning, and it is also where the weekly digest links land.
Movement depends on the displayed period
Changing the period changes the movements: they describe what happened over the window you chose. Over 90 days, "accelerating" means "this quarter was unusual"; over 7 days, "this week was unusual". Both readings are correct — they simply answer different questions.
# The weekly digest
Every Monday, an email sums up what moved: new topics, accelerations, spreads — with one verbatim per line and a direct link to the topic.
It is built never to repeat itself: a topic that was featured cannot come back for four weeks, unless it has clearly worsened in the meantime. A single email never carries two topics from the same family. And on quiet weeks, rather than sending you an empty email, it surfaces your blind spots: the topics with the highest exposed revenue that nobody has triaged yet.
If nothing deserves your attention, you get nothing.
Unsubscribing
The digest can be turned off from My profile, independently of Skalin's other weekly emails.