Guide · social media research
Social listening: how to track what people say about your brand
Social listening is reading what people say publicly about your brand, your competitors and your category, and acting on it. Most mentions won’t tag you, so you search for them: list your brand name, its misspellings, your product names and your competitors’, search Reddit, TikTok and YouTube for the newest posts each week, and log what you find by theme and sentiment. Or ask Oneirosea for a listening brief in one prompt.
Decide what to track
- Your brand name, its common misspellings and your product names.
- Your name without the @ as well as your handle: people often name a brand without tagging it.
- Your competitors’ names, to hear what their customers praise and complain about.
- The words your customers use for the problem you solve, to find people who need you and haven’t heard of you.
- Campaign hashtags and slogans, while a campaign runs.
Search each platform for the newest posts
| Platform | How to see the newest mentions |
|---|---|
| Search, sort by New, and set the time filter to the past week. Comments can be sorted by New too. | |
| TikTok | Search, then tap More options and Filters to narrow the results. |
| YouTube | In the app, search, tap More, then Filters, and filter by upload date. |
| Create a Google Alert for each term: it emails you when new results show up in Google Search. |
A Google Alert catches a mention only once Google Search shows the page it’s on, so it doesn’t replace searching the platforms themselves.
Source: Reddit Help, TikTok Support, YouTube Help, Google Search Help
Log what you find
Keep one row per mention: the date, the platform, a link, the exact words, and whether it is praise, a complaint, a question or neutral. Keep the exact words: they are the language to use in your replies and your ads.
Each week, group the rows into themes and count them. A complaint that shows up ten times is a product problem; one loud thread may not be.
Turn mentions into action
- Reply to questions and complaints while they’re fresh.
- Send repeated complaints to whoever owns the product or the service.
- Use the praise, in customers’ own words, in your ads and product pages.
- Read your competitors’ complaints: each one is a reason someone might switch to you.
A listening brief in one prompt
Oneirosea works like ChatGPT for social media, answering from live public data. Name your brand, product or category and it searches Reddit, TikTok, YouTube, Instagram, LinkedIn, Threads and Google, reads the comments and transcripts behind what it finds, and hands back a brief: the main takeaway, how much people are talking and how they feel, the top themes with real quotes and links, notable posts, risks and opportunities, and what to do next.
What are people saying on Reddit, TikTok and YouTube this month about plant-based protein bars? Group it into themes with quotes and links, and tell me what they complain about most.
It isn’t an always-on monitor and doesn’t send alerts: it reads what’s public when you ask. Ask once a week, for your brand or for each client, and compare the briefs.
Common questions
What is social listening?
Reading what people say publicly about your brand, your competitors and your category, finding the patterns, and acting on them: replying, fixing what they complain about, and using their words in your marketing.
What is the difference between social listening and social monitoring?
Monitoring catches individual mentions so you can reply to them. Listening reads them together, over time, to find the patterns behind them, such as a complaint that keeps coming back.
How do I do social listening for free?
List your brand, product and competitor names, search Reddit, TikTok and YouTube for the newest posts each week, log each mention with its link and exact words, and group them into themes.
Does Google Alerts track social media?
It emails you when new results for your term show up in Google Search, so it catches a social post only once Google Search shows it. Search Reddit, TikTok and YouTube directly for the rest.
Can Oneirosea alert me when someone mentions my brand?
No. It researches on demand: ask what people are saying and it searches the platforms then and there, with every quote linked to its post.
Sources
- What filters and sorts are available?Reddit Help, read October 26, 2026
- Discover and searchTikTok Support, read October 26, 2026
- Advanced search (Filters), in the YouTube appYouTube Help, read October 26, 2026
- Create an alertGoogle Search Help, read October 26, 2026