Kim Townend Studio

Social Media Listening, Strategy, Trends, & Audience Insights

social intelligence

Summerween! (again).

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Back in the Summer of 2024 I ran some social listening around the early trend of Summerween and predicted that it was going to grow exponentially in 2025.

Here’s the report I created on Summerween 2025.

Newsflash – it’s pretty big this year.

TLDR:
Summerween is officially a thing now.

  • For the first time, we’re seeing UK stores get in on the trend
  • Not just a precursor to Halloween, Summerween is its own festival
  • Summerween nails are a whole vibe
  • Summerween is manifesting in all areas of pop culture, but is extremely popular with the bookish community
  • It’s part of the overall surge in interest in all things horror-related.

Social Listening Trends to Watch in 2025

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This post first appeared on the YouScan blog.

Social listening is evolving rapidly. Alongside higher client demand, we’re also seeing the integration of AI and a myriad of other tech advancements. But what does all of this mean for the evolution of social listening in 2025? 

I’m being careful not to call them predictions, but I’ve identified six areas that I think are ripe for expansion over the next twelve months.

Increased interest in cultural listening

Brands need to understand culture to stay relevant, and culture is moving faster than ever before, powered almost entirely by social media. We started seeing more interest in this area over the last twelve months. I expect to see continued growth in using social listening to identify broader cultural trends rather than just micro-moments and trending topics. In my opinion, this is where the most valuable insights are found and the true power of social listening lies.

Social listening for video

Social listening, as we know it, was initially designed for Twitter and text-based social media posts. As we continue to move into an era where short-form social video is the dominant content form, social listening must evolve to remain relevant. Social video requires a different approach to text-based listening due to a) the multiple text placements (on screen, caption, comments), b) image analysis/what the video contains and c) the sounds being used. All these areas are significant for different reasons, and creating queries to get you the insights you need requires a new way of thinking. 

Clearer roles and responsibilities

For years, many people in the industry have considered social media primarily a tool for brand monitoring across social media. There are (obviously) many other use cases for social listening, including cultural analysis, community management, campaign tracking, influencer measurement and many more. As the industry grows, I’m hoping we’ll see a better understanding of requirements reflected in clearer definitions of these roles and the teams in which they sit.

Understanding audiences through interests

Audience analysis through demographics has never been easy due to API limitations, and this doesn’t look set to change any time soon. I’m of the opinion that this is not a bad thing, as demographics can be reductionist. Social listening affords us the chance to understand our audiences through their interests and ‘vibes,’ and this is a much more effective starting point for connecting with them.

Diversification of platform listening

It’s been years since there have been a ‘big three’ social listening platforms, but as we head into 2025, there are more social platforms than ever. Identifying the right platforms for the topic or audience you’re analyzing during your desk research and ensuring that you’ve got a tool that can give you access to that data is key to finding the insights you require. 

Social listening for social SEO and more

As the world starts to move away from search engines as the default and towards a world powered by social and LLM search, it’s completely redefining how SEO works.  Social listening has always been useful for traditional keyword research, but we can now more easily identify the trends and videos creating the search interest and use listening to track the searches happening on the platform. This area will become even more critical as we move into 2025 and beyond.

There are so many ways that social listening could grow next year, and I, for one, am excited to see where it takes us.

Booktok & Beyond

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Last week, I gave a webinar with the social listening tool ViralMoment about how Booktok is driving cultural change in a huge way.

You can read my slides from the event below, and watch the event here.

In this deck you’ll learn:

  • Just how massive booktok is in 2024
  • Key categories (newsflash, it’s romantasy heavy!)
  • How girls are redefining what it is to be ‘bookish’
  • Booktok as an unrivalled recommendation engine
  • Alternative book communities
  • Booktok and google search trends
  • The journey of a fashion trend from booktok to the mainstream
  • How booktok is shaping our homes
  • Booktok to the screen, the return of romance!

These slides are just the highlights from my research. I analysed over a million posts, so I’m releasing a deeper dive into Booktok in the next couple of weeks. If you want to get a copy of it, sign up to my substack!

TikTok Social Listening 101.

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TikTok 101

Everyone has heard of TikTok. In 2023, it had 1.5 billion monthly active users, and by the end of 2024, it’s expected to reach two billion.

TikTok started life as Bytedance in 2017, a short form video sharing platform focused on dancing and lip-syncing videos. Fast forward to 2024, and TikTok is a social media app where users share (mostly) short-form video content (although we’re starting to see a shift towards longer-form content happening this year). Posts on the platforms are TikToks and they can be stitched together, or users can duet with each other’s TikToks.

Like Twitter, TikTok runs on hashtags. Most of the popular TikTok trends you’ve heard of started out as a lowly hashtag before becoming a part of pop culture history. For example, the I’m the Main Character trend emerged on TikTok in 2020 before becoming a part of accepted internet speak. 

It’s not all video; the audio is just as important. Users can add songs or other audio clips to their videos. The TikTok Creative Centre makes choosing sounds (and hashtags) super easy, as you can see what’s currently trending on the platform for free.

TikTok uses an algorithm that generates user-specific recommendations on the #FYP (for you page). Top tip for you; getting on a user’s FYP is a surefire way to reach the widest and best audience.

In 2023, TikTok launched ‘TikTok Shop’ and became a bona fide social shopping site. Users can either sell their own products or become affiliates for brands. It’s estimated that TikTok shop generated $20B in revenue in 2023. 

And, as if that wasn’t enough, TikTok is edging towards search engine territory. You may already be aware that Gen Z is using social media for search, but did you know that TikTok is already outperforming Google in key areas, including fashion? TikTok is putting search front and centre of the latest update. So on top of everything else, it’s now one of the most valuable platforms for SEO keyword identification too.

Why should you care about social listening on TikTok?

TikTok has been the fastest-growing social network for the last few years. It is the original home of short-form vertical video, which Meta was ‘inspired by’ when it created Reels for Instagram, and now even LinkedIn is looking to pivot towards.

TikTok runs on trends, and the average engagement rate is much higher than that of the other social networks. This means that TikTok is pretty much powering the social internet. Trends you see on TikTok will eventually filter through to other social media channels.

Understanding what’s happening on TikTok can not only help you and your business get involved in the latest relevant trending topics but also help you over time by identifying longer-term cultural shifts, allowing you to create future-facing content strategies.

How should you start social listening on TikTok?

In this section, I’ll explain what you need to know to start social listening on TikTok

As with all social listening projects, you first need to get clear about the audience you care about and what you want to learn about them.

Identify the audience you want to listen to on TikTok

Knowing who we want to listen to on TikTok is step one. Ideally, you want to consider these audiences based on their interests rather than demographic data. Communities on TikTok unite around hashtags that end in ‘tok’. There’s a Tok for everything, so the more specific you are, the better the results.

Say you’re launching a new software platform to connect smaller brands with bigger opportunities; you might be interested in better understanding Gen Z entrepreneurs. 

A publishing company might want to understand the super-sized reading community on #booktok.

Once you know who you want to listen to, you can do some desk research on the things that this audience might be interested in on TikTok. We’ll talk more about this in the ‘what should you be listening to on TikTok’ section.

Set your goals

Before we get into the details of how you’ll use TikTok for social listening, we must figure out what you want from your TikTok listening.

Are you looking to identify trends relevant to your audience so you can create better opportunities? Or are you just looking to understand more about who your audience is and the type of content that engages them? Do you want to set up a TikTok shop, or do you want to identify influencers who will resonate with your target audience?

Each goal will shape how you set up your social listening on TikTok, as you’ll use them to guide which keywords or hashtags you want to focus on.

What to look for when choosing a TikTok social listening tool

Social listening on TikTok will be difficult without a social listening tool. A social listening tool is a platform that allows you to track and analyse TikTok data. Although all the big social listening tools offer a TikTok component, some newer tools have been built to listen only to TikTok. These tend to be a bit more advanced regarding the insights they provide.

When choosing a social listening tool, you should consider these three key things.

1. What are you going to use the tool for? You should have covered this earlier when you were thinking about business goals. Prioritising influencer identification over trending topics will guide your choice of social listening tool

2. Your budget. Social listening tools come in all shapes and sizes; some are aimed at small businesses, and some offer enterprise solutions. Understanding how much you want to spend will be a defining factor in the tools you choose

3. Will you be listening to TikTok in isolation, or will this be a part of a wider social listening project? 

TikTok Social Listening Tools

In this section, we’ll share some of the social listening tools we’ve previously used for TikTok projects. To make things easier, they’re grouped by budget.

Mid Range:

Exolyt. Exolyt is explicitly designed for TikTok and is a great quality tool, with accounts starting at a very reasonable price. With Exolyt, you can track hashtags, compare SOV, understand sentiment, and much more. There are also options to understand trending hashtags, sounds, and influencers on the platform. It’s a great TikTok-specific solution.

YouScan. YouScan is also an enterprise platform but has an affordable small business option that is really impressive. YouScan is another social listening tool that allows you to monitor multiple platforms, including TikTok. 

The TikTok insights are fantastic and feature some world-class visual/logo analysis alongside influencer analysis, audience interests, and the ability to create dashboards and tag posts so you can analyse your data more thoroughly.

Enterprise.

ViralMoment. ViralMoment is a TikTok-specific enterprise solution. It allows you to do super deep-level analysis of almost anything that you want on TikTok. You can track audio and visuals in TikTok, alongside learning what’s trending in your industry, benchmarking yourself against competitors and more. 

What should you be listening to on TikTok?

Social listening on TikTok is a bit different from social listening on other platforms, and what you can do depends on the tool that you’re using. Here are some key areas you might want to consider.

  1. Hashtag tracking is entry-level TikTok listening. You’ll identify hashtags relevant to the audience you’ve decided on (way back in the “identify your audience” section) via desk research and then begin tracking them in your tool of choice. It’s helpful to look at the other hashtags your audience uses alongside what you’re tracking. This gives you a better understanding of your audience’s interests.
  2. On-screen captions—Certain TikTok listening tools allow you to track the on-screen captions that are added to TikTok.
  3. Main caption: Most listening tools will allow you to track what the post’s author has written; this is as useful as hashtag tracking for identifying key themes across time.
  4. Trending topics – While we don’t advocate for brands to jump on every trending topic that appears, there’s no denying that it can be a valuable way to get in front of a wider audience if it’s relevant to your brand.
  5. Trending sounds – Same as trending topics. Although you might not be using them yourself, understanding what your audience is seeing and hearing helps you understand their mindset and create better content to engage with them
  6. Comments—Not as many tools will pick up TikTok comments, but these can be a goldmine of useful information as people respond to the hashtags. They really help contextualise your search.
  7. Audience Insights—Understanding your audience’s demographic makeup and interests is really useful for a myriad of reasons!
  8. Influencer Identification—Getting to know the influencers in your interest area is key to deciding who to work with. Most tools include this.

Is TikTok Even Right For You?

A couple of years ago, TikTok was primarily used by Gen Z and Alpha, but these days, that’s changing. TikTok is notoriously cagey about sharing too much user data. Still, according to App Ape, the current TikTok user demographic split in the US shows us that almost 40% of TikTok users are over the age of 30. This means it’s more than likely that you will find an audience for your business on TikTok.

However, it’s still best to do some desk research and learn how many views your hashtags/keywords of interest are getting. It might not currently be the best way to get your content in front of the C-Suite, but TikTok is always widening its user base.

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In Conclusion

TikTok is huge and continues to grow, and it’s no longer ‘just’ a place to connect with Gen Z. If you’re not listening there you’re probably missing out on something really good.

TikTok is also a huge revenue generator, with TikTok Shop levelling the playing field between brands, influencers, and consumers. This has opened up tonnes of opportunities and made it even more critical to track what’s happening on the channel.

Social listening on TikTok is pretty complex as there are so many different areas to analyse. You’ll need a TikTok listening tool if you want to do it properly. Hiring a pro is the easiest way to get the insights you require and strategic guidance on applying them, taking your social content to the next level.

Basically, TikTok is where internet trends begin. Listening can help you identify the best fit for your business, leading to more eyeballs on your content and all sorts of other benefits.

As always, get in touch if you want to find out more about how I can help you with anything TikTok related!

Social Listening for SMEs

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I firmly believe that the better the insights available, the better the strategy and results. Social listening has only been available to bigger brands with large marketing departments for too long. I’m trying to change that!

Why social listening is important for SMEs.

The more brands with access to audience insights and social data, the better the content becomes for everyone involved. Brands get improved results and stop relying on awareness days and irrelevant trends, and consumers get helpful and entertaining content that adds value.

This is especially the case for SMEs who are often dealing with more limited budgets. Creating organic content that resonates with your customers is often the only option you have. Social listening helps put you ahead of the game by understanding your audience, and the social opportunity much better.

Who is using social listening?

Right now, it’s only really larger corporations with marketing departments and teams of analysts who are using social listening insights to inform their social strategies and beyond. This is partly due to the prohibitive cost of accessing this data, and also the cost of running a team who can analyse and provide insights from the data.

To combat this lack of democracy within social intelligence, I craft social intelligence reports at a price that even smaller brands can afford. You’re getting agency results without the agency price tag!

I’ll help you discover

  • Who your social audience is
  • Their demographics
  • Their interests
  • Their behaviours
  • The platforms they favour
  • What drives them to purchase
  • The accounts that influence them

and loads more valuable insights to help you cut through the noise and actually connect with your audience.

The audience segements of 185k social users who identify as cosy gamers. These are broken down into interest-based clusters, to help us better understand who they are and how/where to connect with them,
The audience segementation of 185k social users who identify as cosy gamers. These are broken down into interest-based clusters, to help us better understand who they are and how/where to connect with them,

If you’re a smaller business or just starting up, book a call with me/drop me an email and we’ll talk about how I can help.


Good data should be available to more people. Good data makes the internet a better place!