Trends and tracking
Social listening for marketers, run by your AI agent
By Jackson Gathondu. Published 1 November 2026. Updated .
Social listening means following what people say about your category, your brand and your competitors on social media, and acting on it. For a marketer on short video, most of that conversation happens in two places: the Videos that come up when someone searches a phrase, and the comments under those Videos.
This guide shows how to hand the listening to your Assistant. You give it the Keywords and Hashtags your buyers use, a Focus that says which Videos matter to you, and Trackers that check them daily. It reads the comments and the Change Reports and tells you what moved. For tracking named competitor accounts and Advertisers, see the competitor tracking guide.
What an Assistant can listen to
A Keyword is a search phrase on one Platform, observed through the Videos that Platform's search returns for it. "protein powder" on TikTok and "protein powder" on YouTube are two Keywords. A Hashtag works the same way for a tag. A lookup reads the Videos once; a Tracker reads them again every day and writes a Change Report when the numbers move past a threshold.
Your Assistant can also read a page of comments on any Video and ask for analysis: a sentiment count and the themes people keep raising, each with its own sentiment. Comments are where buyers say what they liked about a Video and what they complain about.
A Focus is a plain-language statement of which Videos are relevant to you, such as "reviews or comparisons of protein powder, not recipes". Search results for a broad phrase pull in a lot of noise. With a Focus set, each Video is judged in focus or off focus from its words, captions and images, and the off-focus ones are hidden from you. They are hidden, not deleted, so you can clear the Focus and see them again.
What each piece does and what it costs
Prices are per call or per daily cycle. Reading Trackers and Change Reports is free.
| What | Platforms | What you get | Price |
|---|---|---|---|
| Keyword lookup | TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, Facebook | The top Videos for a search phrase today, with median and total views, engagement rate and the number of Videos sampled. | 3 credits |
| Keyword Tracker | TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, Facebook | A daily cycle on the same phrase. A Change Report is written when median views move 25% either way or a new Video enters the top 10 by views. | 3 credits |
| Hashtag Tracker | TikTok, Instagram | A daily cycle on a tag, with the same thresholds as a Keyword Tracker. | 3 credits |
| Comments | TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, Facebook | One page of comments on a Video. Add analysis for a sentiment count and the main themes. | 3 credits per page, plus 10 credits with analysis |
| Focus | Keyword lookups, video search, and Creator, Hashtag, Sound and Keyword Trackers | Hides Videos that are off your topic. | 3 credits per Video judged, 1 credit per Video ruled out by a must-mention term |
Data limits
Data limits for social listening
- Hashtags are TikTok and Instagram only. YouTube and Facebook have no Hashtag lookups or Hashtag Trackers.
- Instagram and Facebook Keyword search is best effort, so a Keyword lookup or Tracker there may read fewer Videos than on TikTok or YouTube.
- Keyword and Hashtag numbers come from one page of Videos read each time, not from the Platform's totals, so they are labelled as sampled.
- Comments carry no author information. Raw comments are deleted after 90 days; the analysis is kept.
- Facebook comments are top-level only. Instagram may return a capped preview of a longer comment list, marked partial. YouTube shows only how long ago a comment was posted, so its dates are approximate.
- Everything read is public. ShortsIntel never logs in to your social accounts.
How to set up social listening with your Assistant
You do this in plain language in Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor or any Assistant connected to ShortsIntel. It uses the get_keyword, get_comments, track, set_tracker_focus and get_changes tools for you.
List the phrases your buyers use
Write down five to ten search phrases and Hashtags: your category ("protein powder"), the problems people search for ("protein powder bloating"), and your brand and product names. Pick the Platforms where your buyers watch.
Look at each one first
Ask your Assistant to look up each Keyword and Hashtag. You see what the search returns today and the median views, so you know the normal level before a Tracker starts reporting changes against it.
Write a Focus
Say in one sentence which Videos count, and what to leave out. You can add terms a Video must mention, such as your brand name. Ask the Assistant to preview the Focus on a Tracker before it is saved.
Start the Trackers
Ask the Assistant to track each Keyword and Hashtag daily with the Focus attached. It can quote the price first. Each Tracker runs once a day at 06:00 UTC, and the first cycle records the starting point.
Read the comments on the Videos that matter
When a Video tops a Keyword or a Change Report flags a new top 10 entry, ask for its comments with analysis. You get the sentiment split and the themes people raise.
Ask what changed
Each morning or each week, ask what changed. The Assistant reads the Change Reports for free and summarises which phrases rose or fell and which new Videos entered the top 10.
Sample output from the house account
Two real reads from our own account on November 1, 2026, trimmed for length. The first is a TikTok Keyword lookup for protein powder. The second is a page of comments, with analysis, on the most viewed Video in that lookup.
TikTok, via REST API
Look up the Keyword protein powder on TikTok. How many views do the top Videos get?
{
"phrase": "protein powder",
"platform": "tiktok",
"stats": {
"sampled_videos": 12,
"views_median": 145060,
"views_max": 546143,
"views_total": 2371310,
"comments_total": 1300,
"engagement_rate": 0.0774
},
"trend": { "since": null, "direction": null, "change_ratio": null },
"top_videos": [
{
"id": "7594558131967954190",
"creator": { "handle": "cleankitchennutrition", "follower_count": 840385 },
"posted_at": "2026-01-12",
"hashtags": ["proteinpowderreview", "proteinpowder"],
"snapshot": { "views": 546143, "likes": 18709, "comments": 213, "shares": 1750, "saves": 7311 }
}
// 9 more Videos
]
}TikTok, via REST API
Read the comments on that top Video with analysis. What do people like and dislike?
{
"platform": "tiktok",
"video_id": "7594558131967954190",
"analysis": {
"sample_size": 40,
"sentiment": { "positive": 14, "neutral": 17, "negative": 9 },
"average_score": 0.19,
"themes": [
{ "label": "Protein powder taste", "mentions": 25, "sentiment": "positive" },
{ "label": "Specific brand recommendations", "mentions": 15, "sentiment": "neutral" },
{ "label": "Advertising and promotion", "mentions": 5, "sentiment": "negative" },
{ "label": "Ingredients and artificial sweeteners", "mentions": 3, "sentiment": "neutral" },
{ "label": "Digestive issues", "mentions": 1, "sentiment": "positive" }
]
},
"items": [
{ "text": "So any protein that tastes good is bad", "like_count": 596, "reply_count": 2 },
{ "text": "What about clean simple eats protein powder??", "like_count": 6, "reply_count": 1 },
{ "text": "What about clear protein powders?", "like_count": 3, "reply_count": 0 }
// 22 more comments on this page
],
"next_cursor": "eyJpZCI6ImNtdnk3NDVyZzAwN3dsMzA4cjFjY2YwaG4ifQ"
}How to read it
The Keyword lookup sets the baseline. On November 1 the 12 sampled Videos for protein powder had a median of about 145K views, and the top one had 546K. The trend fields are empty because this was the first read of the Keyword. A Keyword Tracker would fill them from the second day and write a Change Report when the median moves 25% or a new Video enters the top 10.
The comments add the reasons behind the views. The analysis covers the 40 comments read on this Video so far, more than the 25 on the page. Taste is the biggest theme and mostly positive. A smaller group of comments calls the Video an ad, and that theme is negative. Several comments ask about other products by name, which tells a brand in this category what buyers compare it with. Run the same read on a few top Videos before you treat one Video's comments as the view of the whole category.
Questions to ask your Assistant
Paste these into any connected Assistant and swap in your own phrases.
- Look up these Keywords on TikTok and YouTube and tell me the median views for each: (paste phrases)
- Track each of them daily with this Focus: reviews or comparisons of our category, not recipes. Quote the price first.
- Track the Hashtags my buyers use on TikTok and Instagram and tell me when one of them starts rising.
- Read the comments on the three most viewed Videos for this Keyword with analysis. What do people complain about?
- What changed across my Keyword Trackers this week? Only list new Videos in the top 10.
Live trend data and docs
Questions
- What is social listening for marketers?
- It is following what people say about your category, brand and competitors on social media and using it in your marketing. On short video that means the Videos people find when they search your phrases, and the comments under those Videos.
- Can an AI agent do social listening?
- Yes, once it is connected to a data source. With ShortsIntel connected, an Assistant such as Claude or ChatGPT can look up Keywords and Hashtags, read comments with analysis, set Trackers with a Focus, and summarise the daily Change Reports for you.
- Is there a social listening API?
- Yes. ShortsIntel has a REST API for Keywords, Hashtags, comments with analysis, Trackers, Focus and Change Reports on TikTok, Instagram, YouTube and Facebook. The same operations are tools on its MCP server for Assistants.
- Which Platforms does it cover?
- Keyword lookups, Keyword Trackers and comments work on TikTok, Instagram, YouTube and Facebook. Hashtags are TikTok and Instagram only. Instagram and Facebook Keyword search is best effort.
- What does a Focus do?
- A Focus is a sentence saying which Videos are relevant to you. Each Video is judged in focus or off focus from its words, captions and images, and off-focus Videos are hidden from your results and Change Reports. They are not deleted, so clearing the Focus shows them again.
- How much does social listening cost?
- A Keyword lookup is 3 credits, a daily Keyword Tracker cycle 3 credits, a Hashtag Tracker cycle 3 credits, and a page of comments 3 credits, plus 10 credits with analysis. Reading Change Reports is free. New accounts get 1,000 credits free, valid for 90 days. A Run that fails costs nothing, and a partial one is charged only for what finished.
Try it in your Assistant
Connect ShortsIntel to the Assistant you already use and ask the question this guide answers, or try the calls in the Playground first.
Social listening through the API
Everything above is also a REST API, for teams that want listening data in their own dashboards or scripts. A Keyword is GET /v1/keywords/{platform}, comments are GET /v1/videos/{platform}/{id}/comments with analyze=true, Trackers are POST /v1/trackers with a Focus, and Change Reports are GET /v1/trackers/{id}/changes. The sample output on this page came from those calls.
Any paid call takes estimate=true to quote the price without charging, and webhooks can tell your system when a Tracker writes a Change Report, so you do not have to poll. The MCP server guide covers the same tools from an Assistant.