Brand monitoring on social media shouldn't require expensive enterprise tools or complex API integrations. Yet most solutions today demand both, leaving many teams to manually search platforms or go without crucial mention tracking. If you’re looking for a home grown solution that can be modified for your business workflows, read on to learn how to build a simple Anchor Browser-powered solution. By the end, you’ll be able to automatically monitor X (also known as Twitter), save new posts in a Google Sheet, and send posts downstream to any tool of your choice.

What You'll Build

A Ruby script that:

• Searches X for specific keywords using Anchor Browser's AI agents

• Extracts post data (URL, author, content) from search results

• Saves new posts to a Google Sheet with post de-duplication

• Sends webhook notifications for downstream automation (Slack, email, etc.)

Key Features

AI-powered monitoring

Anchor Browser's agentic browsers handle complex Twitter authentication and data extraction without brittle selectors.

Smart Duplicate Prevention

Checks all existing post IDs in the spreadsheet, not just the last processed post.

Webhook Integration

Enables downstream automation through HTTP requests to services like Slack, Discord, Zapier, IFTTT, Pipedream, or custom endpoints.

Modifiable Workflows

Built as readable Ruby classes that you can easily adapt for different keywords, platforms, or data destinations.

Getting Started

Prerequisites

• Ruby 2.7+ installed

• Anchor Browser account and API key

• Google Cloud account with Sheets API access

• X (Twitter) account for authenticating an agentic browser profile

Clone and Setup

Clone the repository and install dependencies:

git clone https://github.com/jmarbach/x-mention-bot.git
cd x-mention-bot
bundle install

View GitHub Repo

How it Works

1. Anchor Browser Remote Browser Session

Anchor Browser handles the complex parts, such as authentication, navigation, and data extraction through AI agents:

class AnchorClient
  def perform_web_task(task:, url: nil)
    payload = {
      prompt: task,
      headless: true,
      timeout: 120,
      profile_name: ENV['ANCHOR_PROFILE_NAME']
    }
    
    response = self.class.post('/v1/tools/perform-web-task', 
      headers: @headers, body: payload.to_json)
    
    response.parsed_response['data']['result']
  end
end

# Usage
search_task = "Go to X and search for 'your_brand'. Extract recent posts as JSON."
results = anchor_client.perform_web_task(task: search_task, url: "https://twitter.com/search"

2. Smart Duplicate Prevention

Before saving posts, the bot checks all existing entries in your spreadsheet:

class PostTracker
  def filter_truly_new_posts(posts, existing_post_ids)
    existing_ids_set = existing_post_ids.to_set
    
    posts.select do |post|
      post_id = extract_post_id(post)
      !existing_ids_set.include?(post_id)
    end
  end
  
  def extract_post_id(post)
    # Extract tweet ID from URL: /status/1234567890 -> 1234567890
    if post['post_url']&.include?('/status/')
      post['post_url'].split('/status/').last.split('?').first
    else
      post['post_id']
    end
  end
end

# Usage
existing_ids = sheets_client.get_all_post_ids
new_posts = post_tracker.filter_truly_new_posts(all_posts, existing_ids)

3. Optional: Downstream Destination Output

   Send new mentions to any service via webhooks for instant notifications:

class WebhookClient
  def send_new_posts(posts)
    payload = {
      event_type: "new_brand_mentions",
      timestamp: Time.now.iso8601,
      posts: posts.map do |post|
        {
          post_url: post['post_url'],
          author: post['author'],
          content: post['content'],
          found_at: Time.now.iso8601
        }
      end
    }
    
    HTTParty.post(@webhook_url, 
      headers: { 'Content-Type' => 'application/json' },
      body: payload.to_json)
  end
end

# Usage
webhook_client = WebhookClient.new(webhook_url: ENV['SLACK_WEBHOOK_URL'])
webhook_client.send_new_posts(new_posts)  # Instant Slack notifications

Connect to Zapier, Slack, Discord, or any HTTP endpoint to trigger alerts, update dashboards, or feed other business systems.

Running the Bot

First, create your X profile in Anchor Browser:

1. Go to Anchor Browser Playground

2. Start a new session and navigate to https://x.com 

3. Log in with your X account

4. Save the browser profile in the Anchor Browser playground

5. Set your profile name to the environment variable, ANCHOR_PROFILE_NAME

Then set up your Google Sheet:

Create a new Google Spreadsheet:

1. Copy the spreadsheet ID from the URL

2. Set your Google sheet ID to GOOGLE_SHEETS_ID 

3. Create a service account in Google Cloud Console

4. Download the JSON key and base64 encode it: base64 -i service-account.json

5. Set your base64-encoded service account key to GOOGLE_SERVICE_ACCOUNT_JSON

6. Share your spreadsheet with the service account email

And finally set your API key for Anchor Browser:

1. Go to the Anchor Browser cloud app

2. Navigate to the API Keys page

3. Copy your API key and set your variable, ANCHOR_API_KEY

Your environment variables should look as follows:

ANCHOR_API_KEY=your_anchor_api_key
ANCHOR_PROFILE_NAME=twitter-profile-name 
GOOGLE_SHEETS_ID=your_spreadsheet_id
GOOGLE_SERVICE_ACCOUNT_JSON=base64_encoded_service_account

Test run:

ruby main.rb

You'll see log output that steps you through the program's execution flow and indicators of any available results.

Automated Monitoring

For continuous mention monitoring, deploy as a scheduled function using a cloud service provider of your choice.

Conclusion

You now have a fully automated brand monitoring system that runs continuously in the cloud, costs pennies to operate, and can be modified to fit your exact business needs. As new mentions appear on X, they'll automatically flow into your Google Sheet and trigger any downstream workflows you've configured—giving you real-time visibility into your brand's social media presence without the overhead of enterprise monitoring tools.

Have any questions on how to stand this up for your brand or have other ideas for your business? Feel free to reach out to us and we'll be glad to help.