TikTok has become the go-to platform for the digital-first generation. As the hottest social media hub on the block, its exponential growth has had a significant impact on how consumers interact with their favourite brands online.
Gone are the days of Facebook ads and Instagram partnerships. Today, more brands than ever are switching up their social strategy to appeal to a TikTok audience that spends an average of 52 minutes per day on the platform.
The question is, how do you ensure that your TikTok content is a viral hit rather than an epic flop?
One way to do this is to tap into your current TikTok analytics. By leveraging a social listening approach to your TikTok strategy, you get closer to your consumers and delve deeper into their true options for your brand online.
With this in mind, we’ve put together a guide on how brands can decode their TikTok success and start social listening to improve their content strategy.
Decoding TikTok’s popular platform
So why is TikTok so popular in 2024? As the app continues to explode amongst Gen Z and Gen Alpha demographics, recent figures suggest that the app has been downloaded a whopping 2 billion times since it first became popular in 2020.
TikTok’s biggest appeal is the platform’s ability to serve a generation of online users who demand instant gratification. With a short-form video format and an unlimited library of content to scroll through, the platform design speaks to fast-paced fingers and short attention spans.
In fact, 47% of TikTok users say that they pay full attention to TikTok videos, as opposed to just 21% on other competitive platforms.
This provides brands with a chance to actively target their demographic with short, snappy content that is likely to blend in with the platform’s algorithm.
(Image Source: Mayple)
In 2024, 67% of TikTok user claim that TikTok ads capture their attention, so it’s no surprise that online brands are pouring focus into their video-ad strategy on the app.
However, with competition amongst all niches on the platform rising, is TikTok for business worth the hype?
In 2024, businesses must step up their game to secure a spot on the viral For You page.
Key metrics to track on TikTok
Examining your current platform performance is crucial to improving your TikTok content strategy and securing more in-app conversions.
Here are some of the key metrics to track when taking an audit of your current platform presence.
- Engagement rate: This popular metric should be tracked on all social platforms as it assesses how and when your target audience interacts with your content.
- Hashtag engagement: On the topic of engagement, ensure that you also track the traction of your hashtags. How many times have they been viewed/clicked/reused?
- Video views: How many times has your content been viewed? Are there particular formats/lengths/topics that generate a greater viewership?
- Followers: This one is simple. Are your follower metrics rising or falling? This indicates how well your brand is performing on TikTok and suggests whether your content is attracting new leads.
- Sentiment score: What is your demographic saying about your brand? Do they interact with your content positively or negatively?
- Trending topics: While it’s important to track your own content engagement, also look at trending videos within your niche. These are brilliant sources of inspiration for future content.
Mapping these metrics can provide you with greater insight into which areas of your social strategy are working and which areas require improvement.
While the initial analysis is usually the hardest part of a social listening strategy, there are plenty of social media analytics tools to leverage when collecting multiple metrics at once. This can speed up the social listening process and enhance reporting with real-time data visualisation that highlights key areas for improvement.
How to start social listening on TikTok
If you’re new to social listening or simply don’t know where to start when it comes to a platform as large as TikTok, we’ve got you covered.
Here are five ways to bolster your social listening strategy on TikTok and track essential metrics with ease.
1. Monitor niche hashtags and keywords
One of the first ways to ease into social listening is to monitor and identify niche hashtags and keywords that appeal to your brand and your demographic.
These are the phrases people associate with your industry niche and often the keywords they use when searching for content similar to yours on TikTok.
For example, if your business is launching a new recruitment campaign in order to attract the best international talent, why not use #hiring hashtag?
Here, you will find the leading content, creators, and keywords that dominate this section of TikTok. With this information under your belt, you can create content in a similar format to the videos that have performed best and leverage the same hashtags to double your chances of appearing on your target demographic’s For You Page.
Don’t forget that TikTok also notices which niche hashtags take off amongst their many viewers. For example, when searching for keywords and phrases related to recruitment, we come across #hiring, which has more than 370K posts.
(Image Source: Screenshot: TikTok)
2. Stay up to date on brand mentions
Next, let’s examine your brand mentions. This is also extremely easy to do when using a tool like Keyhole’s Social Listening Platform, which lets you know when your brand is mentioned online.
Your brand mentions help you stay on top of how your audience is responding to your products and services. If you’re in the loop when it comes to TikTok reviews and brand-focused comments, you are in a position to act immediately on a mention if needed.
This can be in the form of a reply or a quick fix for an unhappy customer.
Take this example, for instance, where mention monitoring is essential. In January 2024, US-based TikTok creator Abbey Yung posted a series called “Brands I Hate” to her 1.2 million followers.
(Image Source: TikTok Screenshot)
With over 1.9 million views between the videos, this form of brand mentioning on TikTok can be catastrophic for an online business. Influencers collect loyal followers, so if they are on the wrong side of your brand, it’s important that you rectify the situation swiftly.
Here, brand mention monitoring is crucial. If you are notified of this negative press immediately, you have the opportunity to respond via the content of comments to salvage your own TikTok PR.
3. Track trending topics
TikTok’s algorithm is constantly changing. Topic trends and content formats that appear at the top of the For You Page one week may not appear again the next.
This is why it is important to stay on top of your industry niche and track the trending topics appearing under relevant hashtags and your competitor feeds.
This aids you in identifying trends ahead of the curve and provides you with an opportunity to jump on board for a chance of virality.
Coconut water brand Vita Coco does just this when it comes to creating content for the app.
(Image Source: Screenshot TikTok)
By collaborating with popular influencers and leveraging trending sounds, they create content that naturally fits into their target’s For You Pages in an attempt to engage more users for organic conversion.
4. Monitor on-platform sentiment
In the same way as your brand mentions, tracking your sentiment on TikTok can also help you identify what your target customers think about your brand online.
Senetonnet tracking consists of leveraging analytics on positive and negative language in relation to your brand, this data can then be turned into a sentiment report that reveals how your consumers view your products and services over selected periods of time.
This data can then be used to influence not only your TikTok content but also your new products and the way you position your brand within your industry.
Footwear brand, Crocs has used sentiment tracking to enhance their own TikTok content strategy. While the beach and boat show brand saw initial success on the platform, they saw lead generation begin to dwindle.
Taking to their socials with sentiment analysis, they found that their target consumers were no longer looking for slip-on boat shoes but wanted the company to focus on a unique style that could be worn on the high street.
(Image Source: W Magazine)
In response, the brand teamed up with Balenciaga to feature a Croc X Balenciaga shoe that appeared on the Balenciaga Show Runway in 2018.
Their commitment to high fashion and the number of other collaborations they have made with other trending brands since have seen their follower count exceed 2.1 million on TikTok, with an 11% boost in revenue for the brand.
5. Compare TikTok insights with other data
Last but not least, it’s important to compare your TikTok insights with the data you leverage from your other social media platforms.
Keyhole offers a wide range of analytic tools for all social platforms. In addition to our TikTok Analytics Tool, we offer tools to track your performance on Instagram, YouTube,X, Facebook, and LinkedIn.
With the ability to track insights specific to other social apps, you get a more well rounded picture of your overall engagement and sentiment online.
Better still, why not also start social listening to your competitors? Tracking competitor follower counts, video views, and trending content is a great way to see what your brand is missing and identify content gaps that they are yet to cover.
The more data you utilize during a social listening campaign, the closer you’ll remain to your consumers in a fast-paced online landscape.
Wrapping up
As TikTok continues to evolve, so should your content strategy if you want to keep your engagement rates rising.
By integrating social listening into your TikTok strategy, you can help your brand stay ahead of upcoming content trends and avoid negative brand mentions that could affect your sentiment score.
The key here is to always be listening. TikTok’s entire algorithm can switch up in seconds, so you must be prepared to adapt and act fast for continued social success.
For beginners to social listening, why not check out Keyhole and their advanced social listening tool that tracks brand conversations on multiple social media platforms, including TikTok, Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and Linkedin?
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Frequently Asked Questions
1. What is social listening?
Social listening is the process of monitoring conversations online. These could be about your brand or any trending topic that has garnered engagement. Leveraging data on brand emotions, consumer sentiment and content interaction is the key to getting closer to your consumers.
2. Why is Social Listening important for brand success on social media?
Social listening is important for brand success online because it highlights the positives and negatives of your current social media presence. This provides you with the opportunity to tweak your content strategy accordingly to adhere to trending content topics and an ever-evolving demographic.
3. How can you use Keyhole’s social listening feature on TikTok?
Keyhole’s social listening tool can be used to monitor brand conversations on multiple social media platforms, including TikTok, Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and Linkedin.
4. What other platforms should you monitor in 2024?
It’s important to monitor every social platform your brand appears on in 2024 for the best shot at success.
