How Magnetic Replaced Unstable Scrapers with Data365’s API for Social Listening

Reliable Social Listening Starts with Reliable Data

Every social listening platform depends on the same foundation: a steady stream of public social media data. Before a dashboard can display trends, before sentiment can be analyzed, and before brands can respond to online conversations, the relevant posts first need to be collected.

For Magnetic, maintaining that collection layer had become an increasing engineering challenge. Rather than continuing to invest time in keeping internal scrapers running, the company chose a different approach by integrating the Data365 Social Media API into its social listening platform, Quantico.

The Challenge with Maintaining Scrapers

While an internal scraper can deliver initial access to the data you need, keeping it running becomes an ongoing technical burden over time. 

Frequent changes to social media platforms are the root cause – updates to page structures, access patterns, or technical limitations can all cause a scraper to fail without warning. And because this type of product depends on an uninterrupted flow of public conversations, any disruption in collection ends up affecting monitoring workflows and limiting the data available for further analysis.

Magnetic wanted a more dependable way to receive public social media data without carrying the long-term maintenance burden internally.

A More Stable Data Source with Data365

Magnetic switched to the Data365 Social Media API to support Quantico’s social listening capabilities.

Since Data365 provides structured social media data through an API, Magnetic can access the post data it needs without maintaining its own data collection infrastructure and seamlessly integrate it into its existing product workflows.

• This creates a clearer separation between data collection and data analysis:
  • Data365 manages access to and delivery of the public data;
  • Magnetic focuses on processing that data and turning digital conversations into useful insights for its clients.

Because the data is delivered in a structured format, the team can incorporate it into its existing monitoring and analysis processes without first having to transform it.

Why a Reliable Data Layer Matters for Social Listening

The dashboards users see represent only the final stage of a much larger process.

Every trend, sentiment score, or reputation alert begins with individual public posts entering the system. If that incoming data becomes inconsistent, every downstream feature has less information to work with.

Reliable data collection rarely receives the same attention as analytics or visualization, yet it forms the foundation those capabilities depend on. A more dependable collection layer gives engineering teams a stronger base for building monitoring, reporting, and analysis features without repeatedly returning to infrastructure maintenance.

For Magnetic, moving the collection layer to Data365 meant shifting responsibility for public data collection away from its internal engineering team while continuing to develop Quantico's core capabilities.

What Changed After Integration

• The integration gave Magnetic:
  • A more reliable data flow: public post data is delivered more consistently than with the company’s previous scrapers;
  • Less engineering overhead: the team spends less time maintaining collection scripts and troubleshooting scraper failures;
  • Structured data delivery: posts arrive in a format that can be incorporated into Magnetic’s existing workflows;
  • More focus on the core product: developers can dedicate more attention to Quantico’s social listening and analysis capabilities;