tokconnectYou run the brand's TikTok next to three other channels, usually alone, and every idea has to survive a marketing lead asking why this one. TikTok Studio tells you how last week's post did. This tells you what people searched in your category in the last seven days, what they searched about your competitors, and what your comments keep asking for.
What you'd ask on day one
Three prompts, run on 19 September 2026 for a skincare brand. The answers are real. Swap in your category and rivals.
Next month's topic plan
Build me a monthly TikTok topic plan for skincare. Show the biggest topics by searches in the last 7 days, how many videos already cover each one, and flag anything with almost no videos.
| Topic | Searches, 7 days | Videos |
|---|---|---|
| cream based skincare routines | 4,810,542 | 966 |
| budget skincare sets and routines | 4,709,128 | 445 |
| skin barrier skincare routines | 4,508,544 | 692 |
| skincare routine timing and costs | 4,304,907 | 196 |
| at-home Eid facial skincare routines | 4,142,856 | 0 |
The last row came from asking for topics related to the biggest one, and it is the month's cheapest win: 4.1 million searches, no videos matched to it.
Data: TikTok Creator Search Insights via TokConnect, pulled 19 September 2026. Snapshot.
What competitors get searched for
What are people searching on TikTok around The Ordinary, Laneige, SKIN1004 and medicube? Give me the biggest branded topic for each, with searches and how many videos cover it.
| Brand topic | Searches, 7 days | Videos |
|---|---|---|
| Laneige products at Sephora | 4,732,732 | 312 |
| SKIN1004 oily skin product guidance | 4,588,740 | 390 |
| SKIN1004 eye cream reviews | 4,261,568 | 0 |
| The Ordinary retinoid skincare products | 3,760,071 | 0 |
| Medicube device and app usage | 2,762,128 | 213 |
That is the slide your lead wants: people search a rival by name, and for two of those topics nobody has made the video. TikTok returns ten topics per brand, some of them loose matches, so read the wording first.
Data: TikTok Creator Search Insights via TokConnect, pulled 19 September 2026. Snapshot.
What the comments keep asking
Pull the comments on our last five TikToks and summarise them: the questions that repeat, the complaints, and three post ideas the comments are asking for.
Ninety-eight comments across five posts on one public skincare brand account:
- 5 ask where to buy or how to order, in three languages, one of them "Why i cant buy medicube on ticktok".
- 6 are PR, sample or ambassador requests, which is a partnerships job, not a content job.
- 3 ask the price.
- 3 ask which product suits their skin: dry, oily, acne.
- All 19 comments pulled from the celebrity ad post are about the celebrity, not the product.
Three posts write themselves: where to buy, a price breakdown, pick-your-product-by-skin-type.
Data: TikTok video comments via TokConnect, pulled 19 September 2026. Commenter handles removed. Snapshot.
Read the video count correctly: it is how many videos TikTok matched to that exact topic, not how many skincare videos exist. A zero is the content-gap badge you see in the app. What it means.
What it replaces
| What you do today | Tool | What it shows | What TokConnect adds |
|---|---|---|---|
| Screenshot topics off your phone for the deck | Creator Search Insights, in the app and at tiktok.com/csi (free) | Search popularity per topic, a 7-day chart, content-gap flags, related videos | The same numbers for any phrase you type, twenty at a time, as text you can paste. Neither surface has an export, history or API. |
| Pull last month's numbers for the report | Sprout Social from $99 a month, Hootsuite from $99, Later from $18.75 billed yearly | Scheduling, inbox, and the reach and engagement of what you already posted | Demand for the posts you have not made yet, and the same read on rival brands |
| Check which searches found your videos | TikTok Studio (free) | Watch time, traffic sources and the searches that reached your account | The whole category, not only the searches that already found you |
| Browse trending hashtags for ideas | TikTok Creative Center (free) | Ranked hashtags, ads and sounds by industry. Keyword Insights there is ad data, not organic search | A lookup for the phrase you name, with organic counts. Side by side |
| Sanity-check a trend | Google Trends (free) | Relative interest on Google, indexed 0 to 100 | TikTok's own search counts, and who the topic skews to by age and country |
| Scroll the comments on your phone for feedback | The comment section | Comments, newest or top first, one screen at a time | Fifty comments per call in front of the agent, which groups the repeated questions |
How it fits your week
- Connect once. Sign in, copy your key, paste one config block into the assistant you already use. Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor and Gemini all work; the connect page has every setup and Claude Desktop takes two minutes.
- Ask on planning day. The three prompts take a minute each, in the same chat where you draft captions. No new dashboard, no seat to request.
- Save the answer with its date. Paste the table into the calendar or the deck. Search popularity moves week to week, so a dated table records what was rising when the campaign was signed off.
The numbers come from TikTok's own Creator Search Insights and TikTok search, pulled live when you ask. Search popularity is searches over the last seven days, global unless a country is picked. Read the definitions before a number lands in a deck.
What it does not do: no posting, no scheduling, no ads, no transcripts, nothing private. It reads what TikTok shows publicly, and it is independent, with no affiliation to TikTok.
Straight answers
Keep Sprout. It publishes, handles the inbox and reports on what you already posted. No scheduler carries TikTok search volume or a rival's search demand, because TikTok puts none of it in an API. That is the part you screenshot today.
They are TikTok's numbers, not ours. Every figure here links to the saved response it came from, with the tool, the arguments and the date. Open the topic in your app and compare.
No. You connect with your own TokConnect key, never a TikTok login, and the brand account is never touched. It reads the public search data any logged-in person sees at tiktok.com/csi. No posting, no automation, no private data.
It proves demand before spend. A topic with 4.1 million searches and no videos is a defensible reason to shoot something; a rival topic with 4.2 million and none is a reason to shoot it first.
The plan that fits
Start free: 100 credits and every tool, no card. One call is one credit, so the work above costs about 19: three for the category plan, six to open three topics, four for the rival brands, six to read five posts' comments. Add a weekly rival check and a month runs 60 to 80 credits, so the free credits last about six weeks. Once it is routine, Starter at $49 gives you 1,000 credits a month for a quarter of one Sprout Standard seat. See the plans.
Guides for social media managers
- TikTok content strategy: turning topics and volumes into a month of posts you can defend.
- TikTok competitor analysis: the method behind the table above, and what to do when a rival owns a topic.
- TikTok audience insights: the three audience datasets TikTok gives you, and which answers "who is this for".
- Export TikTok comments: getting comments out of the app and into something you can summarise.
- TikTok analytics tools: what Sprout, Hootsuite, Later and TikTok Studio each report, with the gaps named.
- This week's trending searches: the topics TikTok reports as rising, refreshed weekly, for when the lead asks what is hot.
Questions social media managers ask
Does this replace Sprout Social or Hootsuite?
No. Keep your scheduler. It publishes, handles the inbox and reports on posts you already made. TokConnect answers the other question: what people are searching for in your category before you shoot anything. No scheduler carries TikTok search volume, because TikTok does not put that data in an API.
Where do the search numbers come from?
From TikTok's own Creator Search Insights, which lives in the app and on desktop at tiktok.com/csi, plus ordinary TikTok search. Search popularity is searches over the last seven days, global unless a country is picked. Neither surface offers an export, a history view or an API, which is the gap this fills. What the numbers mean.
Is it safe to use with a brand account?
Yes. You connect with your own TokConnect key, never a TikTok login, and your brand account is never touched. It reads public search data, does not post, schedule, run ads or pull transcripts, and it is not affiliated with TikTok.
What does it cost to run one brand?
One tool call is one credit. A monthly topic plan, a competitor check and a comment summary come to roughly 19 credits, and a normal month lands between 60 and 80. New accounts get 100 free credits; Starter is $49 a month for 1,000. Pricing.