Unified inbox
The Unified Inbox brings the comments on your posts - and mentions of your brand - into one place, so you can keep up with them and reply without logging in and out of each platform.
Where it lives
Section titled “Where it lives”In External, the Unified Inbox card shows your pending comments and a View All button into the full inbox. You can also reach it from the Social Media panel on your Hive Pulse dashboard, which lists what needs attention across your platforms - both comments and mentions - and links straight to the matching view.
Comments and Mentions
Section titled “Comments and Mentions”The inbox covers two kinds of activity. It opens on Comments; switch between the two with the Comments / Mentions control in the inbox sidebar.
- Comments - activity on your own posts: the comments people leave on what you’ve published. You read and reply to these inside HIVE. Comments are fetched live from the platform, covering a recent window (see Archiving).
- Mentions - when someone @-tags your brand on their own content. Mentions are read-only in HIVE: you see them and open the platform to respond. (Mentions live on someone else’s post, so replying happens there.)
Supported platforms
Section titled “Supported platforms”The inbox works with the platforms you can connect today:
| Platform | Comments (read + reply) | Mentions |
|---|---|---|
| Yes | - | |
| Yes | Yes | |
| YouTube | Yes | - |
| Yes | - |
Mentions are available for Instagram. Facebook, YouTube and LinkedIn mentions aren’t surfaced; the ”-” is deliberate, not an omission.
Using the inbox
Section titled “Using the inbox”-
Pick a feed. The inbox opens on Comments; switch to Mentions with the Feed control in the sidebar.
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Choose Inbox or Archived. The Inbox holds what still needs attention; Archived holds what you’ve cleared.
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Filter by platform. Narrow to a single platform, or see all.
The counts beside each platform show how many items need attention. Items are sorted newest first.
How items are marked
Section titled “How items are marked”You don’t mark items read by hand - HIVE works out what needs attention for you:
- An item sits in your Inbox until it’s handled, then moves to Archived.
- If someone replies after you’ve replied, the item comes back to the Inbox with a needs-response highlight, so a continuing conversation doesn’t get lost.
- In a comment thread, each message is attributed - your reply, the platform account’s, or a third party’s - so you can see who said what.
Replying
Section titled “Replying”Replying happens on Comments (Mentions are read-only - open the platform for those).
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Open a comment and choose Reply.
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Pick which connected account sends the reply. It defaults to the account that owns the post.
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Type your reply and send. On success you’ll see “Reply sent”; if it doesn’t go through, “Reply failed” shows the reason.
A reply posts as the account you chose. If you don’t have an account connected for that platform, HIVE blocks the reply with “No {platform} account connected. Connect one to reply.”
Sending a reply archives the comment automatically - it’s been handled, so it moves out of the Inbox. If the conversation continues, it’ll come back (see above).
Open a post and its conversation
Section titled “Open a post and its conversation”From the Comments feed you can open the post a comment was left on and handle the whole conversation in one place.
- Open the post. Select a comment to open the post it was left on, with its conversation beside it. Some comments have no post to open. When HIVE has no record of the post the row shows Not in HIVE, and View still opens the comment on the platform. This is common on LinkedIn.
- See the conversation. A published post opens with its comments beside it. The heading counts the comments awaiting reply, HIVE’s tally of the threads that still need an answer, which is deliberately not the platform’s total, so a post can show a different number here than on the platform, and both are correct.
- Handled holds the threads your team has already answered, collapsed by default. Open it to read them or reply again.
Replying from the post
Section titled “Replying from the post”- Each top-level thread has one Reply. Send it and the thread moves to Handled on the same screen, which opens so you can see it.
- A reply always attaches to the top comment. Every platform supports a single level of replies, so there is no reply-to-a-reply. On YouTube and Instagram HIVE adds an @mention to the person you’re answering; on Facebook and LinkedIn it shows a Replying to note instead.
- Some posts show a note instead of comments. TikTok publishes a comment count but not the comments, so HIVE points you to the post in TikTok to read them. A post you haven’t published yet has no conversation at all.
Archiving and retention
Section titled “Archiving and retention”- Comments are read live from each platform and cover roughly the last 30 days. Older comments drop out of the live view, but they’re never deleted - they stay on the platform, and HIVE doesn’t keep a copy of comments you haven’t acted on.
- Mentions work differently: HIVE stores each one it finds, so mentions stay in the inbox until you archive them - there’s no 30-day cut-off.
- Archive clears an item from the Inbox into the Archived view. It isn’t deletion - Restore moves it back.
- Replying archives the item for you automatically.