TikTok has been one of the fastest growing social media platforms in existence. Since TikTok has so many active users of the younger generation, it is very important for brands to understand how to use this marketing channel correctly. Brands need to focus not only on key TikTok statistics, such as user age distribution, but also on TikTok analytics. All of this helps inform brands' TikTok marketing strategy, allowing them to better target their ideal customers. In this article, we explain what is TikTok engagement rate and how to increase your TikTok engagement rate, so that you can increase your TikTok influence to bring you more sales conversions or increased brand awareness.

What is TikTok engagement rate, and how to calculate it?

TikTok offers multiple ways for users to engage with your content and show the algorithm what they want to see. Like other platforms, TikTok allows you to like and comment on content, and TikTok's algorithm also records whether your content has been sent to other TikTok users, how long you watch a video, and whether you watch it multiple times. Before we dive into the TikTok Engagement Calculator, let’s first define what we mean by “engagement.”

Engagement typically includes likes, comments, shares and views. User engagement is listed as the most important factor in personalizing a TikTok For You page. This means that the more users who like, share, and comment on your content, the greater the chance that the platform will recommend you. Marketers hope to continuously optimize TikTok accounts by analyzing these metrics. Here is a brief description of these engagement rates:

Comments: What are people saying about your video? Comments are a great gauge of how people react to your content.

Likes: How many people liked your video? This shows how popular your content is.

Views: How many people viewed your video? Use this to determine if your content has caught the attention of customers.

Shares: How many times has your video been shared?

Total watch time: Do people watch your video, and for how long? This shows whether your video is engaging or not.

TikTok participation rate is calculated by dividing the sum of likes, comments, and shares by the number of views, which can be written as follows:

[(Number of Likes + Number of Comments + Number of Shares)/Views] X 100%

How to increase TikTok Engagement Rate in 2023?

1. Take inspiration from top brand pages

Before you decide to run a TikTok account one behalf of your company or just yourself, you need to know what you want. Find competitors that you want to outperform and try to learn from them. 

2. Invest in TikTok ads

When creating a TikTok ad, you can choose from different types of ads to help generate ad traffic. Recent data found that TikTok had an average engagement rate of 17.96% compared to Instagram's 3.86%. Topview ads grab viewers' attention immediately by appearing as the first video when users open their feed. In-feed ads appear naturally as users scroll and allow users to like, comment, share and follow. Advertisements of either type can enable users to directly interact with brands and build connections and brand loyalty.

3. Do TikTok hashtag research

If you want to get noticed on TikTok, you need to have a solid hashtag strategy. Popular TikTok hashtags can increase your visibility and reach, help you identify competitors and potential collaborators, and even help you see what other people in your industry are producing, giving you great TikTok content ideas. For example, someone searching for the hashtag #Gaming on TikTok can discover gaming-related video content. Or, if someone searches for the hashtag #makeup, they will find content related to Make up.

4. Join TikTok live stream

Live streaming is an important part of Douyin, and TikTok China spends billions of dollars each year on TikTok live streaming commerce. But so far, TikTok live streaming has not fully opened up the market in the West. TikTok is still working to integrate the live-streaming commerce, and it remains confident of attracting a global audience like it does in China. Similarly, joining the TikTok live stream will also increase the exposure of your TikTok account.

5. Utilize Q&A of TikTok

TikTok's latest Q&A feature offers viewers and TikTok content creators an easy way to stay connected. When watching a creative Douyin video, viewers can directly ask questions about the content of the video and learn more about their favorite creators. Currently, only individuals with a TikTok Creator account can add Q&As on TikTok.

To have a TikTok Creator account, you need at least 10,000 TikTok followers, and at least 100k video views in the last 30 days, etc. After switching to the TikTok creator account, a question and answer icon will appear below your video, and viewers can see all the content of the question and answer.

6. Use trending TikTok sounds

When making a TikTok video, be sure to include trending TikTok sounds. TikTok has confirmed that audio is just as important as visuals. While other social media apps such as Twitter have previously advocated a "voiceless" user experience, TikTok has upended that approach.

70% of TikTok users say sound is critical to the TikTok experience. If you want to increase your TikTok engagement rate, you should use trending TikTok sounds as much as possible in your TikTok videos.

7. Post original TikTok video

The most basic but often ignored tip is post real and original video. TikTok is the platform where most people spend their time. Users can find tons of content every day. If your TikTok account doesn't have some content-creation capabilities, you're unlikely to see engagement growth. Not everyone is interested in the same popular videos. You need to publish something unique, organic and valuable. If users like our style, you will soon see the engagement rate growing rapidly. Tiktok is known for high-quality videos. One thing you can find in every viral video is the quality of the footage. Considering the number of creators on the platform with excellent video content quality, if you don't focus on creating quality content, the chances of your video getting exposure are very small. A high-quality and customer-engaging video can bring a lot of followers to your TikTok account.

8. How to check analytics on TikTok?

TikTok analytics would be the most helpful for improving your TikTok engagement rate. You can track free TikTok analytics using TikTok features. Find " Profile Overview Analytics" , you may monitor your profile and video views in this section, as well as your following count. You can view data here for the past seven or 28 days. Or you can use tiktok analytics viewer as well as influencer marketing tools, Shoplus is an all in one tiktok tracker as well as a tiktok engagement calculator providing comprehensive free tiktok analytics. With this free tiktok analytics viwer, you can see the insigts of TikTok ecom trending, find top tiktok influencers, hot products, view tiktok ads performance, etc. After getting all these data, you can make your own TikTok marketing strategy so as to improve engagement rate.