The quality of your scan results depends entirely on your query. A well-crafted query surfaces decision-makers actively looking for solutions. A poor query returns noise that wastes your time and credits.
Before writing a query, decide what you want to find. Brand monitoring queries focus on exact brand name mentions. Lead generation queries focus on buying intent and pain points. Competitive intelligence queries focus on competitor discussions. Each goal requires a different query structure.
The highest-converting lead queries combine three elements: intent signal + category + platform constraint. For example:
"looking for" project management tool site:reddit.com"recommend" CRM small business site:quora.com"anyone use" social listening -"I use" (finds people asking, not people answering)Not sure where to start? MentionFox's AI scan suggestions feature analyzes your client's profile, industry, competitors, and target audience to generate optimized queries. Open a client's War Room, go to the Scans tab, and click Suggest Queries. The AI returns a list of ready-to-use queries ranked by expected lead quality. You can run any suggestion immediately or customize it first.
Treat query crafting as an iterative process. Run a query, review the first 10-20 results, and ask yourself: are these the kind of mentions I want? If too broad, add exclusions or narrow with quotes. If too narrow, remove constraints or add OR alternatives. After 2-3 iterations, you will have a tight query that consistently produces actionable results.
CRM alone returns millions of irrelevant results. Always combine with intent or brand terms.-jobs -hiring -press-release liberally.