Post Performance Report: Brands already inspiring us in 2024

Welcome to the first edition of the Post Performance Report (PPR). A series where we compile and analyze social media posts and campaigns inspiring us, and break down what makes them so genius. We will unpack how your brand can use these examples to spark your own scroll-stopping creative ideas—while maximizing your budget and doing more with less.

We dig deeper by not just examining the flawless creative execution of every post or campaign, but the business impact, too. We help you envision how social can increase your brand’s awareness, foster community engagement and grow the bottom line.

Here’s our lineup of brands already breaking through, and takeaways you can use to follow suit this year.

Auntie Anne’s: The crown pretzel of community engagement

Auntie Anne’s, the beloved brand behind your favorite soft pretzels, is knotted up in the latest Taylor Swift conspiracy. Why? Because they identified overlap between the Swiftie fandom and their target audience, and they are community engagement experts. They posted a black and white photo with the lyrical caption “Are you ready for it?”, as a reference to speculation that Swift might be announcing the release of her re-recorded album Reputation.

When she didn’t, the brand followed up with the same image, only this time their social team drew on the pretzel to make it look like a clown to show solidarity with the fellow “clowns” in their community.

Within 24 hours, the posts racked up 2.9 million impressions, 4,200 reposts and 28,000 likes, proving how well the Auntie Anne’s team knows their audience.

For another recent example of Auntie Anne’s top-tier community engagement, when the brand noticed a video about their pretzel bucket go viral, they quickly reached out to the creator and reshared it. This unexpected boost on social correlated with an increase in sales by 2,800 units year over year.

@oliviadirienzooo

♬ RGF – Macky Zoo 🖤

The play: As Auntie Anne’s demonstrates, the best community engagement content costs $0. But it does require:

1. Giving your content a human touch.
2. Using tools that elevate posts your community is already sharing.
3. Granting the social team more creative freedom.

Independence Village Senior Living: Retirees have more fun

Racking up millions of views and hundreds of thousands of likes is not unusual for Independence Village senior living communities. With many viral videos and a late 2023 TikTok advertising campaign under their belt, their team and residents have fun putting their own spin on the latest trends.

Like this recent video of residents interacting with the maintenance team. The post quickly racked up 1.2 million views, 230,000 likes and 787 comments. Like most Independence Village content, this video is wholesome, fun and illustrates the life-enriching culture of their communities.

@ivseniorliving

Our Maintenance Team >>>> 😂❤️ #fyp #seniorlivingcommunity #ivwaukee

♬ Safe And Sound – Capital Cities

By showcasing the high quality care residents receive, Independence Village is more likely to recruit top talent and give future residents and their loved ones peace of mind. When you consider the rates of loneliness and negative experiences at senior living facilities and nursing homes, joy-filled videos like these are powerful tools.

The play: Independence Village turns the popular adage “go where your audience is” on its head. In cases where traditional channels are hyper-saturated, go where other companies like yours aren’t, even if it means trying something unexpected.

Topicals: Skincare in the club

Skincare brand Topicals has done something most brands fail to do: centered the experience of Black consumers through celebrating Black creators and culture. In their recent brand trip to Ghana, the brand captured (and had creators and influencers capture) content they’ve been repurposing across social. The response has been overwhelmingly positive.

As TikTok creator @ashathemuseologist puts it, “Topicals…is employing brand strategies that have never been before—have never touched this Earth. Organizing a brand trip with Black influencers across the diaspora to go to Ghana during Detty December has to be, could only be, the brainchild of a young Black woman…I’m the demographic.”

The content they captured on the trip delivered 80,000 likes across Instagram and TikTok, like this video of someone putting their skincare eye patches on in the club.

@topicals

2024 ✨ A new season of Topicals! #topicalsgonetoghana #dettydecember #finemenusetopicals

♬ original sound – 🦁🦁The Lion 🦁🦁

This post inspired similar posts, and a Topicals spin on the In and Out post trend.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by TOPICALS (@topicals)

According to Sprout Social Listening data from December 5th, 2023, to January 5th, 2024, consumer sentiment of Topicals was 91% positive, gradually increasing toward the end of December when the brand trip to Ghana started. The brand trip also coincided with a 614% increase in engagements across social channels, compared to the previous 30-day period. Already the fastest-growing skincare brand at Sephora, this boost to their brand awareness will only propel the brand to new heights in 2024.

The play: You might not have the budget to send creators from across the globe on a brand trip, but what you should have is people on your team who reflect your target audience and understand what matters to them. Don’t be afraid to pitch ideas that haven’t been done before just because you’re afraid you won’t secure buy-in. Even partnering with influencers offline can fuel social buzz, as Topicals demonstrated. Trust that you are the ultimate expert of your community.

Calvin Klein: The “Yes, Chef” heard around the world

Not just another celebrity heartthrob, Jeremy Allen White is lovingly referred to as the internet’s boyfriend. In the first week of 2024, Calvin Klein unveiled a campaign featuring the popular actor in their iconic underwear. Though it’s not revolutionary for a clothing brand to feature celebrities in their campaigns, what was so brilliant about this strategy was how right it was for Calvin Klein to drop right before the Golden Globes, where Allen White took home the top prize. It’s clear they understand internet culture, their audience and how to reinforce their brand image.

The campaign’s first five Instagram posts nearly broke the internet, receiving 1.5 million likes and 22,000 comments the day after the posts were published. The campaign’s YouTube video received 282,000 views and their TikTok post received over 3.3 million views at time of this article publishing. Previous Calvin Klein social posts achieved only a small fraction of this performance, even those that feature notable A-list celebrities.

Sprout Listening data from December 5, 2023, to January 5, 2024, reveals mentions of Calvin Klein spiked from 2,747 to 37,190 and mentions of Jeremy Allen White increased from 537 to 32,958 on X (formerly known as Twitter) the day the campaign launched.

The play: Even if you don’t have a Hollywood budget, finding the right spokespeople, influencers and creators is critical. Invest where it counts with your audience (and when) to maximize your ROI.

UPS: Making drivers the star of the holiday show

UPS drivers are the heroes of the holiday season, often working overtime to deliver gifts across the country. This year, UPS spotlighted their hardworking drivers on social, orienting their holiday strategy around the people behind their business. Like in this video, where a member of their communications team interviews Quincy, a UPS driver. The interview is mostly full of rapid fire holiday questions, but also reveals Qunicy’s impressive daily delivery rate.

@ups

Get to know your UPS driver behind the wheel! Delivering the #holiday cheer and working hard to make sure your gifts arrive ahead of Santa’s visit, that’s what #UPSer Quincy does every year! 🎁🎅

♬ original sound – UPS

Fans of the brand responded enthusiastically, sharing their love for the UPS team in the comments section.

In another post, UPS reshared a user-generated video where a customer posted a sign asking their UPS driver to hide packages from their husband. In the video, the customer can be seen finding UPS-delivered packages hidden in their outdoor decor, with the text overlay “Best UPS driver ever!” hovering in frame.

@ups

Mission complete ✅🎁 📸: @linda.mamma0

♬ Bratz App Commercial – 🩵❤️‍🔥Jovon ❤️‍🔥🩷

Highlighting their drivers paid off for UPS. According to Sprout Listening data from December 11, 2023, to January 10, 2024, mentions of UPS spiked on X on Christmas Eve and New Year’s Day, key dates for last-minute package deliveries and returns. Yet, despite inevitable customer service inquiries, the brand maintained a healthy 83% positive sentiment.

The play: Frontline employees who interact with customers, members, patients or students are what make companies so great. Allow them to shine in your social content.

Creator spotlight: Mychal at the Sonoma County Library

As a bonus addition to our roundup, I highly recommend following @mychal3ts. Though not technically a brand or influencer, I wanted to end this list with a reminder of the positivity and connection social makes possible. Mychal is a librarian at the Solano County Library who shares uplifting stories about working with “library kids” and “library grown-ups.”

In their videos, Mychal reminds social media users why libraries are so essential to our communities and that everyone is welcome, even those who might have felt excluded in the past.

@mychal3ts

You never have to ask if you can keep coming to the library! We want you in the library! Library long for you to feel that you belong in your library, that you feel safe in your library (even it means being a bit “too loud” sometimes ☺️) #BookTok #LibraryTikTok #Storytime

♬ original sound – mychal

The play: No one knows the darkness of social firsthand like social media teams. But there are many pros of social media, too. On the days when the cons seem too hard to grapple with, remember how much joy, levity and connection social can bring.

Be a social media innovator in 2024

That wraps up our first installment of the Post Performance Report franchise. Stay tuned for next month’s edition where we’ll be focusing on brands who are transforming social customer care. In the meantime, remember these key takeaways:

Post Performance Report Takeaways

• Trust you know your audience best and lean into unconventional ideas.
• Invest in community engagement efforts by humanizing your brand on social.
• Spokespeople and influencers must fit your brand and audience.
• Social is a place to spread joy.

 

Can’t wait until next month? Sign up to have the latest resources from the Insights blog sent to your inbox every week.

And if you see a social post or campaign that deserves to be highlighted, tag us @sproutsocial and use #PostPerformanceReport to have your idea included in a future article.

The post Post Performance Report: Brands already inspiring us in 2024 appeared first on Sprout Social.

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The power of frontline employee engagement on social media

We asked 1,623 consumers who they wanted to see reflected more in brands’ social content. Their top answer: frontline employees. Not executive leadership, corporate employees, other customers or even social teams. According to Sprout Q4 2023 Pulse Survey data, 48% of respondents want to see the people behind businesses, not just those who run the brand account.

What’s driving the interest in frontline employee content? The demand for more authentic marketing from brands. According to the latest edition of The Sprout Social Index™, consumers believe they don’t see brands sharing enough authentic, non-promotional content or transparency about business practices and values. Fill this gap by tapping into frontline employee engagement on social media.

When brands make frontline employees the stars of their posts and campaigns, it spurs greater audience engagement and strengthens your brand reputation. In this article, we share examples of brands that have mastered getting frontline workers involved in social content, and break down how to build your own strategy.

What does frontline employee engagement on social media look like?

Aside from being relatable, frontline employee content can look different depending on your brand, audience and, most importantly, employees. Here are different ways to approach employee engagement on social, and real brand examples to inspire your strategy.

Experiment with lo-fi production

For followers craving employee realness, lo-fi content is exactly what the doctor ordered. Like in this video from Mayo Clinic nursing. The video features nurses responding with contempt when someone off-camera describes the room as “quiet.” The “q-word” is bad luck in the nursing field—an omen that chaos is just around the corner.

@mayoclinicnursing

Don’t EVER say the Q word #nursehumor #swearing #ruinaday #quiet #hospital #nursesoftiktok #healthcare #funny #fyp #mayoclinic

♬ original sound – Mayo Clinic Nursing – Mayo Clinic Nursing

The eight-second video appears to be shot on a phone, probably requiring minimal production lift. Yet, it received over 5 million views, nearly 750,000 likes and over 5,300 comments. Response to the video was overwhelmingly positive, with fellow medical professionals and frontline employees in other fields affirming the “q-word” phenomenon.

Why it works: Lo-fi content alone might not give you these performance results. The magic comes from tapping into the universal truths known by your employees on the front lines, and asking them to take the reins and capture content. Lo-fi content from the field gives customers and potential employees a realistic view of what your company culture is really like.

Lean into heartfelt moments

Every frontline employee has a story, and weaving their stories together creates the tapestry of your company culture. Lean into the emotional, inspiring stories unique to your team. In American Airlines’ series, GenAIRations, the airline shares stories of families who have built multi-generation careers at the company. Like in this video about the “Rodriguez Five,” siblings who followed in their father’s aviation footsteps.

Or this video of a single father whose hard work empowered his daughter to become one of the youngest Latina pilots in the airline’s history.

It’s hard to watch those videos without getting misty-eyed. The emotional narrative builds up to a key conclusion: The sky’s the limit for people (and families) who choose to build careers at American. The compelling series has been watched by 14,000 people on YouTube, and videos repurposing the content on Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn gained nearly 9,000 engagements.

Why it works: A meet the team series like GenAIRations highlights the frontline employees who are crucial to shaping your brand and customer experience. Tapping into heartfelt stories like these can reinforce your people-first culture, demonstrate how much your company cares about its team members and humanize your brand.

Find levity and humor

It’s equally possible to highlight your frontline employees with light-hearted content. When Lyft rolled out their Women+ feature, a new program that matches women and non-binary drivers and riders, they promoted the launch with whimsical videos of what Women+ rides would look like.

In this video, Dana, who is a real Lyft driver, picks up two passengers. During the ride the trio listens to daily affirmations, experiments with gemstones and picks up milkshakes.

@lyft

We’ve got a new feature that matches more women and nonbinary drivers and riders – Women+ Connect – and we’re expanding to 50+ new cities around the country. Is yours on the list? Let’s make more of these moments happen! Check out the link in our bio.

♬ original sound – Lyft

The TikTok video received an astonishing 24 million views, 117,000 likes and 653 comments (as of the date of publishing). Users were quick to praise the video and celebrate the new feature in the comments section, sharing their enthusiasm and eagerness to use it.

Why it works: The issue of women and non-binary people’s safety using rideshare services is serious. But by centering the experiences of women and non-binary drivers and passengers, Lyft was able to approach the topic with relatability, optimism and care. Frontline employee content enables brands to show their customers they understand their needs and concerns, and they can play a major role in new product promotions.

Let employees shine

Some of the best employee content comes from companies elevating the day-to-day work of their frontline team members. When the Chicago Cubs baseball team posted a video of their hot dog vendors demonstrating their signature calls for National Hotdog Day, the video was a viral homerun, scoring over 42,000 likes, 900 comments and almost 5,500 shares on TikTok. The video even outperformed content featuring the team’s players.

Baseball aficionados and casual fans were quick to sound off in the comments with their love for the franchise and the vendors, and to vote for who had the best call.

Why it works: Wrigley Field is famous for its food and beverage vendors’ unique calls, but these frontline employees are often overlooked by mainstream media in favor of the players and coaches. By shining a spotlight on these hardworking employees, the Cubs reinforced why the work they do is critical to the park’s success. Which team members are the unsung heroes of your business? Elevate them in your social content.

How to encourage frontline employee participation in social content

Frontline employee engagement on social media starts with support from all levels of leadership. Some employees might shy away from the camera—afraid they don’t have enough training or media savvy. Others might not have enough time to prepare or capture content, and will worry about the time commitment of getting involved.

Here are actionable ways you can encourage frontline employees to participate in your brand’s social content, and reassure them you have their back.

Give your social and content teams freedom to spend time on the front line

There’s only so much you can capture from the corporate office. You need footage in-store, in your restaurant, on the factory floor, from the hospital, etc. For example, a majority of San Diego Zoo’s content is produced on site.

@sandiegozoo

Happy birthday Neville! Pellet cake for everyone! 🥳🍰🦏

♬ original sound – San Diego Zoo

By sending your content and social teams to “the trenches,” it will make it easier to document the front lines, and build relationships and establish trust with frontline employees.

Create a feedback loop

By deepening these connections, you can pave the way for frontline employees to capture their own content, like this example provided by an aquatic conservationist for the Oklahoma Department of Wildlife Conservation’s #GarWeek.

When your frontline employees do have content ideas to share, make sure they know where and how to surface them. This will reassure them that you see value in their ideas, and create an open dialogue where you surface customer insights revealed in day-to-day operations.

Take recommendations

Finding the right people to spotlight can be a huge challenge in larger orgs, especially multi-location brands (like restaurant chains, airlines, retail, etc.) Marketing execs need to tap into their internal networks to generate excitement around this kind of effort and recruit “talent.”

Ask frontline managers and other leaders which employees they’d recommend be featured. They can help you identify team members who would represent your brand exceptionally well and be most comfortable in the spotlight.

With their input, you can pull off something like Flock Freight’s series “Humans of Trucking,” where they feature and interview professional truck drivers who have a strong relationship to their brand.

Recognize employees internally

Ensure employees get the recognition they deserve for taking part in your social content. Share frontline employee social content and performance metrics internally. Send via email, Slack or your employee advocacy platform. If frontline employees don’t have a company computer, you could also feature it on screens around your facilities.

Finally, thank frontline employees for their time, and explain how their contribution impacts your company’s business objectives.

Bring frontline employees to the forefront of your strategy

Frontline employees offer a rare authenticity that can help your brand stand out and propel your social media performance to new heights. Audiences are eager to see them in your content and, like the posts in this article demonstrate, that can translate to major engagement wins.

Looking for more insight into consumers’ evolving expectations of brand content? Read The 2023 Sprout Social Index™ to stay up to date on what consumers want from your brand.

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Social media reputation management: How to stay in good standing with your audience

Reputation management is more important than ever. From the value of your products to the quality of your customer service, people are likely already posting, talking and commenting about you. And businesses today can’t afford to ignore conversations related to their reputation.

Literally: The Sprout Social Index™ found 51% of consumers agree responding to customers on social media makes brands the most memorable. Despite popular belief, your online reputation isn’t something that’s totally beyond your control.

If you want more positive reviews and glowing praise from your customers, you need an actual reputation management strategy. In this guide, we’ll show you how to put together your own.

What is social media reputation management?

Social media reputation management refers to the process of monitoring social networks to shape and maintain a positive perception online. Along with monitoring social networks, it can include reviewing online reviews on channels like Yelp and Google Reviews. Building a social media reputation requires frequent observation because your audience’s perception of your brand fluctuates over time.

It involves posting content, responding to feedback, conducting performance audits and using social listening data to uncover how your audience views your brand. Overall, social media reputation management aims to build and nurture trustworthy, long-standing relationships with your audience.

Why do you need a social media reputation management strategy?

We get it: some businesses might be skeptical of why ratings, reviews and positive comments hold so much weight.

Because if you know that you’re doing good business, who cares what other people are saying?

And besides, it’s easier to put on blinders and ignore your haters than it is to face your critics head-on. However, consider the following trends that highlight the importance of managing social media reputation:

Consumers are increasingly dependent on third-party reviews

It’s not a stretch to say that businesses live and die based on customer feedback.

People overwhelmingly rely on reviews when it comes to purchasing decisions. A survey from BrightLocal shows 76% of consumers regularly read online reviews when browsing for local businesses. And 46% of consumers feel that online business reviews are as trustworthy as personal recommendations from friends or family.

These stats illustrate the power of reputation management. Customers view brands with more positive reviews and recommendations as genuine and credible.

There’s massive demand for customer feedback and consumers aren’t shy about delivering it. Want evidence? Look no further than the millions of users on sites like Yelp.

Or the hundreds of categories scattered around sites like G2, a peer-to-peer review site for business software.

Or the millions of reviews on Google Reviews and Trustpilot:

You can sing your own praises all day long, but consumers are on the hunt for authentic, third-party reviews for peace of mind. The more of ’em you have, the better.

Digital word-of-mouth is crucial to growing your audience

Data from The Sprout Social Index™ found 68% of consumers say they primarily follow brands on social media to stay informed about new products or services.

Like it or not, people talk. A lot. Your own customers can do some serious legwork by marketing on your behalf, granted they’re satisfied with your service.

The takeaway here? Digital word-of-mouth marketing remains powerful because more conversations around your brand on social media represent additional opportunities to win customers and followers.

Customers hold the reins when it comes to your social media reputation

This is perhaps the biggest challenge of social media reputation management. Social media is authentic and unfiltered. That’s why it’s a great place to discover products and customer feedback—people can pretty much say whatever they want, for better or worse.

As a business, this presents a distinct challenge. Just as satisfied customers are empowered to hype you up, you can’t control your worst critics. That said, you’re still responsible for what they say–responses to reviews and using feedback to improve your products and services are essential parts of your overall reputation management process.

A 5-step social media reputation management strategy for your business

Now that we’ve acknowledged how much brand reputation management matters, let’s talk about the proactive steps you can take to improve your own. The following five step strategy is fair game for businesses both big and small.

1. Determine where your online reputation currently stands

First things first: you need to figure out how people feel about your brand right now.

Are your customers happy and satisfied? Are you struggling with naysayers? Perhaps you’re somewhere in-between?

Digging into a combination of qualitative and quantitative data can help clue you in on where your reputation stands. This includes:

• Social media posts, comments and @-mentions from customers and competitors
• Online reviews and star ratings from third-party review sites
• Mentions from industry blogs or trade publications
• Feedback gathered from actual customers (think: emails, customer surveys, contact forms on your website)

The key here is to look at the ratio of positive versus negative comments. If your customer sentiment seems to err on the positive side, that’s good! If not, you have some work to do.

The health of your social media reputation can be difficult to quantify manually. That’s where a platform like Sprout Social that offers social media reputation management tools can help.

For example, our sentiment analysis features can take mentions and turn them into a meaningful, quantifiable metric that you can track.

You can use your sentiment analysis summary as a starting point which you can monitor or strive to improve. Our platform also highlights trends in your customer sentiment (think: positive versus negative and neutral comments) over time without you having to sort them out manually.

Beyond comments are those ever-so-important reviews. Creating an online review management strategy to address feedback on third-party sites will enable your brand to maintain a full view of your customers’ opinions.

Another key feature of Sprout is the ability to wrangle all of your reviews from social media and beyond in a single platform. This gives you a more comprehensive view of your social media reputation and what your customers have to say about you without having to bounce between platforms.

2. Track your company’s mentions (the good, bad and ugly)

Social media reputation management is an ongoing process.

Once you determine where your reputation stands, you need to set up your business to be able to respond to customers swiftly in the future.

This means setting up real-time notifications and listening for the following:

• Comments, tags and @-mentions of your business (e.g. @SproutSocial)
• Hashtag analytics including brand-specific hashtags (e.g. #SproutSocial or #SproutChat)
• Branded keywords (e.g. recognizing “Sprout Social” and “Sprout” as keywords across networks)

Having a pulse on these elements makes it easier to craft the appropriate best practices to follow when someone has a question, concern or reason to shout you out.

This once again highlights the benefit of using a platform like Sprout. With Sprout, you can consolidate all of your social messages and mentions in a single inbox. You can likewise share your various dashboard(s) among your teammates to cover more ground and speed up your social media response time.

Our Index data shows that 76% of consumers value how quickly a brand can respond to their needs. And over half (69%) expect responses from brands on social within 24 hours or less.

3. Be proactive and positive as you respond to your social mentions

Whether it’s a concern or a compliment, social mentions represent prime opportunities to make a positive impression on customers and improve your social media reputation.

Doing so comes down to having a strategy for social customer service. Some key tips for responding to customers include:

• Personalizing each reply rather than just using a generic one
• Always give yourself the last word by saying “thanks”
• Moving questions or concerns off of social media to avoid unnecessary conflict or back-and-forth

It might sound cheesy, but a positive, proactive attitude goes a long way in social media reputation management. This rings true whether it’s answering a customer question or simply responding to shout-outs like in the example below:

4. Take control of your company’s narrative (and make it positive)

As noted, the key challenge of social media reputation management is that online comments are pretty much a free-for-all.

Arguably the best approach to combat the negative is by encouraging your own positive praise.

And yes, there are ways to do so beyond begging (which you definitely shouldn’t do).

For example, you might consider publishing success stories and existing positive reviews from your satisfied customers. This can help highlight positive experiences to your social prospects who might not have checked out any third-party reviews yet.

Beyond customer comments, employee advocacy and mentions from your own team can also create more positive sentiment. Don’t be shy about re-posting your customers’ positive responses or shout-outs, either. This includes asking for permission to republish user-generated content to use in your future marketing.

5. Take action based on comments, criticism and analytics

Finally, consider the power of listening to what your customers have to say.

Maybe they’re glowing over your recent customer service initiatives. Perhaps they’re unhappy about recent pricing changes.

Either way, don’t just take those comments in stride. Instead, listen to such feedback and make changes to your business accordingly.

And yet again, this is where Sprout can help. Digging into your listening data, you can uncover specific terms that pop up in your customer conversations to help you understand what you’re doing right and where you can improve.

The same applies to your third-party ratings, reviews and mentions. Being a business today means having a thick skin, but it also means taking criticism where it’s due.

Based on all of the above, you can circle back to square one to understand how your reputation management efforts are paying off and whether you’re moving the needle in a positive direction.

Top social media reputation management tools

As we mentioned earlier, manually monitoring and reviewing customer feedback is time-consuming. Using a for business can make a huge difference. Here’s a quick round-up of five tools so you can find the best review management software for your brand:

Sprout Social

Choosing the best social media reputation management software will depend on your business’s unique needs, but Sprout Social integrates with many top review networks to fit various needs. These networks include Facebook Pages, Google Reviews, TripAdvisor, Yelp and Glassdoor, which are the most popular in terms of volume and reach. We also offer integrations for the app stores (Google Play and Apple App Store).

With the Reviews Overview report, view a summary of your customer feedback. It includes vital metrics like reply rate and review volume. The report is part of Sprout’s larger customer care solution. Sprout creates a seamless experience across channels by enabling users to monitor multiple conversations, all the while providing priority metrics and automated reports so you can ensure your social customer service strategy is effective and efficient.

Brand24

Brand24 is another helpful tool for social media reputation management. Users can create projects to track online conversations about your brand and industry peers. You can also explore by searching mentions by campaign, analyze sentiment and create reports.

Mention

Mention is a social media management tool that offers a variety of features you can use to manage your reputation. Mention offers the ability to track specific keywords and various filtering options so you can narrow down the @-mentions and feedback that is most relevant and meaningful for your brand.

Birdeye

Birdeye is another leading platform for social media reputation management. Birdeye collects reviews from review sites and 150+ different platforms, giving users a comprehensive view of their business’ online reputation. You can organize feedback by filtering (rating number, region, product, etc.) them into custom fields. Similar to the other social media reputation management software, it centralizes reviews in a singular platform.

Broadly

Supporting over 3,000 local businesses, Broadly is a great option for small businesses looking to maintain a positive online reputation. Users have the option to automate review requests from customers. Broadly offers the ability to monitor and respond to reviews from Google, Facebook and more within a central platform as well.

Is online reputation management a top priority for your business?

Listen: Your brand’s reputation matters.

Rather than treat it as something beyond your control, you should take steps to secure and boost your social media reputation sooner rather than later.

This means both listening and reacting to conversations related to your business. With social media management tools like Sprout Social, you can roll out a more effective and efficient strategy on social media and beyond.

And if you haven’t already, take a test-drive of Sprout’s full suite of social listening and reputation management features today by signing up for a personalized demo.

The post Social media reputation management: How to stay in good standing with your audience appeared first on Sprout Social.

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TikTok hashtags: How to use the best hashtags for more views in 2024

Hashtags have become a universal tool for discovering topics on social media and other online platforms—and TikTok is no different. Using hashtags can help you find content related to your niche and help people to find your content.

With over one billion monthly active users (and counting), it’s important to stand out among the noise. And TikTok hashtags can be a great way to do that.

Throughout this article, learn more about what TikTok hashtags are, benefits to using them, top TikTok hashtags for 2024 and tools that can help you find the best hashtags.

Table of contents:

• What are TikTok hashtags?
• 7 Benefits of using hashtags in your TikTok strategy
• Top TikTok hashtags in 2024
• TikTok hashtag generators and discovery tools

What are TikTok hashtags?

TikTok hashtags are words or key phrases that are denoted by the hashtag (#) symbol and used to categorize content on the platform so users can browse content easily.

Hashtags on TikTok work just like they do on platforms like Instagram and Twitter. Adding a certain hashtag to a video will make the content discoverable when someone searches for the hashtag. This allows users to join in on trending or relevant conversations using the right hashtags.

For example, someone searching for the hashtag #gaming on TikTok can discover video content related to gaming only if that hashtag has been added to the video description. Or if someone searches for the hashtag #BookTok, they’ll find content from that specific TikTok subculture.

Being an entertainment-focused platform, TikTok naturally sees the most hashtag views for entertainment content with 535 billion views. The second most popular category is dance, with 181 billion hashtag views. Pranks, fitness and sports, home renovations/DIY and beauty/skincare are other popular categories by number of hashtag views.

7 Benefits of using hashtags in your TikTok strategy

Incorporating hashtags into your TikTok marketing strategy is a must. Learn seven benefits your account can get from using hashtags in your video captions.

1. Increase visibility

Adding hashtags to your captions can help you get your content in front of TikTok users who aren’t already following your brand. When you use a hashtag relevant to the content of the video, you could attract people who are already interested in the topic.

For example, adding the hashtag #DIYProject could help your video show up in the search results of people who are searching for the hashtag.

2. Boost engagement

Better visibility could also translate to higher engagement rates. When more people see your TikTok content, there’s a chance many of them would want to engage with it by liking or commenting on it.

3. Build community

Branded TikTok hashtags are a great way to create a community around your business. You could encourage your audience to create videos using a brand-specific hashtag. This will help you build a strong community of followers who enjoy sharing content related or relevant to your business.

For example, Jellycat has managed to build a community around the #jellycat hashtag. Users post about their own Jellycat stuffies, talk about launches and more. The hashtag has generated 1 billion views, proving just how popular these videos are.

4. Identify competitors

Popular industry-specific hashtags can also help you uncover other businesses that are using the hashtag. This is a great way to identify competitors that you may not already be aware of. And you can conduct a competitive analysis, checking out their profiles and content to benchmark your TikTok performance against theirs.

5. Get great TikTok content ideas

Searches for category-specific hashtags will bring up results for top-performing content relevant to the hashtag. This is a great way to see what resonates with your target audience and get content inspiration.

6. Find relevant influencers

You can also use hashtag searches to discover influential accounts that are creating content relevant to the hashtag. If you plan on running an influencer marketing campaign, this is a great way to discover TikTok influencers you can partner with.

7. Jump in on trends

TikTok trends come and go, but capitalizing on the right ones at the right time can help boost visibility and engagement. When you create content based on trending hashtags, you’re showing your followers that your brand is fun and relevant.

Discover current trends by tapping the search icon in the top right corner of your TikTok home feed. You’ll see popular trends as well as topics the app thinks you’ll like based on your activity. Browse TikTok like someone in your target audience might to see what types of content ideas pop up.

Top TikTok hashtags in 2024

Curious on how to find the trending hashtags on TikTok? We’ve got some of the top TikTok hashtags in a number of industries for inspiration.

50 Popular hashtags on TikTok

1. #fyp (55.2T views)
2. #foryou (31.6T)
3. #viral (21.5T)
4. #foryoupage (19.4T)
5. #tiktok (7.2T)
6. #fy (6.1T)
7. #trending (5.4T)
8. #funny (4.2T)
9. #duet (3.5T)
10. #comedy (2.2T)
11. #love (1.6T)
12. #meme (1.3T)
13. #tiktokindia (1.1T)
14. #funnyvideos (995.2B)
15. #learnontiktok (855.4B)
16. #music (823.3B)
17. #video (752.9B)
18. #like (739.7B
19. #memes (650.4B)
20. #cute (611.1B)
21. #prank (542.7B)
22. #fun (533.1B)
23. #follow (458B)
24. #aesthetic (314.8B)
25. #tik_tok (309.4B)
26. #tiktokuni (285.2B)
27. #tiktokviral (251.7B)
28. #tiktok_india (235.5B)
29. #happy (227.9B)
30. #new (217.6B)
31. #tiktoker (212.5B)
32. #foodtiktok (202.9B)
33. #viralvideos (184.2B)
34. #followme (164.8B)
35. #live (144.6B)
36. #dancer (102.6B)
37. #repost (95B)
38. #tiktoklover (68.5B)
39. #funk (65.9B)
40. #tiktokphilippines (50.1B)
41. #tiktoktravel (49.3B)
42. #tiktokchallenge (36.4B)
43. #funfacts (33.1B)
44. #likeforlike (26.1B)
45. #dancetutorial (23.1B)
46. #levelup (21.8B)
47. #like4like (20.6B)
48. #viralpost (19B)
49. #followforfollowback (15.4B)
50. #follow4follow (11.3B)

Top 10 Trending TikTok hashtags

Keep in mind that this changes week to week, so you’ll need to check out what TikTok is saying their trending hashtags are right now.

1. #snow (234M)
2. #valentinesday (213M)
3. #snowday (21M)
4. #roscadereyes (76M)
5. #sundayfunday (17M)
6. #anyonebutyou (115M)
7. #texans (44M)
8. #nflplayoffs (114M)
9. #hallebailey (57M)
10. #nieve (15M)

Top 10 TikTok hashtags for B2B

1. #learnontiktok (855.4B)
2. #smallbusiness (127.7B)
3. #business (61.9B)
4. #smallbusinessowner (14B)
5. #supportsmallbusiness (11.8B)
6. #smallbusinesstiktok (7.3B)
7. #smallbiz (7B)
8. #businesstips (3.6B)
9. #shoplocal (2.2B)
10. #smallbusinesstips (1.5B)

Top 10 TikTok hashtags for fashion and beauty

1. #makeup (585B)
2. #fashion (376.1B)
3. #style (142.8B)
4. #makeuptutorial (121.4B)
5. #tiktokfashion (91.1B)
6. #mensfashion (26.5B)
7. #makeupchallenge (20.3B)
8. #fashionhacks (17.7B)
9. #makeuptips (17.3B)
10. #streetstyle (13.9B)

Top 10 TikTok hashtags for fitness

1. #gym (467.2B)
2. #fitness (402.1B)
3. #sports (223.2B)
4. #workout (181B)
5. #sport (122.7B)
6. #health (92.5B)
7. #gymmotivation (75.3B)
8. #fit (74.3B)
9. #fitnessmotivation (42.6B)
10. #gymlife (40.1B)

Top 10 TikTok hashtags for food, beverage and restaurant

1. #food (717.8B)
2. #foodtiktok (203.3B)
3. #tiktokfood (154.5B)
4. #recipe (107.8B)
5. #yummy (92.2B)
6. #foodlover (68.4B)
7. #easyrecipe (59.2B)
8. #dinner (38.6B)
9. #foodfestontiktok (34.6B)
10. #tasty (19.6B)

Top 10 TikTok hashtags for technology and software

1. #iphone (192.2B)
2. #tech (66.1B)
3. #android (47.4B)
4. #techtok (45.3B)
5. #technology (35.7B)
6. #corporate (11.3B)
7. #startup (7.8B)
8. #softwareengineer (3.7B)
9. #developer (2.9B)
10. #software (2.3B)

Top 10 TikTok hashtags for travel

1. #explore (1.4T)
2. #travel (245.4B)
3. #traveltiktok (57.8B)
4. #tiktoktravel (49.3B)
5. #adventure (46.8B)
6. #hotel (26.1B)
7. #traveltok (17.7B)
8. #thingstodo (13.7B)
9. #traveling (13.2B)
10. #traveltips (11.8B)

TikTok hashtag generators and discovery tools

Looking for even more inspiration for TikTok hashtags? There are a number of tools available to help you find the perfect hashtags for every video you publish. These four are the perfect starting point.

Sprout Social

Sprout Social comes in handy for a number of tasks—monitoring online conversations and discovering trends. Find related hashtags as with our Suggested Hashtags feature in the Compose box as you create posts. Compose automatically suggests semantically related hashtags and their number of TikTok views as you begin adding hashtags to your post.

Connect your TikTok account to Sprout Social to take advantage of suggested hashtags.

Hashtag Expert

Hashtag Expert is an easy-to-use smartphone app that can help you find hashtags based on a starter keyword, a category relevant to your industry (of which there are 35 to choose from) or a group of hashtags you’ve used before. Download Hashtag Expert and start compiling hashtags for your video content.

You can easily get a group of relevant hashtags for your video and save them for later, or copy them right inside the app to then paste into your TikTok caption. Plus, you can get access to daily trending hashtags to help you discover even more content ideas.

TikTok Hashtags

TikTok Hashtags is a basic hashtag generator that can help you find a number of related hashtags.

Start by typing in a hashtag like #style and generate a handful of relevant and popular hashtags that can help increase visibility on your content. This is a completely free tool that’s easy to use for each of your new videos.

For the record, TikTok has no association with this website.

Ahrefs TikTok Hashtag Generator

Ahrefs has a free AI TikTok Hashtag Generator tool as a part of its free digital marketing and SEO tools arsenal. However, this hashtag generator works a bit differently than the others.

With Ahrefs’ AI hashtag generator, you can type your video caption or a brief synopsis of your video into the text box and wait while the tool generates a list of hashtags for you to include. Specify the number of hashtags you want, the formatting you prefer as well as the writing tone you’re going for. Then copy and paste the hashtags right into TikTok.

Make TikTok hashtags work for you

With more businesses leveraging TikTok in their marketing strategies, incorporating the use of hashtags can be a great way to stand out. However, just using the right hashtags isn’t enough. You also need to keep an eye on your TikTok analytics to look for opportunities to keep improving.

The post TikTok hashtags: How to use the best hashtags for more views in 2024 appeared first on Sprout Social.

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16 AI social media tools for your brand in 2024

AI social media tools are fast becoming the norm. This is not surprising, given that 97% of business leaders in The 2023 State of Social Media Report agree that AI is helping companies optimize social media data and insights more effectively to improve overall marketing efforts.

AI in social media provides in-depth brand and customer insights to help you create more successful marketing campaigns through targeted social media listening. And AI marketing tools are designed to help you achieve this and more. They enable you to discover competitor insights, write impactful copy that resonates with your audience and improve team workflows—all while saving you precious time that you can route toward more strategic work.

Continue reading to find out more about AI social media tools and how you can use them to win in 2024 and outperform your competitors.

Table of contents:

• What are AI social media tools?
• Best overall social media AI tool
• AI tools for social media listening
• AI tools for social media scheduling
• AI tools for social media copywriting
• AI tools for social media caption writing

What are AI social media tools

AI social media tools are software that help you optimize your social media strategy. They help you create, curate, post and manage social content more impactfully. They also provide you with AI-driven analytics on key metrics such as trending topics, audience engagement and competitor performance to tell you how your paid campaigns are faring and how you can improve.

This enables you to fine-tune your social strategy based on market insights, create better, personalized, content and course-correct in near real-time. You’re able to automate tasks such as social media scheduling based on the optimal times for engagement and reach.

AI social media tools also contribute to enhancing your social customer care. Never miss a relevant message and respond to them based on priority. Also write effective social copy and customer care responses with AI prompts.

Best overall social media AI tool

1. Sprout Social

Sprout Social is a social media management platform with AI that helps gather critical social insights so you can connect the dots faster to meet and exceed customer expectations. It enables you to automate manual tasks in engagement, publishing, analytics and social listening so you can prioritize high-impact work pertinent to your goals.

Sprout’s textual analysis and sentiment mining capabilities enable you to view key insights like performance metrics and competitor intelligence to optimize your brand messaging, enhance customer experience and foster product innovation. The platform empowers social teams to work more efficiently and enables leaders to make better business decisions.

Here’s a deep dive into Sprout.

Social Listening

Sprout processes an average of 600 Million messages a day from across social networks so you’re always in the know.

Optimize social listening with powerful AI and machine learning (ML) features to know what your audiences want, how the competition is faring and what’s trending, within seconds, at the click of a button. For example, Sprout’s AI-enabled Query Builder helps you extract key insights from social conversations across themes, topics, keywords, audience demographics and locations for brand intelligence.

The named entity recognition (NER) powered capability helps you keep a pulse on the social conversations happening around your brand by filtering millions of conversations to dig into those most relevant to you.

This video shows you how easy it is to use the Query Builder for targeted social listening.

Sprout’s Listening tool also uses sentiment mining to identify positive, negative and neutral chatter around you. With AI social media sentiment analysis you can conduct a regular gut check on your brand health. Automatically tap into negative brand mentions in comments and DMs to get targeted insights into where exactly you need to make improvements. See where you’ve struck a nerve and resolve issues before they turn into something bigger.

These insights enable you to have more meaningful connections with your audience and also help inform your broader marketing, product and research teams in their respective areas.

Also use Sprout’s Social Listening to transform your influencer marketing program. Find the right influencers for your brand, drive creator and influencer strategies and manage campaigns, end-to-end, with Tagger by Sprout Social.

Simplify your processes by unifying all your social channels into a single stream to monitor incoming messages with Sprout’s Smart Inbox feature. Categorize conversations, prioritize messages and effectively tailor agent responses and respond to audiences quickly.

Publishing and Engagement

Determine the best times to publish content on each of your channels for engagement and impressions with Sprout’s Optimal Send Times powered by our patented ViralPost® technology.

The ViralPost® algorithm analyzes your audience’s engagement patterns, content velocity and other factors to detect the most active times for authentic engagement.

Craft Listening topics to capture the conversations around your campaign and analyze hashtags to discover metrics around key performance indicators to improve your reach and boost engagement.

Use Sprout’s Suggestions by AI Assist to generate engaging captions in seconds, inspire new ideas and get back time for campaign strategy development. Plus, quickly find brand-relevant content to share with your audience using Sprout’s Content Suggestions. The best part? The feature is available on all Sprout Social plans.

Analytics

Hit the ground running with analysis-ready models that fit into your existing workflows and gain a 233% return on your investment with Sprout. Don’t take our word for it—read the Total Economic Impact ™  Study by Forrester Consulting and see how Sprout’s social analytics accelerate workflows through centralized insights.

Use Sprout’s comprehensive reports and templates to share critical data amongst teams and supercharge your overall marketing including competitor benchmarking. For example, use Sprout’s Competitive Analysis analytics reports to get a comparative analysis of metrics on important KPIs such as audience sentiment, total engagements and share of voice.

Tailor your Conversation Overview to organize the available metrics like volume, engagement, likes and impression breakdowns in a way that’s most meaningful to you.

Use these targeted insights to fine-tune your social and overall marketing strategies, boost customer engagement and satisfaction, and enhance growth opportunities.

Automation

Use Sprout’s AI social media capabilities to take on manual processes and consolidate your work. Increase the impact of your social strategy with precise recommendations and compelling content through Sprout’s AI and automation. Minimize manual efforts to elevate customer care and use AI prompts to personalize messages.

Enhance team efficiency by automatically assigning priority status and filtering high volumes of incoming customer messages so your teams can manage messages based on importance.

What’s more, set up Alerts to immediately know when your brand mentions increase dramatically, so you can investigate and take corrective action promptly and proactively.

And since Sprout’s AI and automation doesn’t require manual setup or continuous investment, see the value of your ROI immediately.

Start your free Sprout trial

 

AI tools for social media listening

AI social media tools can scan terabytes of social listening data, within minutes, to give you trending topics, customer preferences and brand insights so you can inform your strategy. They use AI techniques like ML and natural language processing (NLP) to seamlessly analyze conversations from digital channels such as social media platforms, blogs, customer forums like Reddit and review websites like G2 and Trustpilot. Some of these tools include:

2. Brandwatch

Brandwatch is a social media management platform that helps you understand your social listening data and engage with your audience. Use the platform to manage your campaigns with a collaborative content calendar, set up workflows and track emerging trends through its Smart alerts. These alerts, similar to Sprout Social, notify you of any spikes in brand mentions so you can address them immediately.

3. Dash Hudson

Dash Hudson is a social listening tool that enables you to measure audience engagement, monitor user-generated content and analyze competitor performance. It’s aimed toward visual-first content, which means you can easily see what images and visual posts are trending and analyze them for keywords, engagement and other metrics to inform your strategy.

4. Brand24

Brand24 is an AI social media platform that uses social listening to measure your brand awareness and presence. Track trending hashtags and measure reach and engagement to evaluate your marketing efforts and benchmark against competitors. Use these insights to enhance customer experience and build brand loyalty.

AI tools for social media copywriting

AI social media tools can automate post-scheduling and publishing tasks to keep your social media engine running 24/7. These tools also incorporate automatic approval workflows so your posts are on-brand and published at the most relevant time for maximum audience engagement. Some top social media scheduling tools include:

5. Feedhive

Feedhive is a clever social media tool that helps you visually plan and schedule your content. It enables you to cross-post content in different social media channels and adjust the copy accordingly. You can also collaborate with team members easily and engage with your audiences—all from within the tool.

6. Feedly

Feedly is an AI social media tool that helps you gather brand and customer insights from multiple sources including news websites, blogs and newsletters. It automatically curates relevant news and stories from various sources and enables you to share a story across multiple social media networks. You can also schedule posts for optimal send times and share key insights with team members.

AI tools for social media copywriting

AI social media tools for copywriting help you write impactful copy based on what’s most relevant to your audience and ideate on fresh topics for your blogs and social posts. They help you break through writer’s block and create content that turns into qualified leads. Ensure your teams follow your company’s AI use policy and you’re in good hands. Some top tools to consider are:

7. Writer

Writer helps you with customized outputs based on your use cases so you can work faster and be more productive. It analyzes spreadsheets, charts, presentations, PDFs and audio and video files. It generates summaries from large texts so you can conduct research easily and create content from various sources. Also, synthesize data to discover insights and surface trends.

8. CoSchedule

CoSchedule is an AI social media tool that enables you to draft content, generate new ideas through keyword suggestions and simplify team workflows. The tool can write copy for a variety of requirements such as blog posts, social posts and press releases and in different tones. You can also archive generative text chats for future reference so other team members can use them.

9. Ocoya

Ocoya is an AI copy-writing tool that can be used to create content in 26 languages. The tool helps you generate customized social posts and blog articles and has a repository of thousands of image or video templates at your disposal. You can schedule your posts and also create workspaces so team members can collaborate.

10. Jasper

Use Jasper to create copy for blogs, case studies, social media posts, product descriptions and sales emails. The tool also helps you remain on-brand based on your brand guidelines and analyze content performance to see which content resonates with your audience better. You can plan and manage a campaign with the help of a content calendar to create and publish content on time and without hassle.

11. Buffer

Buffer helps you generate fresh content ideas and repurpose your existing content to fine-tune it for different social channels. It helps you drive engagement across all social platforms by understanding your user engagement and adjusting suggestions to improve your copy.

12. StoryLab.ai

StoryLab.ai is an AI social media tool to help you write blog content, social media posts and ad copy easily. Use keywords to ensure your copy is search-optimized and write in various formats for different business needs. Generate post captions, blog titles and blog outlines that drive engagement and conversions.

AI tools for social media caption writing

AI social media tools can automatically create captions for your social posts based on the brand and audience preference that you provide. This is especially useful for image-based posts such as for Instagram or X (formerly known as X). Here are some top tools you can choose from.

13. ContentStudio

ContentStudio helps you save time by creating AI-generated copy and captions from pre-made templates for LinkedIn, X, Facebook and Instagram. You can also produce AI-generated images for your social posts and improve your post’s visibility by using the tool’s suggested hashtags.

14. Copy.ai

Create on-brand social posts, captions and video descriptions with Copy.ai. The AI-powered tool enables you to automate social media workflows and integrates with other tools so your teams can collaborate easily. Use Copy.ai to generate posts from briefs for LinkedIn, blogs and press releases.

15. SocialBu

SocialBu is an AI social media tool that helps you create engaging and meaningful captions for your Instagram posts. Just fill in information about the topic your post is about, choose a tone of voice that best describes your brand’s personality and create a caption in seconds. The tool also provides suggested hashtags based on your content to improve your post’s visibility to reach a wider audience.

16. VistaSocial

VistaSocial is another great AI social media tool that you can use to write captions, taglines and social posts to enhance your discoverability and credibility. Use the tool to maintain consistent tone, style and messaging across your social profiles to optimize your content. You can also search trending social content and add it to your media library to schedule or repost it into your feed.

Try AI social media tools today

Adopt AI social media for a fresh approach to gathering customer and brand insights, managing workflows and creating stellar content. Transition from outdated techniques and take advantage of these tools to transform your brand, marketing campaigns and team strategy.

Experiment with different tools to meet your specific goals and business needs. And if it’s a comprehensive, well-rounded platform you need for managing all your social media marketing and analytics needs, consider Sprout Social.

Get your no-strings-attached, free 30-day trial, today.

The post 16 AI social media tools for your brand in 2024 appeared first on Sprout Social.

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