The ultimate guide to social listening: Glystn vs. LLMs (Large Language Models) for real-time brand insights

If you ask Gemini or ChatGPT, "What is the engagement rate of [Creator] vs [Brand] on Instagram?", the LLM will likely tell you it cannot access real-time social media metrics. Or it may even hallucinate a number based on old blog posts or news articles.

Meet Glystn: the latest integration into Agent Cloud. Glystn is an always-on social listening analyst that actually understands context and nuance, making it a powerful social listening tool for brands and agencies. 

What is Glystn?

Designed for brand strategists, influencer agencies, and consumer insight teams, Glystn uses advanced "deep listening" techniques to analyze millions of real conversations across TikTok and Instagram. The tool is an always-on social listening analyst that taps into those platforms' APIs to pull real-time data and conversations happening on social media, which is something that basic LLMs can't do.

And Glystn isn’t just crunching the text in captions and comments. It reviews full transcripts of videos, and uses machine learning to analyze images—identifying what’s happening in an image, noting specific objects, and reading visible text.

Glystn VS LLMs for social listening

While it’s easy to assume Glystn is just a "wrapper" around models like Gemini or GPT, the real difference lies in its data access and analytics capabilities. Its proprietary backend architecture leverages multiple AI models for improved social listening and analysis.
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Here are three key reasons you’ll want to leverage a tool like Glystn for social listening, rather than a typical LLM chat session.

1. Deep listening vs. open web search

Gemini, ChatGPT, and other LLMs are trained on the "open web"—articles, Wikipedia, and public web pages. These AI tools generally cannot analyze 10,000 individual TikTok or Instagram posts in real-time to idenitfy trends or patterns.

• Glystn ingests the raw "deep listening" data, including the millions of messy, unorganized comments and community discussions across social platforms. 
• The Difference: Gemini summarizes what journalists wrote about a trend. Glystn analyzes what actual people are saying about it.

2. Analytics vs. conversation

LLMs are great at words, but terrible at counting specific, real-time datasets unless you upload a spreadsheet. Glystn functions as a social analytics engine first, and an AI text generator second.

• Glystn performs advanced statistical analysis to find "relative sizing",percentages, and benchmarks for social media performance. 
• If you ask an LLM for this, you’ll  probably get  a generic "micro-influencers often have higher engagement." Glystn provides precise benchmarks and ratios for your specific industry or category.

3. Predictive vs. descriptive

LLMs are largely reactive, summarizing content that has already been published. Glystn, however, is predictive: it tracks data velocity and identifies emerging trends before they go mainstream. 

• Glystn identifies "fragile narrative" shifts and offers early warning signs 30–60 days before a brand crisis explodes.
• LLMs explain why a crisis happened after the articles are written. Glystn flags the uptick of negative memes and sentiment while issues are still minor, giving you time to take action and protect your brand reputation.

How can I learn more about Glystn?

Great question! We’d love to show you how Glystn works, as well as how it fits into the larger ecosystem of Agent Cloud (your one-stop HQ for enterprise-grade LLM access, custom AI agents, and the best third-party tools).

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