TikTok is much more than a playground for Gen Z. The platform is continuously growing in popularity among all age groups and is filled with real-time customer feedback and emerging cultural trends. 

If you want to secure a spot on the For You Page of your audience and turn happy customers into champions for your brand, you have to understand what drives them. With TikTok Social Listening you can do just that.

In this blog post, you’ll learn how to use TikTok social listening to improve customer advocacy for your consumer or b2c brand.

As a consumer brand, you must decide where to focus your social media efforts. TikTok can feel “hyped”, but there are reasons why consumer brands are and should be visible on the platform: 

• Users spend more time on TikTok: The average time spent on TikTok has increased yearly since 2019 and is now at 58.4 minutes daily. This makes TikTok the social media platform where users spend most of their time. 
• Social media users enjoy short-form videos about products: 36% of consumers said they want to learn about products through short-form videos like TikToks or Reels. 
• TikTok users are interested in ads: A recent survey found that 67% of respondents agreed that ads on TikTok capture their attention, which is a 10% lead on other social media channels.
• Most U.S. TikTok users are on the platform for product reviews and recommendations: 62% of U.S. TikTok users say that looking at product reviews and recommendations is one of the reasons they use the platform. This aligns with a growing trend where social platforms influence purchasing decisions, often serving as informal search engines for consumer advice.

On top of that, TikTok's algorithm is designed to prioritize personalized content. TikTok’s For You Page targets content to users based on their interests, making it easy for brands to reach their potential customers who are genuinely interested in their products. 

People buy from people. Studies show that users are 90% more likely to trust and buy from a brand recommended by a friend. With social listening, you can engage in this process, learn from your consumers, and build strategies to turn your loyal customers into advocates on TikTok. Here is how you can use social listening for customer advocacy: 

Understand your audience 

Any good marketing strategy starts with understanding your ideal customer profile (ICP). When you know your audiences' needs, wants, and behaviour, you can craft content that resonates with them on a deeper level. Without this information, campaigns can often fall flat or waste money on generic messaging. 

The popularity of short-form media content is due to its simple format, which makes it easy to point, shoot, and upload for the world to watch.

Additionally, TikTok is a forerunner in this format owing to its audience, which undervalues edits but appreciates authenticity. It is crucial to follow this audience and learn about their habits and desires!

Social listening lets you understand your customers’ sentiments and create more personalized and tailored marketing campaigns. In times of hyper-personalization, knowing your audience is a must for growing your consumer brand. With sentiment analysis, you can not only meet their needs but also anticipate them.

Source: Exolyt

Identify market trends and opportunities 

TikTok trends move fast. One week, a trending sound is everywhere; the next week, it’s gone. Social listening can help you keep up with what is successful right now. Based on the trends, you can engage with your audience on relevant content or create your own engaging content for potential customers even better if you can create your own trending hashtag. 

The easiest way to identify trends is to use Exolyt’s ‘trends’ section. You can also discover industry-specific trends on Exolyt with a click.

Find all the market-relevant trends in your industry segmented by location. Dig deeper into the content matrix to understand how the trend plays out in the TikTok landscape. You can even check out the most popular accounts engaging in the trend and viral videos.

Source: Exolyt

Example:

Check out this hot take on #blackfriday2024 shopping trends shared by one of our ambassadors on Linkedin.

Identify long-term cultural shifts

When a consumer brand focuses on long-term cultural shifts, it can create an active content strategy instead of just reacting to trends. It can anticipate where the culture is going and what its audience will enjoy in the not-so-distant future.

Example:

What starts on TikTok often sips into mainstream culture: During the pandemic, the cottage-core aesthetic gained major popularity, with influencers sharing their nostalgic, rural lifestyle centred on nature and simple living. When Taylor Swift released her album Folklore with songs centred around escapism, nostalgia, and cosiness, cottage-core had arrived in pop culture, with many furniture brands or interior designers jumping on the trend.  

If you want to learn more, check out the blog post on “How to use social listening to identify cultural trends?” which explains this process step by step. 

React fast and solution-oriented to negative feedback 

Previously, your customers had only a few options to contact you: your website, a support email address, or a chatbot. Platforms like TikTok have revolutionised the way your customers can interact with you. They can express their thoughts about your newest product in a video or comment underneath your content. On TikTok, audiences expect more than an automated reply; they want authenticity and creativity. When you send a standard response to a viral concern, it might backfire. 

Example:

Here's a story from Kraft Mac and Cheese on this topic.

When a user, Abby, complained on TikTok that several of the gluten-free Kraft Mac & Cheese products she bought over six weeks were missing the sauce packets, Kraft commented the following on her video: ''Hello. We apologize for this issue. We're not having any quality issues with our gluten-free Kraft Mac & Cheese.''

The backlash to this was rather instant: After Abby’s video went viral with over 2 million views, other users started defending Abby in the comment section. Even worse for Kraft, their TikTok page was flooded with comments regarding the situation. In the meantime, their competitor Walmart & Stouffer jumped in and sent Abby gluten-free comfort foods. 

This example shows how copy-paste comments are no longer effective in highly engaged mediums like TikTok. You need to take a personalized approach and assess each situation individually. 

As a consumer brand, negative feedback can feel annoying, but customers who share negative feedback are the ones who care enough to even complain. Abby was a super fan of Kraft before this issue, admitting to eating Kraft several times weekly, but has since shared that she no longer feels comfortable with the brand. 

With social listening, you can notice trends in complaints and react to them in real time when users complain individually and collectively. Even better, you can proactively send users a solution (e.g., the correct support article for the problem) if applicable.

If you currently do not have a solution, you can assure the users that you are working on one. A personalized feedback approach pays off: Customers are 2.4 times more likely to stick with a brand when their problems are solved quickly.

Listen to product suggestions and improvements 

The great thing about social media is the plethora of opinions you can find there. Instead of running expensive focus groups, you can learn what your users want through social listening. When you see a user complain about a feature or suggest a new product, you can use that feedback to tailor better products for your consumer's needs. 

Cosmetic brand Lush adapted to customer feedback on more sustainable packaging. In 2019, they opened their first packaging-free store in the UK to offer customers a chance to buy their products without plastic. 

Keep an eye out on your competitors 

To find out where your brand stands, benchmark the competition. With Exolyt or other social media tools, you can monitor hashtags and mentions in your brand's category or directly from your competitors. You can also compare accounts with social listening tools like Exolyt. 

Take a look at your competition’s playbook: what are their strengths and weaknesses, and which marketing strategies are successful for them? In particular, you want to focus on: 

• How often do they post? 
• Which campaigns & ads are they running? 
• How do their followers feel about them? 

Based on this analysis, you can identify the best practices for your industry and find the strategic positioning for your brand and how you can differentiate yourself.

Reach out to loyal customers and turn them into advocates 

Your happy customers are your best advocates. They use the product and enjoy it. If you want to turn these loyal customers into advocates more strategically, you can track positive mentions of your brand and positive interactions. Once you identify users already in love with your brand, you can engage with them, reward them, and encourage them to share more: you can offer exclusive previews, discounts for products, or unique affiliate links.

TikTok is the ideal channel for your customer advocacy outreach. TikTokers are twice as likely as users of other social channels to recommend something they’ve discovered on TikTok. 

Example:

Here's an inspiring move from Stanley, a consumer brand that is actively listening to its audience online not only to engage with trends but also to grow its community and improve customer service.

Not long ago, a Stanley user posted a TikTok about discovering her mug intact even after a car fire. This video showcases the brand message 'built of life' in its true sense, and its viral factor garnered millions of views. While the story could have ended there, Stanley was listening. The President of Stanley addressed the TikToker’s concern by offering to replace the car. This thoughtful response enhanced brand sentiment and led to a significant increase in brand mentions.

Find the right influencers for your brand

The rise of micro and nano influencers has changed how brands engage with their audience. The former often has higher engagement rates than macro influencers and a more loyal audience base in their niche.

Finding the right influencers that align with your brand values and resonate with your audience can seem tricky, but it isn't complicated. By incorporating these few steps in your influencer search, you can ensure a more effective collaboration that drives engagement.

Tips to find the right influencers for your brand:

• Determine the influencer’s audience, basic demographics, and niches
• Analyze whether their content resonates with your brand’s target audience
• Check the influencer’s credibility and expertise in your industry
• Check if their engagement is well distributed even across #ad content
• Check who your competitors are collaborating with to get an idea of the type of influencer who would also work well for your brand.

These steps are simplified with a click - if you head to Exolyt's Accounts dashboard to explore creators on TikTok.

Existing UGC creators are another category of influencers who can become loyal advocates for your brand. User-generated content (UGC) in the form of reviews, testimonials, or collaborations showcases real-life experiences and increases trust. UGC allows brands to use more community-driven content that feels less like traditional advertising and more like a conversation among friends. It's a powerful medium, as 79% of consumers shared that UGC impacts their purchasing decisions.

So, to find the right influencers for your consumer brand, you must monitor UGC to find the right spokespeople for your products. Exolyt is essentially a UGC-focused tool. It captures the essence of UGC on a brand or topic and allows users to explore related content and insights holistically.

Here's how you can listen and monitor UGC for boosting influencing marketing on TikTok.

Set goals and define core metrics 

Before you dive into social listening, you want to clearly define what you want to achieve. Would you like to increase brand awareness, identify influencers, or explore new trends in your content? Once you have defined your goals, you want to measure the right metrics. Some important metrics can include: 

• Brand mentions 
• Real-time trends 
• Consumer insights 
• Competitive standing 

Discover the core metrics critical for building a TikTok Social Listening strategy.

Gather and data analyze data regularly 

Get clear on how often you want to analyze the data and schedule data analysis in your calendar to make it part of your work routine. When reviewing the data, you want to look at the recurring themes, influencers, and users your audience enjoys and how the sentiment towards your brand changes. If you plan a product launch or a huge campaign, schedule extra time for social listening to ensure you can handle any feedback or potential backlash. 

Combine TikTok social listening data with other data points 

Social listening data is powerful, but combining it with further quantitative data can teach you more about your ideal audience. How does your audience interact on other social media channels or your website? But remember that social media platforms have their own logic: What works on one channel may not work on others. 

Create actionable insights 

Data is only as good as the insights you can derive from it. Actionable insights are processed data sets that prescribe meaningful action based on data analysis. Actionable data points may include insights on:

• How will you improve your product?
• What kind of marketing campaigns or ads do you want to run?
• How can you improve customer service based on the data?

For example, when you find out that a large portion of your audience on TikTok is from France, but you currently do not offer any French customer service, an actionable insight can be to discuss with the customer service team how the French audience can be better served.

Download our quick demo to discover how to 'Dig deeper into TikTok trends for capturing actionable insights beyond conventional analytics'.

Collaborate with other departments and showcase your work 

The biggest challenge for many in-house social listening professionals is the lack of understanding from decision-makers. As a social listening pro, it is part of your job to educate the rest of the company on how you can support them, whether customer support, sales, product management, or communications. 

We recommend scheduling regular meetings with some of these teams to discuss findings and share what you learned. When you have clear reports and can show the effects social listening has on customer advocacy and customer retention, you can help business leaders see the benefit of social media listening. 

TikTok social listening is a game-changer for brands wanting to turn their customers into advocates and stay ahead of trends. You can craft highly personalised, engaging content that resonates with your audience by leveraging insights on customer sentiments, market opportunities, cultural shifts, and competitor strategies. 

TikTok’s unique blend of short-form videos and a highly engaged user base provides an ideal platform for authentically connecting with your customers, turning loyal followers into passionate advocates, and aligning with emerging trends in real-time.