13 TikTok analytics tools to boost your strategy in 2024

Success on TikTok isn’t random. It’s rooted in understanding your performance. The best way to do this is through keeping a close eye on your TikTok analytics.

TikTok analytics tools let you monitor your most popular videos, analyze your audience demographics and gain complete insight into the effectiveness of your marketing strategy. With these tools, you can use your findings to adapt your strategy and improve your bottom line.

Below, we’ve rounded up 13 of the best TikTok analytics tools in the market. Read on to find out which tool will work best for your team—and how to choose the right one.

What is a TikTok analytics tool?

A TikTok analytics tool is a software that enables brands and creators to get a closer look at how their TikTok presence is performing. Your TikTok analytics shares details like:

• Top videos
• Video views
• Audience demographics
• Video engagement

Analytics help you get a clear understanding of if your TikTok marketing strategy is working or if you need to make changes to better reach and resonate with your audience. A TikTok analytics tool can present you with this data.

13 TikTok analytics tools to try in 2024

Want to get a better view into your TikTok performance? Find the right TikTok analytics tool for your brand. We’ve got 13 of the best options right here.

1. Sprout Social

Sprout Social is an all-in-one social media management platform that offers a number of features—TikTok analytics being just one. You can use Sprout Social to create a birds-eye-view of your entire social media plan, no matter which platforms you have a presence on.

Link your TikTok account to your Sprout Social account and monitor all of your social platforms in one simple dashboard. Look at charts and graphs to understand exactly how your content is performing, who your audience is and how TikTok fits into your overall social strategy.

You can also compare your TikTok analytics with competitor performance, create custom, monthly reports with a few clicks, publish, schedule and manage content across multiple profiles, respond to comments and messages and more.

Here are Sprout’s top features for understanding (and acting on) TikTok analytics:

Advanced performance analytics

Sprout’s TikTok Profiles Report gives you a clear picture of your performance. Access a performance summary or dive deep into metrics like video views, engagement, follower growth and audience demographics.

You can also see your top posts at a glance to understand how your strategy is working and what you can do to improve. Unlike TikTok’s 60-day limit, Sprout keeps your performance history forever, which helps you spot long-term trends in your data.

Custom views and filters

Build custom reports so you’re including the exact TikTok metrics and data that are important to your business.

View your results in different graphs so you can easily see what the numbers mean. You can also separate paid and organic TikTok analytics to seamlessly include in your reports.

Cross-network reports

Sprout lets you track metrics across multiple platforms to get a more holistic view of your social media strategy. You can access TikTok data in various Sprout reports, such as the Inbox Activity Report, Post Performance Report, Profile Performance Report and Tag Performance Report.

For example, you can compare your top posts on TikTok, Instagram and Facebook all in one report. This is great for understanding what type of content to post on each platform.

Pricing: Starts at $199/seat/month. Try free for 30 days.

2. Native TikTok Analytics

TikTok’s native analytics are completely free to use for anyone—creator and business accounts alike—who has published at least one TikTok video to their account. They are accessible on both the mobile app and on desktop, enabling users to view their analytics in their preferred format.

Key features:

• Get access to four main sections of analytics: Overview, content, followers and live videos.
• Learn what your top video content is so you can create more videos that resonate with your audience.
• Access data about your live videos if you regularly live stream.

3. Socialinsider

Socialinsider is another social media management tool that offers several different features—TikTok analytics being one of them. Socialinsider enables its users to monitor metrics like views, engagement, and follower growth, while also giving them access to information like historical content trends and top-performing content.

Key features:

• Compare your TikTok metrics over time by viewing historical data to find trends within your own content.
• Discover your most popular categories of content so you can easily create more that resonates with your audience.
• View charts and graphs with your TikTok metrics to interpret their meanings.

4. Loomly

Loomly enables brands and agencies alike to analyze their social media performance, create and schedule content, manage online campaigns and conversations and collaborate amongst their team. Loomly offers tools for a variety of social media platforms, TikTok included.

Key features:

• Measure your video content’s performance in real time to see which videos are most popular.
• Use post labels to easily categorize your content based on type or campaign.
• Automate analytics reports to make your reporting process even smoother.

5. Brand24

Brand24 is an AI social listening tool built to help brands monitor their online presence, their competitors and their audience. Brand24’s TikTok analytics is of a different sort. Instead of monitoring your own performance, you can use this tool to track brand mentions, industry conversations and competitor performance.

Key features:

• Monitor your mentions feed to see what people have to say about your business on TikTok.
• Track the volume of discussions around your brand to preemptively plan for potential crisis management.
• Find the top industry influencers you should be working with on TikTok.

6. Social Champ

Social Champ is a social media management tool that helps its customers publish social media content, manage their content calendar, analyze their performance and engage with their audience. Users can connect each of their platforms to this tool, including TikTok.

Key features:

• Get downloadable PDF and PPT exports of your TikTok analytics to share with your team.
• Keep an eye on weekly and monthly results to find patterns and improve your strategy.
• Discover your top-performing posts so you can create more content that your audience loves.

7. Pentos

Pentos is a TikTok analytics tool, plain and simple. Its entire purpose is to help brands and creators track their competitors, find the best audio clips to use, hop on trends and improve their overall TikTok performance.

Key features:

• Access an extensive list of each week’s top trending audio clips to include in your videos.
• Track your competitors’ performance so you can see how you stand up against them.
• Export your TikTok data to compile into your monthly social media reports.

8. Exolyt

Exolyt is another tool that was created only to help brands and creators get a better grip on their TikTok accounts. This tool is perfect for analyzing your content as well as monitoring trends, conversations, influencers and trends across TikTok.

Key features:

• Discover the day’s top hashtags so you can include trending tags in your video captions.
• Get insights into your brand sentiment on TikTok so you know your reputation on the app.
• Access audience demographics and metrics regarding your TikTok performance.

9. Iconosquare

Iconosquare is an analytics tool at its core, helping social media marketers monitor their presence across a number of social media platforms like TikTok. Other features include post scheduling, social listening and social media inbox management.

Key features:

• Create custom dashboards so you’re only met with the metrics that mean the most to your business.
• Monitor engagement to discover which content your audience loves best.
• Easily export your results to compile into your monthly, quarterly or yearly report.

10. Keyhole

Keyhole is another comprehensive tool that is solely dedicated to social media analytics and helping brands monitor their online performance. While brands can access publishing and scheduling tools, most features include social listening, historical trend tracking, influencer tracking and the like.

Key features:

• Measure your accounts over time to get accurate historical data and trend analysis.
• Find optimal posting times to further improve your overall reach and presence.
• Get deeper insights into your audience and what they want to see from you.

11. Rival IQ

Rival IQ is another social media analytics tool perfect for helping brands monitor their online presence across a number of social media platforms—of course, with TikTok being one of them. On top of offering a wealth of analytics tools as part of its regular subscription, Rival IQ also offers free reporting and benchmarking tools for marketers.

Key features:

• Use the hashtag analytics tools to find the best TikTok hashtags to use in your content.
• Conduct comprehensive social media audits to help adjust your strategy and improve performance.
• Get a birds eye view into your TikTok performance so you can see top posts, engagement and other TikTok metrics.

12. Quintly

Quintly is a social media analytics and competitive benchmarking tool that helps brands make sense of their online performance and compare it to their competitors. The suite of tools only includes options for analytics, reporting and other features.

Key features:

• Create custom reports by choosing from more than 500 metrics that you want to track.
• Access pre-made dashboard templates meant for analyzing different outcomes.
• Use the fast Analysis feature to gain instant insights into your TikTok performance.

13. Dash Hudson

Dash Hudson is a social media management platform that offers a suite of different tools for marketers, brands and agencies to use. Access tools like visual AI, social listening, link-in-bio tools, audience engagement and analytics.

Key features:

• Leverage predictive AI to help you find trends you can use in your content planning.
• Segment your content to easily pinpoint which types of videos perform best.
• Access analytics and reporting tools so you can ditch your spreadsheets for cohesive reports.

What to look for in a TikTok analytics tool

There are many different TikTok analytics tool options out there—we’re covering 13 different ones within this article. So how do you decide which tool will work best for your business?

By the way, if you’re looking for a breakdown of the best TikTok monitoring tools specifically, we recommend reading our post on those instead.

But generally, here are three key features to make sure your TikTok analytics tool has so it can help maximize your strategy.

Trend analysis

One important part of maintaining a relevant and exciting TikTok strategy is staying on top of popular TikTok trends. Knowing what’s trending improves your chances of going viral on the platform and reaching a massive audience with a single video.

This means you’ll want an analytics tool that gives you the full scope of what’s trending. This way, you can easily jump on trends while they’re hot, increasing views and staying relevant.

Streamlines reporting

Analytics platforms make it easier to get the full scope of your account’s performance. You can look at a single dashboard where all of your metrics are in one place. Best of all, many TikTok analytics platforms allow you to export your data, making social media reporting a piece of cake.

Hashtag tracking

A main facet of your strategy should revolve around TikTok hashtags. Hashtags can improve your position on the For You Page and can help your videos show up in search results. With 40% of consumers using TikTok as a search engine, this is extremely important for increasing your reach.

Find a TikTok analytics tool that can help you with hashtag tracking so you know the best and most relevant hashtags to include alongside each of your videos.

Use a TikTok analytics tool to grow your presence

The right TikTok analytics tool can help understand your performance, find opportunities and win on the platform.

But why stop there? Sprout Social’s social media management platform lets you track TikTok analytics alongside all your other social metrics—in one place.

Access granular performance data, spot trends, build cross-network reports, schedule videos and posts and even respond to comments and DMs directly through Sprout.

Want to check it out for yourself? Sign up for a free 30-day trial today.

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How to measure and communicate the value of social media

How you explain your social media strategy’s value can secure the executive support it needs to thrive. At Sprout Social, we leverage our platform to translate social data into actionable insights that resonate with leadership. And we want to help you do it, too.

By integrating data from Sprout Social with insights from other marketing channels, we’ve streamlined workflows for surfacing and sharing social insights. This approach empowers our leaders with real-time data to make smarter, faster decisions.

Here’s how we’re showcasing social media’s value and securing resources with Sprout.

Why social media teams need to communicate the value of their strategy effectively

There’s a constant push and pull between social teams and leadership. Social media is a long-term investment, but businesses need clear, measurable returns to justify spend.

The challenge often looks like this: Leadership teams want to see results, so a social media manager spends so much time manually reporting and measuring impact that they have little time left over for creative strategy. Without time for meaningful, strategic initiatives, performance suffers, and leaders don’t see the impact needed to justify additional spend. The cycle repeats.

Breaking this cycle requires integrated tools that help you connect the dots between organic social content and activity further down the sales funnel. This is how you earn the trust, time and space to focus on audience-driven content that delivers stronger long-term results. As results come in, they lay the groundwork for securing additional headcount and resources to take your strategy further.

Proving social media’s value starts with executive buy-in

Achieving the ideal state outlined above starts with securing executive sponsorship. Depending on your starting point, revamping your reporting infrastructure may involve anything from procuring social media software to prioritizing the effort amid other marketing initiatives. Having a leader in your corner ensures the work pushes through bottlenecks and doesn’t stall.

For us, using Sprout meant we already had the tools to capture data for multi-touch attribution. However, gaining support from our CMO and VP of Brand and Social was essential to elevating this initiative alongside other marketing analytics efforts.

“Social teams are driving revenue,” says Sprout’s Senior Social Media Strategist, Olivia Jepson. “But last-touch attribution only tells part of the story. Strategic discussions about how social impacts the entire funnel—spanning top-of-funnel engagement and reach metrics to down-funnel demand—are essential for building a more effective reporting infrastructure.”

With guidance from our executive sponsors, we reimagined our social reporting approach, replacing our five-year-old content tagging structure with a new framework aligned to Sprout’s messaging priorities. Their support also fostered a closer partnership with our marketing analytics team, ensuring the effort was prioritized within their workload.

Bridging the gap between social and business value with Sprout

Building an actionable social media dashboard is a marathon, not a sprint. Jumping into reporting without clarity on what you’re trying to measure can lead to an impact narrative that falls flat.

Start by defining your goals and working backward. “The ability to identify what content impacts pipeline revenue through multi-touch attribution was at the top of our wishlist,” explains Rachael Goulet, Sprout’s Director of Social Media.“We also wanted better data visualization and flexibility to customize reports, so we could highlight channel and content impact while maintaining a holistic view.”

This approach helped us focus on the key metrics linking social’s impact to pipeline generation—KPIs like Earned Media Value (EMV), Cost Per Action (CPA), Cost Per Lead (CPL) and of course, Leads Generated.

These metrics measure brand discoverability, message resonance and clear revenue pathways, and are sourced from four primary platforms: Sprout Social, Employee Advocacy, Salesforce and Google Analytics.

In Sprout, we use My Reports—a premium add-on that allows us to elevate the metrics that align to business priorities in a compelling way—to measure:

• Campaign performance, measuring our social’s impact on cross-team initiatives.
• Key brand message performance, identifying copy and creative that consistently resonate.
• Cross-network performance, focusing on the channels that drive the greatest audience impact.
• How well we’re engaging target audience segments, including the product focus areas that are making the biggest impact.

Employee advocacy also plays a major role in Sprout’s social media efforts, contributing $450,000 in earned media value last year alone. Using Sprout’s Employee Advocacy tool, we gather impressions data to provide a complete view of social reach.

Thanks to diligent UTM tagging within Sprout, we can connect social and employee advocacy efforts directly to revenue using our integration with Salesforce. Multi-touch attribution allows us to track the impact of social media, influencer marketing and employee advocacy on leads throughout the sales funnel, so we get a true measure of pipeline impact.

The final piece in our data feedback loop is Sprout’s Tableau BI Connector. This integration allows us to further analyze Sprout data, uncovering richer network and audience insights in a custom dashboard that strengthens the narrative around our strategy’s impact.

How we communicate social’s value to our leadership team

Data storytelling is both an art and a science. The science is about collecting, analyzing and visualizing accurate data. The art? Weaving a narrative that shows what it all means and how it drives business impact.

At Sprout, we’ve found a rhythm that works for us: a monthly social performance executive summary. It combines key metrics tied to business value with competitive context, so leadership sees how we’re stacking up against the competition.

“A lot of people don’t know what they can ask for when it comes to social data,” says Jepson. “Once I started packaging insights and sharing them proactively, more teammates started coming to me with their own requests for data pulls. It got the social team’s foot in their door.”

This scalable formula helps us consistently share insights and keep leadership in the loop. We got here by thinking of our executive team as an audience—treating each leader like a consumer when we deliver data.

What happens when you tell a stronger social ROI story

This new approach helped us showcase the full value of our social media strategy. By switching to a multi-touch attribution model, we uncovered a 5,800% increase in additional pipeline impact. Factoring in efficiency gains, social lead generation and earned media value, the Sprout Social platform delivers a 529% ROI.

Now, we’re able to clearly demonstrate the ROI of top-performing content and key messaging initiatives. We can also highlight the value our product offers social teams—quantifying benefits like social customer care, reporting efficiency and time savings.

By showcasing the impact of our strategy, we’ve secured additional budget for team growth, expanded our influencer marketing efforts and even gained buy-in for Sprout’s first-ever brand activation at Design Miami 2024. These wins wouldn’t be possible without a deep understanding of both our data and our product’s potential to deliver results.

Embracing our role as end users of our own product takes this a step further, creating a feedback loop that not only improves how we demonstrate value but also supports customer-driven product design and development.

Looking to showcase the ROI of your social media strategy? Request a personalized demo of Sprout Social and see how it helps connect the dots between your strategy to real revenue impact.

Request a demo

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The complete guide to using social media for business

With powerful marketing tools and an expansive potential reach, social media is a goldmine for businesses. Yet having a social media presence alone is no longer enough as organic reach declines and competition grows fiercer. Establishing an identity and a sense of community is the key to standing out on social media for businesses.

The more you stand out, the better your chances of attracting customers. But if you’re new to it, you may not know the best way to incorporate social media into your overall strategy. While the importance of social media marketing for businesses is already well-known, marketing is just one piece of the puzzle. You also need a holistic approach that leverages the channel to support every other aspect of your business.

We give you a comprehensive guide to help you do just that. Let’s find out how to use social media for business.

Benefits of social media for business

The benefits of social media aren’t one-size-fits-all. That said, here are five upsides that brands can see from a smart social presence.

• Create meaningful connections: Social media opens a two-way communication channel between brands and their audience. Use it to answer questions, handle customer service queries and gather feedback. These interactions help you build a stronger connection with your audience.
• Show off your products: From testimonials to tutorials and beyond, social media is a prime place to show off products. Use the opportunity to highlight what makes your product great and how it can add value to your customers.

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• Increase your brand’s visibility and reach: Social media drives product discovery, as highlighted in the latest social media statistics. Many potential customers will see your brand’s TikTok or Instagram before they see your website. They may learn about your brand when they come across your posts in their Explore or For You pages. Or they may even find you through a friend’s or influencer’s post. So having an established social presence is crucial to boost your visibility and reach.
• Gather real-time insights: Social media is a treasure trove of data points that are all out in the open. Learn more about your audience’s pain points and interests from their conversations. Discover the latest trends in your industry and the most popular types of content. From your audience to competitors, there’s no better place to conduct market research.

Setting social media goals for your business

These social media benefits don’t happen by accident. Instead, they’re a result of a strategic, goal-driven approach to using social media. That’s why it all starts with a goal.

Keep in mind that social media goals are unique as they’re totally dependent on your business. Also, you can set multiple goals that actually overlap and influence each other. Goals affect everything from your content strategy to the social platforms you use.

There’s no “right” way to set goals but the process can be a lot. A few tips to get you started:

• Start with the big picture before getting granular. Why does your business need a social presence? What resources do you need to make those results a reality?
• Look at your target audience and customer personas. For example, how are your customers using social media? Is your audience glued to TikTok or Instagram or another social media platform? What types of content do they want to see? Brainstorm how using social media for business can help you reach your audience.
• Think about your business’ holistic marketing strategy and how social media fits in.
• Tie your social media goals to actual metrics and KPIs. This is a big one in an era where marketers are under pressure to prove ROI. From engagement to traffic and beyond, there’s plenty to track.

Example social media goals and KPIs for B2B brands

• Brand awareness (growth, engagements) and consideration (link clicks, web traffic)
• Lead generation (marketing qualified leads)
• Competitor analysis (share of voice) and market share
• Audience engagement (likes, replies, shares, etc.)
• Drive customer loyalty (+ CX) and reduce churn
• Customer service efficiencies (engagement speed and rates)
• Reputation management
• Customer satisfaction
• Positive reviews
• Customer sentiment online

Example social media goals and KPIs for B2C brands

• Brand awareness (growth, engagements) and consideration (link clicks, web traffic)
• Find new sales opportunities (conversations to join)
• Uncover brand expansion opportunities
• Reputation management (engaging with inbound messages)
• Increase customer satisfaction
• Inspire customer loyalty
• Product launch analysis
• Competitive analysis

How to create a social media strategy for your business

Once you have your goal in place, it’s time to put together a strategy to achieve said goal. Let’s break down the essential steps to building a successful social media strategy for your business.

Step 1: Coordinate with relevant teams

Based on the goals you’ve outlined earlier, identify which departments or teams will be most relevant to your social media efforts. For example, you may have a marketing team that will handle the social media strategy, a customer service team that will want to respond to customer queries and a sales team that may want to nurture leads through your social content.

Work with each department to identify how social media can deliver the most value for them. Ask each team what they want to find out from social media. How do they want to use it? How can your brand’s social media presence serve them? This will help you come up with a plan that covers all the sides of the business.

Your sales team, for instance, may want to find and nurture leads through social media. So your strategy may involve identifying key purchase conversations on social media.

Step 2: Identify key platforms

Do some audience research to understand which social platforms your audience spends the most time on. Gain an understanding of the various platforms your audience uses and how each one caters to their specific interests.

This will make it easier to streamline your social media efforts as you can come up with a suitable strategy that covers each platform in a relevant, targeted way.

Consider also these kinds of questions to determine how these platforms will work under teams’ responsibilities: Which platform do you want to use to provide customer support? Do you want to include LinkedIn to attract potential employees?

Step 3: Set up a dedicated social media team(s)

Now the biggest question is: Who’s going to execute your social media strategy?

Many businesses use social media mostly for marketing. So the marketing team handles most social media tasks. But what if you want to use social media for customer support? Or what if your marketing team doesn’t know how to handle sales queries?

It’s important to have a dedicated team to handle key social media tasks relevant to each department. You may set up a team that handles all things social media. Alternatively, you may embed social media experts into various internal teams. The exact social media team structure depends on what works for your business.

15 social media tips for your business

1. Be original

Nothing beats originality if you want to stand out on social media. Yes, jumping in on trends and recreating popular memes are a quick way to drive engagement. And we’re not telling you to abandon that approach altogether either. However, you need a publishing strategy that’s unique to your business.

In fact, our 2024 Content Benchmarks Report found that original content is what makes a brand memorable on social. Come up with unique and creative ways to get your message across.

2. Show your product/service in action

So what original content can you create for social media?

Our 2024 Social Media Content Strategy Report found some interesting answers. Original content that shows your product or service in action is the biggest factor that compels consumers to buy.

Keep your content equally informative and entertaining. According to the report, 66% of social users find that edutainment is the most engaging type of brand content. We recommend creating original videos showing what your product is capable of. Demos, how-tos, walkthroughs and tests are just great ideas of how you can apply edutainment in your next social media posts.

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3. Keep people entertained

Speaking of entertainment, most social media users aren’t looking to be sold to. They just want to get a few laughs or find something to pass the time. So the best way to hook them in is by keeping them entertained.

Keep your Feed balanced with content that provides some lighthearted entertainment. A few ideas to get started would be: memes, comedy skits, ASMR videos and polls!

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4. Make user-generated content work for you

Content from your customers serves a double purpose of informing people and earning their trust. It can show them exactly what your product or service is capable of in a real-world setting. Plus, since the content comes from other consumers, it adds an extra layer of trustworthiness.

Bonus point for saving your team the trouble of having to produce original content from scratch. Balance your Feed with user-generated content featuring your products.

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5. Build a human, people-first social presence

This might seem like a no-brainer.

That said, busy businesses tend to get stuck in a “copy-and-paste” approach to social. Comments and social captions should feel like they were written by a real person, not a robot.

Injecting personality into your posts is a low-hanging way to relate to your audience. Beyond that, personalizing your replies to people shows that you’re there to help them. This is one of the best ways to use social media for business to build connections.

In fact, people expect brands to personalize their responses. According to the 2023 Sprout Social Index™, 70% of consumers expect a personalized response to their customer service needs.

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6. Look at your social presence as a resource (not just a promotional channel)

Don’t make the mistake of treating your social presence as a dumping ground for offers. Building an audience means being genuinely helpful, not salesy.

Many of the best practices across social media treat their accounts as resources. That means:

• Creating actionable, educational content (think: how-tos, tutorial videos)
• Answering questions and sharing advice with your audience
• Sharing company updates and keeping customers in the loop

Imagine that your social accounts are your first touchpoint with a potential customer. Sharing resources makes a better first impression than screaming “BUY NOW!”

7. Show up consistently

This applies to both publishing content and engaging with customers.

Conventional wisdom says that social media algorithms reward consistency. Sprout’s own research on the best times to post on social media confirms this.  If nothing else, letting your social feeds gather cobwebs isn’t a good look.

Neither is leaving your followers hanging. Making a conscious effort to reply to questions and comments is crucial. This is why you need to keep a close eye on your @tags and social notifications.

In fact, the Content Benchmarks Report found that this is much more impactful than publishing frequently. 37% of consumers think that the most memorable brands directly engage with their audience on social.

8. Collaborate on social customer care

While most businesses are already aware of the role that social media plays in customer care, the line regarding who owns it remains blurred. This makes it challenging to efficiently deliver satisfactory social media customer experiences.

As marketing teams mostly handle social media, the responsibilities of responding to customers tend to fall on them. Yet without proper training on customer care processes, the quality of responses may suffer.

A collaboration between the two teams can solve this common challenge. With each team sharing responsibility, there’s better coordination on who responds and how to respond. So relevant team members can proactively take action with minimal back and forth. Based on the 2023 Sprout Social Index™, 36% of businesses are choosing this approach.

9. Involve your C-Suite and employees to amplify your business

As noted earlier, social media shouldn’t be treated as an island.

This applies to your own team as well. The sooner you’re able to get approval and buy-in from your C-Suite, the better. Brand-building through employee advocacy is another way to use social media for business.

Employee advocacy is the promotion of a brand by its employees on social media.  Instead of solely promoting products, advocates promote a company at large. This means:

• Sharing behind-the-scenes experiences about work life
• Celebrating team members and workplace accomplishments
• Amplifying company messages and promotions

Chances are you’ve seen your fair share of employee advocacy in action on LinkedIn.

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Again, the crowded nature of social media means anything you can do to stand out is a plus. Advocacy is an opportunity to boost your company’s profile and exposure via social.

10. Be prepared to experiment with different types of content

Brands are spoiled for choice when it comes to the types of content they can post.

From short-form videos to Stories and slideshows, you have plenty of options. Different industries and types of brands thrive on different types of social media content.

That said, don’t make assumptions when it comes to what performs best.

Just because a competitor posts a bunch of memes doesn’t mean you should follow suit. Let your own analytics and engagement guide your content strategy.

According to our Content Benchmarks Report, consumers want brands to focus on short-form video. And the shorter the better, with 42% preferring videos shorter than 15 seconds. Meanwhile, 39% expect to see videos between 15 and 30 seconds long.

11. Create compelling ads

Your organic social media efforts will not generate immediate results. Make sure to back them up with strategic paid advertising. According to our Social Media Content Strategy Report, being targeted with an ad compels consumers to buy.

There are two things you need to perfect with your social media advertising:

• Targeting: Make sure the right people see your ads, so you get more value out of your ad spend. Show your ads to people who’ve visited your site before or interacted with ads from similar brands. And don’t forget to target them on the right platforms.
• Creative: Come up with an ad creative that would make people want to engage. Go for clever (and relevant) copy combined with eye-catching visuals.

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12. Leverage influencer partnerships

Influencers have thousands of followers who enjoy their content and look to them for advice. So what they say goes. Partnering with them can give you much-needed exposure to build your social media following. It can even compel people to buy from you, according to the Social Media Content Strategy Report.

Keep in mind that we’re living in an age of authenticity, where consumers expect honesty from the influencers they admire. Findings from our 2024 Influencer Marketing Report support this. 47% of consumers want to see authenticity from influencers, even when posting sponsored content.

Moreover, 67% say that the best brand and influencer collaborations are honest and unbiased.

So your partnerships should be genuine, involving influencers who actually love your brand and its products. Give them the creative freedom to infuse their personality and voice into the sponsored content.

13. Lean into transparency

Speaking of authenticity, you need to embed it into your brand’s overall social media strategy. Consumers are increasingly expecting brands to be transparent about their practices and values. According to the 2023 Sprout Social Index™, consumers feel like they don’t see enough of this from brands on social.

People also want to see brands posting about how they make and source their products. These expectations align with the greater move toward conscious consumerism. More consumers are choosing to buy from brands that use sustainable and ethical practices.

So being transparent about those practices on social helps you attract customers whose values align with yours.

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14. Use AI thoughtfully

Artificial intelligence helps social media teams to execute strategies more efficiently. In fact, 81% of marketers in the 2023 Sprout Social Index™ say that AI has positively impacted their work.

That said, 42% of consumers are still apprehensive about brands using AI in their social media interactions. So be mindful about how you use AI to support your strategies. Focus on using it to optimize backend activities. This could involve tasks like social media analytics, campaign targeting and sentiment analysis.

15. Work on a corporate communication plan

One last pointer for anyone on the enterprise level.

The power of social media as a communication channel shouldn’t be taken lightly. Brands have the opportunity to reach massive audiences at a moment’s notice. This applies to customers, industry leaders and competitors alike.

The stakes are high for large companies with significant audiences and stakeholders. That’s why having a corporate communication plan is crucial. In short, you need to establish rules for:

• Internal communication, including employee engagement and internal marketing
• External communication, including PR and how you speak to the public
• Executive communication (ex: how the C-level discusses your company on social media)
• Crisis communication to deal with controversies and damage control situations

Having all of the above squared away empowers brands to have consistent messaging. Likewise, you can avoid miscommunication and countless public headaches in the process.

Use social media marketing tools for business

Good news: you’re not expected to do everything totally DIY when building your presence.

There’s no shortage of social media marketing tools out there to help with the heavy lifting. Depending on your needs, you might consider investing in a combo of the following:

• Scheduling tools that allow you to queue up content across multiple platforms
• Analytics tools that measure content performance and engagement (see Sprout Social below)
• Listening and monitoring tools that make it easier to track audience conversations

The more opportunities to consolidate your tools, the better. Working with fewer tools means squeezing the most out of what you have. Also, you save a ton of time onboarding.

Here’s a quick overview of the best social media tools for your brand.

Sprout Social

Sprout is an all-in-one social media management platform with a comprehensive suite of social tools and analytics. For example, the platform makes it a cinch to map out your content calendar across platforms. This is a shining example of how to save time and avoid bouncing between tools.

Sprout’s analytics and dashboards encourage a goal-driven approach to social media for business. Advanced analytics means fewer question marks and a better understanding of your presence. This includes your top-performing content and social channels.

In short, you have a constant pulse on what’s working, what’s not and what you should do next.

Sprout’s proprietary AI tools also give you actionable insights to make informed decisions. Get AI-powered suggestions on how to improve your content. Focus on the most important customer care interactions with AI analyzing your messages.

Later

Source: Later

Later lets you automate various aspects of your social media. It comes with a unified calendar to plan your content for all your social channels. Schedule these posts to go out automatically at times when your audience is most likely to engage.

Use the built-in analytics to get powerful insights into your social media performance and how to improve it. Meanwhile, the social listening tools help you keep a pulse on trending conversations and see what people are saying about specific topics.

CoSchedule

Source: CoSchedule

CoSchedule is a social media scheduling tool with robust publishing features. The social calendar gives you better visibility into your content strategy. This allows you to easily spot gaps and make necessary adjustments and schedule your content to automatically go out at the best times across different social channels.

Unlock the power of social media for business

An active social media presence is the key to winning over consumers in a saturated market. It’s where your brand can showcase a unique personality and appeal to your audiences. Use the tips outlined above to get started on your social media journey or strengthen your existing strategies.

Sprout makes the job so much easier with a platform that combines all your social media management needs. From content to trend analysis and beyond, the platform empowers brands to build their presence with confidence. Get a personalized demo to see how Sprout’s comprehensive features can drive your strategies.

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YouTube hashtags: The complete guide for marketers

You’ve used hashtags on social media platforms like Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn and Facebook. But have you considered using hashtags on YouTube?

Fair warning: YouTube SEO is a beast. Finding the best keywords, optimizing all parts of your video and finding the right hashtags for your videos is part of creating a cohesive YouTube content optimization strategy.

In this comprehensive guide, we’ll explain what YouTube hashtags are, why they’re important and how to properly use them to increase video views.

What are YouTube hashtags?

YouTube hashtags are words or phrases preceded by the “#” symbol that categorizes and labels video content on the platform. YouTube hashtags help users discover videos related to their interests when searching or browsing YouTube. When a user clicks on a hashtag, they are shown a results page with a collection of videos that use the same hashtag. Hashtags can be added in video titles, descriptions, and comments.

Why use YouTube hashtags?

Similar to hashtags on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, YouTube hashtags are valuable tools for increasing video visibility and reach. By strategically incorporating relevant and trending hashtags, marketers can expand the audience for their content beyond their subscriber base. Let’s dive into a few reasons to use hashtags on YouTube:

Hashtags help YouTube understand what your video is about

When you use relevant keywords as video hashtags, you’re giving YouTube more context about your video’s content. This helps YouTube categorize your video accurately and recommend it to users who are searching for similar topics or who have shown interest in related content. Essentially, hashtags act as signals that help YouTube place your video in the right search results and suggested video feeds, increasing the chances of it being discovered by the right audience.

Hashtags help expand your user reach

Hashtags act as bridges connecting your video to a wider audience on YouTube. When you include relevant hashtags in your video’s title and description, you’re essentially categorizing your content and making it easier for YouTube’s search and discovery algorithms to surface your video to users who are actively looking for or interested in those specific topics. Think of it as casting a wider net to catch the attention of potential viewers who might not have otherwise stumbled upon your content. This increased visibility can lead to more views, engagement and subscribers.

Hashtags help you categorize your videos

Hashtags can act as internal organizers for your video content. By using consistent hashtags for specific themes or series within your channel, you create a simple way for viewers to navigate and explore similar content. This can encourage viewers to watch more of your videos, increasing overall engagement and watch time. Think of it as creating a personalized content library within your channel, making it easier for viewers to find the content they’re most interested in.

How to find the best YouTube hashtags for your videos

You don’t want to use hashtags that spammy or irrelevant videos are using. Always do a quick search to see what pops up when you’re considering a hashtag to ensure that the content that appears relates to your own video.

Here are some ways to find the best hashtags for your videos:

1. Check relevant trending videos

Search for the main theme of your video. For example, we searched for “Internet of Things” to see what hashtags the top-ranked video was using. While you wouldn’t want to use the branded hashtag, you would want to use the two other hashtags in use (this video has over 2 million views!).

2. Research top-performing competitor videos

Take a look at the hashtags your top competitors are using, along with the number of views per video. These hashtags can give you an idea of both the hashtags you should be using and topic ideas for future videos. Click through to related videos to search for yet additional hashtags.

3. Check YouTube autosuggest

Just as the Google search bar anticipates what you’re searching for, YouTube will show you hashtag suggestions once you type the hashtag symbol. Even if you search topics broadly without hashtags, you’ll drum up some ideas for future topics or relevant hashtags to incorporate into your YouTube descriptions.

If the top hashtags aren’t relevant for your video, add a word or phrase that will produce more relevant results.

4. Try a YouTube hashtag generator

Need to find hashtags in a hurry? YouTube hashtag generators are helpful tools for discovering relevant and effective hashtags to boost video visibility. Try Ahrefs, Aux Mode or Kparser — all of these platforms can generate loads of hashtags instantly, based on the term you input. Some generators provide data on hashtag performance, such as search volume and competition, helping creators choose hashtags that can maximize their reach.

But, if you use an all-in-one social media management platform with a social listening solution, you can uncover relevant YouTube hashtags beyond tracking or using a generator. Sprout tracks conversations across social and allows marketers to see which hashtags are gaining momentum and resonating with their audience. Beyond just identifying hashtags, Sprout analyzes the sentiment around those conversations, which helps you tailor your hashtag strategy for more positive engagement.

How to add hashtags to YouTube videos

There are two different areas where you can add hashtags to your YouTube videos. The first is in your video’s title, and the second is at the bottom of your video’s description.

How to add hashtags to your YouTube video title

Before you use hashtags in your video’s title, do some keyword research. A relevant title, preferably with keywords, can be just as important as hashtags in helping users find your content.

Take a look at this video from Sprout Social’s YouTube channel. All videos in the #SproutChat series start with the same hashtag in the title followed by a short, relevant search phrase or description.

There are several #SproutChat videos on Sprout’s YouTube channel, all of which appear when users perform a search query for #SproutChat.

If you include the hashtag in your title, it will always be clickable from your video page. In search results, clicking on the hashtag will take users directly to your video.

How to add hashtags to your YouTube video description

The other place you can add YouTube hashtags is at the end of your video description. Once you optimize your video and include your YouTube keywords, video summary, links and sources, add a handful of hashtags to the bottom of your video’s description, as this brand did:

Video descriptions give you a place to add hashtags that might otherwise seem out of place in your video title. YouTube ensures that your hashtags are always visible above your video titles, so users can click them to find other videos that use those hashtags.

Take a look at what a video looks like when you add hashtags to your description—YouTube adds the first three right above your video title:

YouTube hashtags: 6 best practices

So now that you know how and where to add YouTube hashtags to your videos, it’s time to cover how to strategically implement this practice.

Follow these best practices to help you promote your YouTube channel with hashtags:

1. Use 3-5 hashtags per video

YouTube allows you to place up to 15 hashtags in your description. YouTube has stated that if you use more than 15 hashtags on your video, it’ll ignore all hashtags. So make sure you don’t overdo it.

We recommend using 1-2 hashtags in your video title (and remember that only the first three hashtags in your description will appear above your video title).

2. Create your own branded hashtags

While YouTube encourages searching through hashtags by placing them in prominent areas on your video, this can also mean that viewers will click on those hashtags and end up leaving your YouTube channel.

This is why you might want to create your own branded hashtags as we saw with #SproutChat. If a user clicks to see more videos, they’ll only see more of your own channel’s content.

3. Add location-based hashtags to local videos

If you’re trying to expand your reach in a geographic area, use location-based hashtags. Make sure your hashtags are specific. For example, the hashtag “#Springfield” could apply to a number of US cities; if you’re referring to the capital of Illinois, consider using “#SpringfieldIL.”

4. Follow YouTube hashtag policy guidelines

YouTube monitors hashtags for compliance with its hashtag policies. YouTube may remove any videos with hashtags it deems misleading or vulgar. Stick to the 15-hashtag limit and ensure your hashtags are relevant to avoid running afoul of YouTube hashtag rules.

5. Monitor video views from your hashtags

After you start using hashtags, you can view your YouTube analytics to see which hashtags are drawing users to your content.

6. Track industry and competitor hashtags

Not sure what hashtags to use? Take a look at what your competitors are doing. At Sprout, we call that social listening, and it’s a great way to spot trending hashtags, learn what content appeals to your target audience and see other valuable metrics.

Here’s a look at what social media listening can show you when using Sprout’s dashboard:

Start including hashtags in your YouTube strategy

Excited to start including hashtags in your YouTube strategy? Make sure you’re using them strategically by incorporating relevant hashtags and using branded hashtags that help your audience find more of your content.

Now that you’re ready to level up your YouTube hashtags, check out our YouTube marketing guide for more tips to update your strategy.

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Sprout’s product strategy for 2025 and beyond

Forging deep partnerships with the people who use our products day-to-day is the only way to build solutions that make a meaningful difference.

When I was a Product Director at Google, we were shifting our suite of Drive and Editor tools from serving predominantly small- and medium-sized businesses to meeting the needs of enterprise customers. On a tight timeline, we were under intense pressure to design a comprehensive roadmap and outline product priorities.

Our task was made more complex by a particularly strategic (and demanding) enterprise customer we were at risk of losing. They pushed us to come up with highly advanced capabilities and more intuitive experiences to meet their business requirements. If we had stuck with our status quo roadmap and product development processes, they would have churned. Instead, we sent a team of 30+ product managers and engineers to their global headquarters so we could immerse ourselves in their needs and pain points in order to build scalable solutions.

Customers that hold you to a remarkably high standard are a product team’s greatest gift. Innovation comes from rising to the occasion and employing true empathy. Often, when you meet the most advanced organization’s needs (elegantly and with simplicity), all your customers benefit.

Meeting with customers and understanding their goals is my favorite part of the work I do, and what I’m most passionate about in my new role as Sprout Social’s Chief Product Officer. As we map out Sprout’s continuous evolution, we are focused on providing an even more effortless and cohesive user experience. Here’s an overview of a few of our key areas of focus and the customer insights that inspire them.

Everything goes back to our customers

As the social landscape evolves, it’s more important than ever to continue walking alongside our customers. We’ve always been a company that prides itself on offering a highly intuitive platform. But we must continue to strive for greater simplicity to guide brands into social’s next era, which will drive company-wide value.

I’m incredibly proud to say Sprout was named #1 Best Product by G2 this year. This award is a reflection of not only the exceptional work Team Sprout puts in every day, but of the way our customers are transforming their businesses with the power of social. Accolades like these only happen when you aim to deliver the very best technology that is built, supported and used by teams at the top of their game.

There’s a myth that sophisticated platforms have to be clunky, but it’s our mission to dispel this by building solutions with both usability and advanced capabilities in mind.

Building with customer zero

While the collaboration we foster with our customers is critical, at Sprout we’re lucky to have an in-house customer who is able to supply continuous feedback: our own social team. By working closely with “customer zero,” we get to put our tools to the test in real-time and take an active role in an internal case study.

Our social team enables us to push the very limits of our own social strategy and bring those learnings back into the product. Along the way, we discover usability gaps we need to address, new use cases we want to build, new insights that help us raise the bar in how we optimize return on investment for our customers.

This keeps the people who use our products at the forefront of our roadmap and helps us build a product that works better—not just for us, but for our customers. It’s been instrumental in identifying areas for product investment and improvement.

Product priorities defined by customer goals

We believe in delivering roadmaps defined by what our customers find most valuable—that meet their most sophisticated use cases and aspirational business outcomes.

That’s why we launched Breaking Ground this year. During these virtual events, we bring our customers up to speed on our most impactful, highly-requested product updates and breakthroughs so they can stay a beat ahead on the latest in social innovation. Plus, we share exclusive sneak peeks of our product roadmap—a precedent we’ll continue next year.

Looking toward 2025, we are prioritizing long-term value and our customers’ biggest objectives. We want to give our customers even more visibility into what we’re building, why we’re building it, and help them best prepare and plan. Here are some of the biggest customer-informed priorities we delivered this year and what we hope to achieve next year.

Delivering the company-wide value of social insights

Social is strategic to all parts of a business. It touches every division inside companies—whether leaders are aware or not. It’s integral to everything from providing customer care and engagement to sourcing executive-level insights, to driving strategy and refining product development.

We build reporting capabilities that extract the data that matters most to leaders and stakeholders. Our recently announced updates to My Reports ensure you can deliver the insights and data your business needs to make informed decisions.

Our partnership with Salesforce and our Tableau Business Intelligence (BI) Connector take it a step further by combining social data in an omnichannel view, customized with the exact visuals and metrics needed to demonstrate social’s value. It delivers rich data options that give users a complete view of their customers and their journeys—without time-consuming work.

Demonstrating the company-wide value of social continues to be an area where marketers need support, so we are focused on helping them tell a compelling ROI story.

Harnessing the potential of AI

As generative AI exploded this year, the potential for AI came into focus. But we know that understanding how to use AI day-to-day and build an AI-driven culture can be less clear.

That’s where Sprout comes in. Our human-centered AI solutions accelerate business processes and drive strategy, helping you deliver world-class customer experiences. As you’re challenged to do more with less, you’re still expected to meet customers’ high expectations. With AI seamlessly embedded across our entire platform, we transform social marketers’ ability to work smarter, unlock creativity and increase social media’s business impact exponentially. Our platform makes it easier to derive insights, create content, and automate and elevate workflows.

For example, one of our most celebrated announcements of 2024 was Generate Alt Text by AI Assist, a new time-saving workflow that generates alt text suggestions to increase the accessibility of image-focused posts—making posting more efficient and freeing up time for creativity. This is just one example of the intuitive AI Publishing tools that make it easy for your team to craft the right content that resonates with your audience, at the right time.

Similarly, Analyze Charts by AI Assist summarizes data from My Reports data to help teams tell a more digestible story about their performance and social’s broader business impact.

Analyze Conversations by AI Assist also removes the guesswork from social listening to surface insights that reveal key industry trends, competitor intel and relevant audience conversations. We understand how daunting listening can be. With this capability, marketers can spend more time crafting strategies around important signals and less time mining data.

As AI’s role in social media evolves, we know brands will need to make quick decisions on how best to embrace it—especially regarding customer data use, human involvement and monitoring biases. The pace and complexity of these changes mean you need to trust your software partners to consistently do right by you. With our strong track record of customer trust and the right principles in place, we’re well-equipped for the future and are actively building capabilities that will help you maintain customer trust at scale.

It’s our mission to continue helping our customers capitalize on these opportunities (without the headache of extra training or implementation).

Delivering faster, personalized customer care

Every stage of the customer journey exists on social. For brands, responding to questions is the bare minimum. Your customers want the care you provide on social to feel like white-glove service, distinctly customized to their needs. Consumers say companies should make personalized customer service their #1 social media priority in 2025, per a Q4 2024 Sprout Pulse Survey.

Social Customer Care by Sprout helps you go beyond expectations and deliver customer service that builds lasting relationships. Agents are enabled to automatically determine which messages need replies and send personalized responses that adhere to brand standards.

With Customer Care, your team can respond to messages faster by aligning across your organization and breaking down silos. Automatically classify which team a message is meant for to prevent internal collision and get real-time updates to ensure no customer is overlooked.

Transforming influencer marketing management

As brands go all-in on influencer marketing, they need a partner in streamlining end-to-end campaign management. The influencer marketing industry was valued at $17 billion in 2023 and is expected to to reach $20 billion this year. According to a Q4 2024 Sprout survey of 322 marketing leaders, 60% of brands will spend even more on influencer marketing next year.

Sprout Social Influencer Marketing drives impactful influencer marketing strategies that grow brand presence authentically, engage with new targeted audiences and ensure spend efficiency. Our Influencer Marketing platform tunes out the noise and uses AI to zero in on influencers who are the best match for your brand.

The platform also maximizes the experiences for influencers themselves—which will be a continued priority in 2025. This will benefit all parties, and be especially helpful for companies who want to forge long-term partnerships and leave the best first impressions. We will also continue to invest in securing the best brand-influencer matches possible, making quick work of finding vetted creators and influencers whose content, values and audiences are right for your brand.

Sprout Social is your partner in ushering in a new era of business

Human beings have been using technology to collaborate and achieve things as groups that they could never achieve alone since we first put paint to cave walls. Now that we’ve arrived at the nexus between social media, artificial intelligence and this chapter of humanity, what’s next? What can we empower? What can we unlock?

At Sprout, we’re building a platform to meet the needs of the world’s largest brands, while giving that same power to teams of any size. In lockstep with the needs of our customers, our roadmap delivers scalable solutions that ensure you can handle all of the complexities of social media management.

Want to learn more about the tools and capabilities that make your team more effective and future-proof your brand as you scale? Browse our latest product innovations from our Q4 2024 Breaking Ground launch event.

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