Build a Real-Time Twitter News Monitor (Without the $100/mo API Cost)

Twitter (now X) remains the pulse of the internet. Whether you're trading crypto, tracking PR crises, or training an LLM on real-time data, you need access to tweets now.

But ever since the API paywall went up, building a simple news monitor has become prohibitively expensive. The "Basic" tier costs $100/month and is severely rate-limited. The "Pro" tier jumps to $5,000/month.

For most developers, that's a non-starter.

In this guide, we'll build a Real-Time Twitter News Monitor using SociaVault's API. Instead of relying on the expensive official API, we'll use SociaVault to scrape high-signal accounts and communities for a fraction of the cost.

The Strategy: Targeted Monitoring

Since we aren't paying $5k/month for the "Firehose" (access to every tweet), we need to be smarter. We'll build a Targeted Monitor.

Most "trends" start from a specific set of influential accounts or communities. By monitoring these nodes, we can detect trends before they hit the mainstream.

What We'll Build

A Node.js script that:

1. Takes a list of "Signal Accounts" (e.g., breaking news handles, industry leaders).
2. Fetches their latest tweets in real-time.
3. Aggregates the data into a clean JSON feed.

Prerequisites

You'll need a SociaVault API key. You can get one here.

Step 1: Define Your Signal List

First, let's define who we want to watch. If you're building a Tech News Monitor, your list might look like this:

const SIGNAL_ACCOUNTS = [
  'TechCrunch',
  'TheVerge',
  'YCombinator',
  'paulg',
  'sama'
];

Step 2: The Scraper Script

We'll use the /scrape/twitter/user-tweets endpoint. This endpoint returns the latest tweets from a user profile, including text, media, and engagement stats.

Here is the complete code for your monitor:

const axios = require('axios');

// Configuration
const API_KEY = 'YOUR_SOCIAVAULT_API_KEY';
const BASE_URL = 'https://api.sociavault.com/v1';

// Who to watch
const TARGETS = ['TechCrunch', 'TheVerge', 'OpenAI'];

async function fetchLatestNews() {
  console.log(`📡 Starting news scan for ${TARGETS.length} sources...`);
  
  const newsFeed = [];

  for (const handle of TARGETS) {
    try {
      console.log(`   Checking @${handle}...`);
      
      const response = await axios.get(`${BASE_URL}/scrape/twitter/user-tweets`, {
        params: { 
          handle: handle,
          trim: true // Get a cleaner response
        },
        headers: { 
          'x-api-key': API_KEY 
        }
      });

      if (response.data.success) {
        // The API returns a list of tweets. Let's take the top 3.
        const latestTweets = response.data.data.slice(0, 3);
        
        latestTweets.forEach(tweet => {
          newsFeed.push({
            source: handle,
            text: tweet.text,
            views: tweet.views,
            likes: tweet.likes,
            posted_at: tweet.created_at,
            url: `https://x.com/${handle}/status/${tweet.id}`
          });
        });
      }
      
    } catch (error) {
      console.error(`   ❌ Error fetching @${handle}:`, error.response?.data?.error || error.message);
    }
  }

  // Sort by date (newest first)
  newsFeed.sort((a, b) => new Date(b.posted_at) - new Date(a.posted_at));

  console.log('\n📰 LATEST HEADLINES:');
  console.log('=====================');
  newsFeed.forEach(item => {
    console.log(`[${item.source}] ${item.text.substring(0, 80)}...`);
    console.log(`   👉 ${item.url} | 👀 ${item.views} views`);
    console.log('---');
  });
}

fetchLatestNews();

Sample Output

When you run this script, you'll get a structured feed like this:

📡 Starting news scan for 3 sources...
   Checking @TechCrunch...
   Checking @TheVerge...
   Checking @OpenAI...

📰 LATEST HEADLINES:
=====================
[OpenAI] We are launching GPT-5 today. It is capable of reasoning...
   👉 https://x.com/OpenAI/status/18293... | 👀 1.2M views
---
[TechCrunch] Apple just announced the new Vision Pro 2 with...
   👉 https://x.com/TechCrunch/status/18292... | 👀 450K views
---

Advanced: Monitoring Communities

Twitter Communities are often where the real discussion happens, away from the noise of the main timeline.

SociaVault also supports scraping communities via the /scrape/twitter/community/tweets endpoint.

// Monitor the "AI Builders" community
const communityUrl = 'https://x.com/i/communities/123456789';

const response = await axios.get(`${BASE_URL}/scrape/twitter/community/tweets`, {
  params: { url: communityUrl },
  headers: { 'x-api-key': API_KEY }
});

This is incredibly powerful for niche market research. You can track sentiment within specific groups (e.g., "React Developers", "Crypto Traders") without needing to follow thousands of individual accounts.

Why Use SociaVault?

1. Cost: You pay per request, not a flat $5,000/month fee.
2. Simplicity: No OAuth dances or complex developer portal approvals. Just an API key.
3. Rich Data: We return view counts, reply counts, and media URLs—data that is often restricted on official "Basic" plans.

Next Steps

Now that you have the raw data, you can:

• Feed the text into an LLM to summarize the day's news.
• Set up alerts for specific keywords (e.g., "launch", "funding", "crisis").
• Compare this data with YouTube Shorts trends to see if video content matches text discussions.

Ready to build your own Bloomberg terminal? Get your API key here.