Part of growing your TikTok profile is increasing the amount of engagement you receive. TikTok engagement refers to actions that your viewers take on your posts, including likes, comments and shares.
Reach and follower counts can be considered important metrics, but social media engagement shows how much your content actually resonates with your intended audience. If your videos are getting people to leave comments or share them with their audience, that’s a good sign they are finding your content relevant and engaging.
Throughout this article, you’ll learn more about what exactly TikTok engagement entails, how to calculate your TikTok engagement rate and how to improve your TikTok engagement.
- What is TikTok engagement?
- How to calculate your TikTok engagement rate
- 10 valuable ways to boost your TikTok engagement rate
What is TikTok engagement?
TikTok engagement is defined as any action that a viewer takes on your TikTok video. These include:
- Liking your video
- Leaving a comment
- Sharing your video
- Bookmarking your video
- Clicking on your TikTok shop link
- Watching more of your videos
- Following your account
Even a video view can count as engagement, though the previously mentioned actions indicate a deeper level of engagement from the viewer.
What is a TikTok engagement rate?
Your TikTok engagement rate is a social media metric that helps you to understand what percentage of your video viewers interact more with your video. This metric provides helpful insight into how effectively your content engages your viewers.
If you have a low engagement rate, you may need to explore different content ideas to see how you can better resonate with your audience and entice them to leave comments or share your videos. It’s important to track metrics like this, especially when running TikTok campaigns or influencer partnerships.
Having a clear understanding of how people are engaging with a specific influencer lets you know whether you want a partnership with a TikTok influencer or not. Moreover, your engagement rate metric for your own brand will likely be a big part of your social media reporting to illustrate that your social media team is producing quality content that resonates with your brand’s audience.
How to calculate your TikTok engagement rate
While you can access data surrounding specific TikTok engagements within your TikTok analytics—or other analytics tool of choice—you’ll have to calculate your engagement rate yourself.
The formula for TikTok engagement rate is:
TikTok Engagement Rate = [(Total Likes + Comments + Shares)/Total Number of Views] x 100
You can calculate your engagement rate per video or for all videos published over a specified time range.
Let’s go over an example.
If you use TikTok’s built-in analytics, the Overview section provides you with a detailed look into your engagements over a specified time period (either 7 days, 28 days, 60 days or a custom time frame you can select):
Head over to the Reach tab, to find your total video views for a specific time period as well.
You can also use a tool like Sprout Social’s analytics to easily calculate your engagement rate. Log into your account and head to your TikTok Profiles dashboard to get a clear look at your report.
Sprout Social’s data makes calculating engagement rate easy, as it already combines all of your engagements. Rather than having to add those up as part of the formula, you can simply plug in the engagements and video views numbers.
Using the data from Sprout Coffee Co., if we enter those numbers into our TikTok engagement rate formula, we get these results:
[190,024/1,112,731] x 100 = 17.1%
Multiplying your engagement right by 100 at the end helps the final result come out in percentage form, a typical format for your social media reports. Give it a try by signing up with Sprout Social for a free trial.
10 valuable ways to boost your TikTok engagement rate
While 17.1% from our above example is a pretty fantastic engagement rate, that may not be the case for your business. And that’s okay!
But you’re probably looking for a few tips to increase those numbers. Implement some of these tips into your TikTok strategy to help boost your engagement.
1. Quality content beats quantity
Above all else, quality content is the way to go. While you may have seen stats about how TikTok recommends posting 1-4 videos per day, but if those videos aren’t high quality, no one is going to want to watch them.
Instead, aim for a consistency that is realistic for your team but doesn’t sacrifice quality. Plus, RivalIQ’s TikTok benchmark report found that most brands are posting around 1.75 videos per week—a rather sustainable frequency as opposed to multiple videos per day.
Take sustainable candle shop, Mala the Brand, as an example. The brand posts one video per business day, so up to five days per week (or fewer if there is a national holiday).
The brand’s strategy is simple but solid. The social media manager creates a number of posts sharing behind-the-scenes content, new scent updates, tips, business information and answers to customer questions. It’s good content that doesn’t feel rushed just to push content out.
Keep this in mind as you build out your own TikTok content strategy.
2. Post at the right times
Even if you’re consistently sharing quality content, posting at the wrong times means your audience might not even have a chance to see and interact with it.
However, you need to know more than just the best times to post on TikTok. You need to know the best times to post for your specific audience. A TikTok scheduling tool like Sprout Social can help.
When you get ready to publish or schedule your TikTok videos through Sprout Social, you can access a feature called “Optimal Send Times.” This analyzes your followers and provides you with the best times to post based on when your audience is most active.
3. Inviting viewers to share what they think in the comments
Invite engagement on your video by asking viewers to leave TikTok comments. This is a great way to be able to hold conversations with your audience by reading and responding to their comments.
But more than that, TikTok allows users to respond to a comment with a video, helping you to further engage with your audience. Let’s take a look at this example from Gushers. The brand posted a video with a number of random food combinations, and someone replied with a comment that says, “Pretzel gushers.”
In response, Gushers created a video response trying out the new food combo:
This video generated almost 1,000 views and a number of new comments. Try to engage your audience by asking for comments and responding to them when you receive them.
4. Post consistently
Yes, quality over quantity. But, consistency is also key.
When you’re creating a TikTok content strategy, you need to have a plan for how you can regularly pump videos out. Quality might be the most important factor in your videos, but having a consistent schedule so your videos are regularly showing up in feeds is a close second.
Consider batch-recording your video content to make it easier to post more consistently. This way, you can create a week or so worth of videos at one time, rather than having to pull out your recording equipment every single day.
5. Define your niche and stick to it
Find your niche. Sure, you might sell candles. Or cookies. Or burrito bowls. But what specifically will dictate the type of content you share?
As a candle company, you might focus on behind-the-scenes content that showcases how you make each of your products. As a cookie bakery, you might focus on showing off your different best selling cookies. And if you sell burrito bowls, you might, like Chipotle, make memes a big part of your strategy.
The bottom line is this—you want to choose a specific niche and focus for your content. This way, your audience comes to know what to expect from your brand and they can enjoy each video or post you put out.
Let’s take a look at Gymshark, a fitness apparel store. This brand’s TikTok strategy doesn’t even center around video content. Every single one of Gymshark’s posts is an image carousel with motivational text overlaying each image.
This simple and consistent strategy garners the brand hundreds of thousands if not millions of views on each video. Find your own niche and use it to grow your audience.
If you’re not sure where to start, consider browsing the For You page to see what other brands and creators are doing. This can be a great way to gather inspiration for your own TikTok marketing campaigns.
6. Make the most of user-generated content
User-generated content is another great strategy for increasing engagement. Consumers trust user-generated content, with 86% saying they trust UGC over influencer content and are more likely to buy from a brand sharing UGC.
UGC is a type of content—in this case, a TikTok video—that someone has created that mentions your brand or showcases your product or service somehow. You can then reshare this content on your own feed as a form of social proof, letting your audience know that you have happy customers and that they could be one, too.
Here’s a great example from Dunkin’. One of Dunkin’s customers shared a video of them enjoying a Valentine’s Day-themed donut. Dunkin’s team found it and commented asking if they could repost it on their own feed—the perfect step to take before sharing UGC with your audience:
Monitor your brand across different social media platforms to see if anyone is posting videos mentioning you or your product. If you’re not finding any organic UGC, consider putting out an ask for your customers to share photo or video content you can use. Or, you might even look into hiring a UGC creator to help you compile some great content.
7. TikTok ads can increase engagement
Running TikTok ads is also a great way to reach a wider audience, grow your audience and subsequently increase your overall engagement. There are a number of different types of ads, ranging from brand takeovers to sponsored hashtags. But one of the best types of ads to increase engagement is the in-feed ad.
This is just like a TikTok video that you pay to promote. Viewers can head to your profile, leave likes, add a comment and more.
Take a look at this in-feed ad run by integration software Zapier. It draws people in by showcasing something useful that can be done with its tool. It includes all of the components of a regular post—video, caption and hashtags.
People can even swipe over to view the profile. A website will pop up first as the CTA for viewers to learn more. They can take action on your website, but then they can also head to your profile afterwards, potentially watching more of your videos or following your account.
Put together your own TikTok ads strategy so you can reach a wider audience and increase your engagement.
8. Hook the viewer
It’s incredibly easy for viewers to continue scrolling through their feed if your video doesn’t immediately interest them, hook them or draw them in. There are many different ways to do this, and we’re going to walk you through a few different examples to give you a better idea of how to create your own attention-grabbing video content.
First, take advantage of popular TikTok sounds in your content. When different sounds are used often—especially in a way that’s recognizable and enjoyable—it makes people stop scrolling to see the sound used in a fun new way.
Take a look at Capri Sun using the popular TikTok sound from The Kardashians of Kris Jenner showing off her china collection to a friend. Many brands and creators use this sound when showcasing something cool—and Capri Sun did just that when showing off its new straws.
Another way to grab attention is to hook the viewer with a great story. Dive right in with a strong story hook in order to get them to stop scrolling—or use a text overlay to explain more about your story so people want to hear the full thing.
While not a brand, you could also take a page out of creator Alana Fineman’s book. She shares different restaurant skits and starts every video with the same line—”Time for another restaurant story.” And it pulls in her audience and gets them ready for story time every time.
Also, keep an eye out for various TikTok trends that your brand can jump on. These are more likely to pop up in the For You page if they’re timely enough and they’re also more likely to catch a viewer’s eye.
Finally, consider hopping on a TikTok challenge as long as it’s still relevant to your business. Or, create your own challenge and challenge your audience to give it a try.
Here’s an example of a video that isn’t a challenge, but easily could be turned into one. Essie created a fun and nostalgic ’90s nail art TikTok post. The team easily could’ve turned this into a challenge by asking followers and nail influencers to create their own ’90s looks.
While there doesn’t necessarily have to be an incentive, one great way to increase engagement and participation is by offering a prize to the best (a more subjective choice) or the video that gets the most likes (a more straightforward option).
9. TikTok SEO will increase your visibility
SEO stands for search engine optimization, and TikTok is a search engine. In fact, 40% of Americans are using TikTok as a search engine—so you need to pay attention to TikTok SEO as a part of your marketing strategy.
Some tips include:
- Using TikTok’s predictive search to help you come up with video ideas based on what people are looking for
- Incorporating your video’s focus keyword(s) naturally into your video caption
- Adding hashtags that use your video’s focus keyword(s)
- Having a good understanding of the TikTok algorithm and key ranking factors
Make sure you’re including SEO within your content strategy to increase chances of your video reaching your audience and increasing engagement.
10. Hashtag campaigns
Finally, consider running a hashtag campaign to help spread the word about your business and its products or services even more. A hashtag campaign creates a branded hashtag, then asks viewers to use that hashtag in their own video content to spread the word.
Here’s a great example that’s pretty popular—#CanvaTok. This is a hashtag that graphic design tool Canva uses within its own video captions. But many other designers and small businesses on the app also use it to show off their different creations.
Creating a hashtag campaign can take some time to build up. You need to use it enough within your own videos for it to start to catch on, while also using CTAs to get your audience to use that TikTok hashtag within their video captions as well.
Boost your TikTok engagement rate
Ready to boost your TikTok engagement rate? Start implementing these 10 engagement strategies and learn how to keep track of your overall engagement rate.
To learn even more about TikTok marketing, head over to check out our ultimate guide to creating a TikTok marketing strategy that will work for your business.
The post How to boost your TikTok engagement rate and calculate it appeared first on Sprout Social.
