What Is TikTok Engagement Rate? (+ Tips To Increase It)

Video content has become the favorite medium for brands to reach their target market on fast-paced mediums. The evolution of social media platforms has made short video production easier and more cost-effective. 

With a user base of one billion from 154 countries, TikTok is now the goldmine for brands to enhance social media visibility. Being popular among the millennials and Gen Z, the platform can help your brand broaden its consumer horizon. 

But TikTok is a crowded platform. So, if you want positive business outcomes through this space, you need considerable engagement.  

In today’s article, we will discuss ways to calculate your business’s TikTok engagement rate and enhance it to maximize brand visibility. 

But first, let’s address the most important question.

What is TikTok engagement rate?

TikTok marketing

TikTok engagement rate is the measurement of how many times users have engaged with a creator’s content. The calculation adds up the likes, comments, shares, and views on a page in a particular time range. It also considers the downloads and saved posts. 

With this in mind, let’s try to understand why your TikTok engagement rate matters.

Why does your TikTok engagement rate matter?

Here are some benefits of having a substantial engagement rate on TikTok: 

  • Better TikTok engagement indicates a brand’s popularity and encourages new viewers to follow its content. 
  • Tracking your engagement rate helps you determine growth without vanity metrics like follower count.
  • A high engagement rate keeps you relevant in a crowded and fast-paced platform like TikTok. 
  • Focusing on engagement and examining it frequently helps you gauge what your target market wants. It helps you adjust your products and your marketing strategy accordingly. 
  • TikTok algorithm catches content with high engagement and pushes them to the “For You” page. This brings your brand new followers and potential customers. 

Next, you need to understand what a decent TikTok engagement rate looks like. Read the next section to understand.

What is a good TikTok engagement rate?

TikTok

Average engagement rates on most social media channels range between 1% to 2%. However, the usual threshold for TikTok here is quite high. Here, you can consider a 4% to 18% as a good engagement rate. 

However, this is not a fixed range. Like Instagram, the TikTok engagement rate also varies based on industries, your target market, and your products.  

If you plan on executing this manually, you will need to learn how to calculate your TikTok engagement rate. The section will is an easy way to do the same.

How to calculate TikTok engagement rate?

Your TikTok engagement rate is an accurate reflection of how successful your content marketing is on the platform. Here are the three most popular formulas to calculate the TikTok engagement rate for your brand. 

1. In the first formula, we count the engagement rate as per views:

Engagement rate = {(Number of likes + Number of comments + Number of shares) / Number of views} * 100

2. Here, we take the followers into account: 

{(Number of likes + Number of comments) / Number of Followers} * 100

3. In the last formula, we add the number of shares with the likes and comments. 

{(Number of likes + Number of comments + Number of shares) / Number of Followers} * 100

But these calculations can be a hassle to execute manually. Enter Keyhole. 

Keyhole

In the screenshot above, you’ll see Fenty Beauty’s average engagement per video, total engagement, and engagement rate.

From a single dashboard, you can get detailed reports on what’s working for your brand and what isn’t. You can even monitor your competitors’ performance to check areas where you can improve. 

Here are some features you can enjoy:

  • Engagement analysis (by views, engagements, and engagement rate)
  • Total and average engagement
  • Top videos by views
  • Follower growth

Now that you have the right tool, the only thing missing is to learn how to use the platform effectively to improve your TikTok engagement rate. Here’s how you can do it.

7 Tips to increase TikTok engagement rate

Here are some of the best ways to enhance your engagement rate on TikTok: 

1. Reply to comments with a new video

To connect with your audience, you must join in the comment section. Responding to comments is crucial to increase engagement. However, replying to them with new content goes the extra mile. 

TikTok offers this innovative feature where you can make reply videos instead of text-based responses. Creating new comment videos gives you a chance to impress an audience. It portrays your brand image as witty and authentic. 

These video comments drive excellent engagement and can be a catalyst for your growth on the platform. They provide a level of personalization and make the user feel valued. 

It is also a great way to push your content in front of different users. Viewers scroll through the comments and come across your video response.

2. Utilize the Q&A feature

TikTok has launched a new Q&A feature that lets creators add questions and answer sections to their profiles. This is similar to video replies because you can choose to reply to any question with new video content. These will be visible in your profile. 

Using the Q&A feature helps brands to understand what their audience needs. This way, their curated content remains relevant and brings more engagement. Make sure you respond to as many questions as possible. This will bring more traffic to your TikTok page. 

3. Apply the three seconds rule

Competition is severe in the current market. The attention span of your audience is bound to divide among numerous available options. 

Thus, it is imperative to get to the point at the very beginning of your TikTok.  

Keep in mind that the first three seconds of your video should be interesting enough to keep the viewer hooked. 

The importance of the three seconds rule goes beyond merely keeping your existing audience engaged. 

When viewers watch your content for more than three seconds, it makes the TikTok algorithm push your videos to the ‘For you’ pages. This scales your existing follower base and drives more engagement. 

Also, focus on creating short-form TikTok videos to keep your TikTok page engaging, fresh, and fast-paced. 

4. Tell a story with your content

TikTok algorithm prefers content with stories. The platform has a ‘stitching’ feature, which lets you connect your videos to another creator’s content. 

Such storytelling performs well in terms of engagement. It keeps the audience interested in sitting through a long series of videos.

You can also divide your content into several parts to encourage your audience to follow the continuation of the story. This leads to increased engagement on more of your videos. Make sure you keep the narrative simple but appealing. 

5. Use trend jacking

In a platform mostly occupied by the new age consumers, you must keep a relevant image. Regularly joining in trends is crucial here if you want sustainable engagement. 

Hence, make trend jacking a priority in your TikTok marketing strategy. As soon as a new trend emerges, create and post quick TikToks on it. This will help you win over the algorithm, drive more audience to your content, and portray you as an up-to-date business. 

However, make sure you get involved with challenges and trends that are on the brand. Here, analyzing your top competitors can give you valuable insight into what trends are worth hopping on in your industry. Many top brands with substantial followings even start their own challenges. 

For example, Chipotle started the #GuacDance challenge, which led to over 250K video submissions and 430M video starts in just six days. Moreover, the fast food chain made a whopping 800K sales of guacamole on National Guacamole Day. 

6. Host live streams

To create a more personalized connection with your audience, host live streams regularly. This lets your viewers engage with you in real-time and convey their queries. 

Live streams also allow creators to deliver more in-depth answers and information on their products. It also helps you showcase your expertise in your industry and how you aim to solve a particular problem with your services or product. Following this approach routinely will encourage your audience to know more about your brand.

7. Increase your content production

To bring better engagement on TikTok, you must be consistent and frequent with your postings. Unlike LinkedIn, the TikTok algorithm does not limit the ideal posting frequency to one or two posts per day. 

Many top creators post multiple content pieces per day. However, track your competitors on TikTok and see what posting frequency maximizes engagement on their page. 

Keeping a good pace of content production ensures that your content is visible on several ‘For You’ pages. This helps you increase your reach and leads to an enhanced TikTok engagement rate. 

Boost your TikTok engagement rate with Keyhole

TikTok’s popularity is no longer limited to individual creators. 

From small artisan businesses to big food chains, brands are using the platform’s extensive reach to appeal to the new generation. 

To stand out in this crowd, your brand needs a good engagement rate — and that’s only possible with a competitive edge. For that, you must keep track of your top contenders and examine their strengths and weaknesses. 

However, for this approach to work, the analysis needs to be precise. This is where an extensive social media competitor analytics tool comes into play. 

With Keyhole, you can benchmark your performance against a single or several competitors in only 3 easy steps. Apart from that, the platform shows you the top posts of your rival brands and offers external sharing features.

Keyhole also lets you access the engagement history of your contenders. With its graphic and insightful reports, you can renew your TikTok marketing strategy for the best possible results.  

Want to test it out yourself? Start your free trial with Keyhole today.

Related Articles:

13 Paid & Free TikTok Analytics Tools To Check Stats In 2024
How To Track & Analyze Competitors On TikTok

Frequently Asked Questions

How do I increase my TikTok engagement rate?

There are several ways to increase the engagement rate on your TikTok page. Start with understanding your community and creating relevant content. Make sure you hop on new and “on-brand” trends. Instead of posting boring text-based replies, respond to comments with new videos. Leverage the Q&A features. Lastly, consistently analyze your top competitors to create a benchmark.

Why is my TikTok engagement low?

Reasons for low engagement can be a lack of visibility on the ‘For You’ page or a lack of relevance in the content. Using a boring introduction and being inconsistent with postings can also affect the engagement rate negatively.

Can a TikTok video go viral later?

While many videos go viral instantly, some videos can take up some time to get that much traction. Old TikTok videos do get viral with the right push.

Put an end to manual legwork once and for all.