What Your Social Listening Tool Isn’t Telling You (But Your Customers Are)

Most social listening tools will tell you when your mentions spike. Some will even slap a sentiment score next to it and call it a day. But if all you’re tracking is volume, you’re probably catching the conversation too late.

In our latest report, we reviewed over 1,700 TikToks and 24,000+ comments about luxury bag dupes. What we saw wasn’t just about finding a bargain, or getting counterfeits. It was a breakdown of how consumer values are shifting and how most listening tools miss it entirely.

Everyone talks about listening. Few are actually doing it.

The default playbook that most brands lean on when it comes to social listening is pretty straight forward. Plug in your brand name, toss in a few hashtags, and maybe a trending phrase for good measure. Let the dashboard run. It’ll light up with charts and graphs, and you’ll walk into your next meeting with a pulse as to how your brand is doing outside of your direct channels.

But most of the meaningful stuff is happening outside those parameters.

For example, in the dupe conversation, people weren’t directly tagging Louis Vuitton or Hermès. Some didn’t even say the names out loud. They showed the bags, referenced “you know who,” and let the audience fill in the blanks. That’s what we mean when we talk about untagged content.

Plot detects that. Because it’s built to be multi-modal. We analyze logos in visuals. We transcribe audio to catch brand mentions said out loud. We read the captions. And we surface sentiment not just on the post itself, but in the tone of the comment threads. So when someone holds up a lip liner without saying the brand name, we still catch it.

Luxury dupes weren’t a trend. It’s a total consumer behavior shift.

From February to April 2025, we saw a 10x spike in content about luxury dupes.

People weren’t just showing off $80 Walmes Wirkin bags. They were unpacking price markups, breaking down in stitch quality, and naming manufacturing origins. It wasn’t a “trend.” It was a shift—a loud rejection of high-end pricing for name recognition alone.

Some quick takeaways:

• Louis Vuitton and Hermès got the most attention—and not the flattering kind
• Gen Z approached it practically, Millennials led the criticism
• Comment sentiment was 2:1 in favor of dupes
• Coach and Tory Burch earned praise for being more realistic

In the comments, we saw statements like: “I buy reals and fakes. No shame.” “Down with name brands. Period.” “If it’s cute, I’m wearing it.” These weren’t soft grumbles either. They were loud value statements, often delivered with receipts.

Your mentions stayed flat, but the conversation kept going.

Most tools would’ve missed this moment because it’s not like there were consistent hashtags. There weren’t brand callouts. And the strongest sentiment didn’t live in the actual videos themselves. It lived in the comment sections.

That’s the gap. Traditional tools give you numbers. Plot gives you the context—who’s talking, how they feel, and why it matters.

Our sentiment dashboard lets you drill into posts and comments by tone—positive, negative, or neutral—and see the actual content behind the number. Not just "sentiment: 62% positive," but "here’s what people are saying when they’re praising your brand, or dragging it."

This is how you stop chasing lagging indicators and start spotting market shifts in real time.

What your should be tracking (but probably aren’t)

If your team wants to catch shifts in sentiment early, here’s what to start listening for:

• Untagged product references: People talk about you without the @. Think visuals, gestures, or generic references like “this one.”
• Comparisons, not callouts: Dupe videos don’t always name your brand. But the context is clear—and it’s often not in your favor.
• Recurring value statements: Comments like "same quality," "brand tax," and "not worth it" aren’t one-offs. They’re clues.
• Organic vs Paid: If your tool can’t distinguish what’s genuinely taking off vs what’s paid to perform, you’re probably misreading the trend.
• Creator alignment: Who’s making the most persuasive videos in your category—and are they doing it for you, or against you?

If you don’t have a social listening tool, try this with your team:

This report isn’t just about dupes. It’s a blueprint for how real conversations happen—and where most teams miss them. If your current setup can’t show you the "why" behind consumer shifts, it's not really listening.