If you’re tired of chasing down company news and updates by hand—or wasting hours on search engines and “news monitoring” tools that mostly hawk yesterday’s headlines—this guide’s for you. We’ll walk through how to actually use Proxycurl to pull real-time company news and updates, cut out the busywork, and avoid the pitfalls that come with automating this sort of thing.
This isn’t a sales pitch. Proxycurl has its strengths, but it’s not magic. You’ll get practical steps, some blunt warnings, and a clear path to getting useful, fresh company intel—without the fluff.
Why Use Proxycurl for Company News and Updates?
Let’s be honest: tracking company news is a pain. Google Alerts drown you in noise, “AI” news digests miss key updates, and half the tools out there just repackage press releases. If you want to build your own workflow for up-to-date company intel—especially at scale—Proxycurl is one of the more straightforward APIs around.
What Proxycurl does well: - Direct access to company data: Pulls info from LinkedIn and other sources, not just regurgitated news. - Real-time queries: You request; it fetches the latest, not a stale database cache (most of the time). - Decent documentation: You don’t need a PhD to get started.
What to keep in mind: - It’s as good as its sources: If a company update isn’t public or on LinkedIn, Proxycurl won’t find it. - Not a news aggregator: It’s not going to monitor every newswire or blog for you. - API costs add up: Real-time data isn’t free—watch your usage.
Step 1: Get Access and Set Up Your Proxycurl API Key
First things first: you need an account. Go to Proxycurl’s site, sign up, and grab your API key from your dashboard. Don’t share this key with anyone; treat it like a password.
Pro tip: Start with the free tier or a low-usage plan. You can always ramp up if you actually get value out of the data.
Basic Setup
Most people use Proxycurl with Python, but you can hit their API from any language that can make HTTP requests. Here’s a barebones Python example:
python import requests
API_KEY = "your_api_key" headers = { "Authorization": f"Bearer {API_KEY}", }
response = requests.get( "https://nubela.co/proxycurl/api/linkedin/company", params={"url": "https://www.linkedin.com/company/microsoft/"}, headers=headers, ) print(response.json())
You’ll get back a JSON object with company info—headcount, recent posts, and more. This is the building block for everything else.
Step 2: Identify What “News and Updates” You Actually Want
Here’s where most people go wrong: they try to collect everything, then drown in data they don’t use.
Decide what matters: - Official company posts: Like product announcements or press releases on LinkedIn. - Key personnel changes: New execs, departures, etc. - Significant company milestones: Funding, acquisitions, partnerships.
Ignore the noise: Not every blog mention or minor update is worth tracking. Focus on what actually moves the needle for you or your clients.
Step 3: Use Proxycurl’s Endpoints for Real-Time Company Info
Proxycurl offers a few endpoints, but for company news and updates, you mainly want:
1. Company Profile Endpoint
- What it gives you: Headcount, website, industry, and sometimes the latest LinkedIn posts.
- Good for: Quick health checks, basic context.
2. Company LinkedIn Posts Endpoint
- What it gives you: The latest posts from a company’s LinkedIn page.
- Good for: Real-time updates, product launches, official news.
Sample request:
python response = requests.get( "https://nubela.co/proxycurl/api/linkedin/company/posts", params={ "url": "https://www.linkedin.com/company/microsoft/", "limit": 5, }, headers=headers, ) print(response.json())
This will return the company’s five most recent LinkedIn posts—usually the fastest way to catch new announcements.
3. Employee Search and Tracking
Want to know when someone joins or leaves? Use the employee listing endpoints and compare snapshots over time.
Warning: This gets expensive fast. Only track key people, and don’t poll constantly.
Step 4: Build Your Real-Time Update Workflow
No tool is “real-time” unless you make it so. Here’s a basic way to automate collection:
- Make a list of companies you care about.
- Fetch their LinkedIn URLs. (Proxycurl can help, or just grab them manually.)
- Set up a script or scheduled job (cron, GitHub Actions, Zapier, whatever).
- Poll the company posts endpoint every few hours (not every minute—be kind to your wallet).
- Store results in a simple database or even just a CSV.
- Compare new results to what you’ve already seen. Only flag or save actual new updates.
- (Optional) Add alerts.
- Use email, Slack, or whatever you like to notify yourself or your team about meaningful changes.
Pro tips: - Don’t fetch everything all the time. Be smart about intervals. - Store the post IDs or timestamps so you’re not processing duplicates.
Step 5: Filter, Enrich, and Actually Use the Data
You’ll get a lot of updates. Most aren’t relevant. Here’s how to make the data useful:
- Filter out noise: Only keep posts with certain keywords (“funding,” “launch,” etc.), or from official company profiles.
- Enrich with other sources: If Proxycurl doesn’t give you everything, supplement with RSS feeds, company blogs, or press releases. But don’t overcomplicate it at first.
- Summarize or tag posts: Use simple rules or even lightweight NLP to categorize updates, so you’re not reading everything by hand.
What Works (and What Doesn’t)
- Works: Tracking official company LinkedIn posts for real updates.
- Works (with caveats): Monitoring key employees for job changes—just don’t expect instant results.
- Doesn’t work: Hoping Proxycurl will catch every media mention or blog post. It’s not a Google News replacement.
Step 6: Watch Out for Gotchas
A few honest heads-ups:
- Data freshness: Proxycurl scrapes in real time, but there’s always a lag. If a company hasn’t updated their LinkedIn, you won’t see new info.
- API limits and costs: Heavy polling = high bills. Check your usage regularly.
- Legal and ethical issues: Don’t build anything that spams or scrapes where you shouldn’t.
- Changing endpoints: APIs evolve. Build in error handling and check the docs now and then.
Wrapping Up: Keep It Simple, Iterate as You Go
The real win here isn’t building a perfect “real-time news engine” on day one. It’s setting up a basic workflow—grab company posts, filter for what matters, get notified—then improving as you actually use the system.
Start small. Don’t worry if your first version is ugly or manual. You can always bolt on more bells and whistles later. The goal is less FOMO, less manual searching, and more useful company updates, delivered how you actually need them.
Proxycurl’s not a silver bullet, but it’s a solid tool if you know what you want and keep things simple. Good luck—and don’t forget to turn off your script before you go on vacation.