Understanding TikTok Analytics: What Marketers Should Know

TikTok originally launched in 2016 and didn’t receive much recognition at first. In fact, many people saw the platform as simply a place to watch silly videos and waste time. However, in recent years, big brands are starting to pay attention and now see TikTok as a viable social media platform for more than just fun. If this is your first time getting into TikTok, check out this TikTok guide for small businesses. 

Before launching in and posting your first TikTok, it is beneficial to understand the platform in more detail as well as list out the analytics you’ll want to pay attention to. We will take you on a quick tour of common social media metrics and then dive into TikTok analytics so your social media efforts not only play hard, they work hard as well! 

Basic Social Media Analytics

Before we get specific with TikTok, let’s look at social media analytics overall. This is one of the most important elements of a social media campaign as it tells you what content is performing and where to direct your efforts, and money. There are many different metrics to look at. We will highlight three of the most common ones, reach, impressions and engagement.

Reach

Reach is the total number of unique people who see your social media content. You have “reached” them. The higher your reach means the more people saw the content. 

Impressions

Impressions are how many times a post shows up on a timeline and does not take user activity into account. It is important to note that a single person can see a post more than once. Each time the post shows up on the feed, that is considered an impression. 

Engagement

Engagement is a metric that looks at user activity such as likes, shares and comments on posts. This is a rich data source that gives you insight into what content people want to interact with. 

How to Access TikTok Analytics to Evaluate Your Performance

Now, let’s dive deeper into TikTok and look at how to evaluate your content success there. But first, make sure that you are set up with a business account. To change your account to a business account, on the app, click “settings,” “manage account,” and then “switch to business account.” Alright, now let’s find and evaluate your analytics.

In the app, click the three lines at the top right of the screen to open “settings and privacy.” Then, click, “business suite.” There, you will find “analytics.” You will need to have at least one public video posted before you can start to view your analytics in the business suite. 

The main analytic categories you’ll want to explore in TikTok can be found under the “overview” tab. Here, you can see how many views your video had and how many people liked, commented, and shared it (was this a good post?). You can also see how many people have viewed your profile (did what you posted lead them to be more interested in you?). Other metrics to track here include your total followers. To go into even more detail about the performance of your content and follower growth and behavior, you’ll want to click either the “content” or “follower” tab. 

Another way to view analytics on TikTok is to tap the individual post. There, you can see how many people have watched it, liked it, commented on it, and shared it. What is more, you can see what the average watch time is for the video; did people like it or leave it? 

What’s most important to understand is what to do with the information you see on the analytics tab. If you find that the content isn’t doing well, you can make some adjustments to help. Some quick checks are:

1. Did your video have a descriptive caption? 
2. Did you use a good hashtag? 
3. Have you made the most of the video enhancement features on the TikTok app?

Top 4 Metrics to Track on TikTok 

Watched Full Video: Did viewers watch your entire TikTok? 

Views, Likes, Shares: Is your content resonating with your audience? 

Average Watch Time: How long do people spend watching your videos? 

Traffic Source Type: Where did people find your video? 

And yes, TikTok is popular for its fun, “scrappy” content but that doesn’t mean you don’t need a strategy in place! This post will help you set up your goals and plan your content so that when you do start measuring your analytics, you have a clear idea of what you are looking to achieve and what you need to do to make it happen. 

So now that you have an idea about social media metrics specific to TikTok, you can dive into your analytics and see if the time you’ve spent making TikTok content is paying off or if you need to adjust. Don’t get discouraged if your content is performing as well as you’d hoped. Here are some tactics to try that can help you. First, don’t totally give up on the content! Try repurposing it with a fresh caption and some new video features. Also, think about the day and time you posted. Was your target audience even online then? Change up your schedule and see if that helps. 

No matter what, do not give up! Social media success is a marathon, not a sprint. It may take some time to find what works and when you do, do a whole lot more of it!