TikTok Monitoring Tool Guide: F&B Trends in Saudi Arabia

A new food trend in Saudi Arabia rarely starts with a hashtag. It starts with a creator in Riyadh saying "جربت شي خطير" ("I tried something amazing") into the camera, and a few hundred comments asking where to buy it. If your TikTok monitoring tool only reads captions and hashtags, it heard none of that.

By the time the trend shows up in a hashtag ranking, a sales report or a competitor's new pack, the early window has closed.

Most guides to Arabic social media trends stop at hashtag lists. This one is for food and beverage marketing, brand and insights teams in Saudi Arabia. It answers the common questions about monitoring TikTok trends, then gives you a six-step method, a weekly TikTok food trend log you can copy today and a worked example.

How can I monitor TikTok trending content?

Short answer: use three layers, every week.

1. What is popular: TikTok's free Creative Center shows trending hashtags, songs, creators and videos by country and industry. It is the quickest way to see what is rising on the platform in Saudi Arabia.
2. What people say about your category: a seed-term list written the way Saudis talk, run through a monitoring tool that reads captions, comments and what is said out loud in the video.
3. What it means: a weekly log with simple rules that separate a one-week spike from a trend worth acting on.

Most teams stop at layer one. Layers two and three are where the decisions come from.

What's the best tool for monitoring TikTok trends?

It depends on the question you are asking.

Your question	Best fit
What is popular on TikTok in Saudi Arabia this week?	TikTok Creative Center (free)
How are our own videos performing?	TikTok's built-in account analytics
What are people searching for?	Google Trends (free, relative interest by region)
What are Saudis saying about our category, our company and our rivals, including in videos that never tag us?	A social listening or TikTok monitoring tool that transcribes video and reads Saudi dialect

That also answers the wider question of what tools there are to monitor trends online: platform tools show popularity, search tools show intent and social listening shows the conversation itself. Most teams need more than one. For a side-by-side comparison, see our guide to TikTok analytics and monitoring tools.

What a TikTok monitoring tool should do for F&B in Saudi Arabia:

• Transcribe speech in videos, so a dish named out loud counts as a mention.
• Read Saudi dialect, slang and Franco-Arabic, not only formal Arabic.
• Catch untagged and misspelled mentions of your company and products.
• Collect comments, and be clear about which ones: all comments on your own account, or only the top comments on other public videos.
• Separate creators, company accounts and ordinary users.
• Export to Excel, CSV or PowerPoint, and alert your team on WhatsApp or email when something moves.

Step 1: Write seed terms the way Saudis talk about food

Seed terms are the words your tool listens for. For food and beverage in Saudi Arabia, build four lists:

• Dishes and drinks: كبسة، جريش، مرقوق، لقيمات، كليجا، قهوة سعودية، سبانش لاتيه، كرك.
• Flavours and formats: زعفران، هيل، تمر، فستق، لوتس، "بدون سكر"، "سكر أقل"، "بروتين".
• Occasions: فطور الدوام (work breakfast), الفسحة (school break), كشتة (desert outing), العزايم (family gatherings), سحور.
• Reaction phrases: "جربت" (I tried), "أحد جرب؟" (has anyone tried?), "وين ألقاه؟" (where do I find it?), "يستاهل" or "ما يستاهل" (worth it or not), "خطير" (amazing).

Add Franco-Arabic and English mixes such as "7elw", "ladeeth", "sugar free" and "protein", plus the common misspellings of your own product names.

Start with unbranded category terms. Trends begin before anyone names a company.

Step 2: Track spoken mentions, not only hashtags

On food TikTok, the caption is often a single emoji or a generic tag like #اكسبلور. The real content is spoken: the creator names the dish, the flavour, the café or the laban they used.

That is why hashtag counts undercount food trends. When a tool transcribes the audio, the video becomes searchable text and your seed terms catch it. Track both, and note in your log where the trend showed up first.

Step 3: Separate creators, company accounts and ordinary users

Sort every trend's posts into three groups:

• Creators (food bloggers, recipe accounts)
• Company accounts (yours, your rivals', cafés and restaurants)
• Ordinary users

A trend carried only by creators and company accounts may be marketing, not demand. The signal to watch for is the moment ordinary users start posting their own versions: "سويتها في البيت" ("I made it at home").

Step 4: Read the comments, because that is where demand shows

Views tell you reach. Comments tell you intent. Look for four kinds:

• Where to buy: "وين ألقاه؟"، "متوفر في الرياض؟"
• Price: "كم سعره؟"، "غالي"
• Variations: "فيه بدون سكر؟"، "ينفع بحليب لوز؟"
• Availability: "خلص من المحلات" (sold out in stores), "ما لقيته" (couldn't find it)

Read sentiment (positive, negative or neutral) and emotion (curiosity, excitement, disappointment) separately. A trend can be positive and still carry frustration, for example when people love a product they cannot find.

Step 5: Separate a TikTok spike from a lasting trend

One viral video is not a trend. Before you act, run four checks across three to four weeks:

1. Persistence: mentions stay above your normal level for three weeks running.
2. Spread: more distinct creators and ordinary users each week, not one video reshared.
3. Spill-over: the same idea appears off TikTok, in X replies, Instagram Reels or café reviews on Google Maps.
4. Behaviour words: comments move from "يجنن" ("looks great") to "وين ألقاه؟" and "سويتها" ("where do I find it?", "I made it").

Three or four checks passed: treat it as a trend. One or two: log it as a spike and keep watching. Also compare against the same Hijri period last year, since Ramadan and Eid food talk moves about 11 days earlier each year. For a deeper method, see our guide to spotting hidden consumer trends in Saudi Arabia.

Step 6: Keep a weekly TikTok food trend log (template)

Copy this into a sheet and add one row per candidate trend every Sunday.

Column	What to write
Trend	In consumers' own words, e.g. "حليب بارد بالزعفران"
Seed terms and spellings	Every variant, including Franco-Arabic
Where it shows	Spoken, caption, hashtag, comments
Who is posting	Creators, company accounts, ordinary users (rough split)
Top comment questions	The three most common, quoted
Sentiment and emotion	Read separately
Checks passed (of 4)	Persistence, spread, spill-over, behaviour words
Status	Watch, spike or trend
Owner and next action	Content, product or retail, with a date

Keep the log in one place and review it in your weekly marketing meeting.

A worked example (illustrative)

Here is the method at a fictional Saudi dairy company we will call Ghaima Dairy. The company, posts and numbers are made up to show the method.

• Week 1. Ghaima's seed list picks up about 20 videos of creators making an iced saffron and cardamom milk at home. Few use a hashtag that names it. Most say it out loud: "حليب بارد بالزعفران والهيل". Status: watch.
• Week 2. The count roughly doubles, and ordinary users join with "سويتها في البيت". Top comment questions: "فيه حليب زعفران جاهز؟" ("is there a ready-made saffron milk?") and "ينفع بدون سكر؟" ("can it be sugar-free?"). Sentiment is mostly positive; the main emotion is curiosity. Two checks passed.
• Week 3. The same drink appears in X replies and in café reviews on Google Maps. Comments now include "ما لقيته في السوبرماركت" ("couldn't find it in the supermarket"). Four checks passed. Status: trend.

What Ghaima does next:

• Content: a short recipe video in Saudi dialect using its own fresh milk, replying directly to the "is there a ready-made one?" comments.
• Product: a brief to R&D for a limited saffron and cardamom flavoured milk, in a regular and a less-sugar version, tested before Ramadan plans close.
• Retail: asks the sales team which stores could place it near the coffee and cold-drinks shelves.

What to do with a trend once you have one

Every confirmed trend goes to one of three owners, with a date:

• Content (this week): join the conversation while it is rising. Use the trend's own words, work with the creators already making it and answer the questions in the comments.
• Product (this quarter): brief the flavour, format or sugar level people are asking for. The comments are a ready-made list of requirements.
• Retail (now and next season): check availability where people say they cannot find it, and add the trend's words to your e-commerce listings.

If a trend fails the checks, park it. Not every viral video deserves a product.

What decides it for the Saudi market

TikTok's own tools are good at showing what is popular. But when the goal is to understand what Saudis are saying about your category, your products and your rivals, the signal sits in what is said out loud and in the comments, in Saudi dialect, slang and Franco-Arabic. dima transcribes and summarizes audio and video, so a TikTok video can be searched and analysed like a text post, and it has captured 50M+ mentions. That is the point dima focuses on.

If a dish took off in Saudi TikTok videos this week without a single hashtag, would your current tool hear it?

See which Saudi food conversations your TikTok monitoring is missing today.