In today’s fast-paced digital landscape, insights from social media have become integral to successful brand management. Companies across industries are leveraging social listening techniques to monitor brand and product mentions, gain valuable insights, and adjust business strategy to best target consumers. While there are numerous social media platforms from which to collect data, one platform stands out for its immense potential in the realm of social listening: TikTok. In this blog post, we will explore why TikTok is a game-changer for brand monitoring and how its unique features make it an essential tool in your social listening arsenal.
Understanding Social Listening
Social listening refers to the process of collecting and analyzing online mentions and conversations surrounding your brand, products, or industry across various social media platforms. It involves actively and/or retroactively listening to what consumers are saying about your brand, understanding consumer sentiment, and extracting meaningful insights to inform decision-making processes. By employing social listening, brands can gain a comprehensive understanding of their target audience, identify emerging trends, proactively manage their online reputation, address consumer concerns, refine marketing strategies, and stay ahead of the competition.
The Emergence of TikTok
With the rapid evolution of social media platforms comes the adaptation of new social listening tools. Most recently, TikTok has taken the world by storm, with over one billion active users worldwide. The platform’s unique features and user-friendly interface have made it one of the most popular social media apps in the world, and businesses have taken notice. In recent years, TikTok has emerged as a powerful marketing tool, giving brands a new way to reach and engage with their target audience.
Expanding Reach and Diverse Demographics
One of the key advantages of TikTok is its ability to reach a diverse and highly engaged audience. While there’s no question that younger demographics make up a huge portion of TikTok users, demographics have skewed older in recent reports. In 2021, 62% of all TikTok users were between the ages of 10 and 29, but in 2022, only 47% of TikTok users fall between these ages.
With nearly 131 million users, the United States has the most TikTok users by far, and this number is constantly growing. The most impressive part of TikTok isn’t how many people are flocking to the app, but how much time they are spending on it. The average user spends a whopping 89 minutes a day on TikTok. This blows Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube out of the water in terms of ability to capture and hold users’ attention.
TikTok’s sophisticated algorithm is spookily good at targeting content to relevant consumers’ by tracking their previous behaviors and inferring their interests. This captures and holds users’ attention, and increases the likelihood of engagement, making TikTok a goldmine for advertising.
In the 2020 Forbes article “Digital Crack Cocaine: The Science Behind TikTok’s Success”, Dr. Julie Albright, a USC professor and author, described TikTok as “hypnotic.” Albright says, “When you’re scrolling … sometimes you see a photo or something that’s delightful and it catches your attention… you get that little dopamine hit in the brain … in the pleasure center of the brain. So, you want to keep scrolling.”
Leveraging social listening on TikTok allows brands to tap into a diverse range of consumer perspectives and gain a deeper understanding of their target audience. By tracking brand mentions, companies can identify niche markets, identify emerging influencers, and adapt their messaging to resonate with various demographics, helping them stay relevant and connected in an ever-evolving digital landscape.
Authentic User-Generated Content
One of TikTok’s distinguishing features is its emphasis on user-generated content (UGC). Users actively participate in creating and sharing content, often showcasing their personal experiences with brands. By monitoring brand mentions on TikTok, businesses can uncover authentic UGC that provides invaluable insights into how customers perceive and interact with their products. This raw and unfiltered feedback can help identify strengths and areas for improvement, enabling companies to refine their offerings and build stronger customer relationships.
Influencer Marketing Opportunities
TikTok is a breeding ground for emerging influencers who have the power to shape consumer opinions and purchasing decisions. By monitoring brand mentions, companies can identify potential influencers aligned with their brand values and engage in meaningful collaborations. This approach not only helps expand brand reach but also allows for authentic endorsements that resonate with TikTok’s community. Influencer partnerships can generate valuable UGC, foster brand loyalty, and ultimately drive business growth.
Conclusion
As social media continues to evolve, brands must adapt their marketing strategies to leverage the latest platforms and trends. TikTok has emerged as a frontrunner in the realm of social listening, offering unparalleled user engagement, diverse demographics, authentic UGC, trend identification, and influencer marketing opportunities. By actively tracking brand mentions on TikTok, businesses can gain valuable insights, make data-driven decisions, and foster meaningful connections with their target audience. These insights allow companies to refine their marketing strategies, tailor their messaging to resonate with TikTok’s vibrant community, and stay ahead of competitors. By embracing TikTok as a social listening tool, brands can unlock a world of opportunities to boost brand visibility, engage with their audience, and drive business growth.
