TikTok is crazy popular, and you must take advantage of it as a content creator! Tiktok is the easiest social network to grow a following on, and it can also be very profitable to monetize.
Like Instagram, brands are on the TikTok prowl for quality content creators with loyal followings to partner with. You, as an influencer, have the potential to charge big bucks for these partnerships if you have the stats to back it up.
This is where figuring out your engagement rate comes into the picture. If you're an influencer on TikTok, you know that engagement is key. But how do you calculate your engagement rate? And what factors influence it?
In this article, we'll break down what an engagement rate is and how to calculate it.
What is Engagement Rate
Engagement rate refers to any interaction between your content and users on whatever app you use (in this case, TikTok).
People usually refer to likes, comments, and shares as engagement, but some other forms of engagement would be the number of views and view length (IE, how long people usually watch your content).
Your engagement rate is extremely important when trying to land well-paying brand deals. Your engagement rate proves why a brand should partner with you to push its product or service.
If your followers are not well engaged with your current content, it is unlikely they will rush out and buy a product you promote. But on the flip side, if you have taken the time to build a strong following that trusts you as a content creator, you have the potential to boost their sales significantly.
Your engagement rate is the number that truly proves your worth.
How to Calculate Your Engagement Rate on TikTok
Once you have a deeper understanding of what an engagement rate is and why it is so important in any content creator’s career, you have to learn how to calculate it.
The easiest way to calculate your engagement rate is by adding the number of likes, comments, and shares on a post divided by the number of views. You then multiply this number by 100, and voila, you have your engagement rate for a specific post.
That’s a lot of words, so let’s write it in equation form;
[(Number of likes + number of comments + number of shares) / number of views] X 100
If you're pitching to brands, you'll obviously need to show your overall engagement, not just the engagement of a single post.
Different sources will tell you different ways to do so, but on average, it is recommended to take data from the last 20-30 posts you uploaded to get your overall engagement rate.
If that is too much math for you, no judgment we feel the same. Before you get too worked up just know that there are countless apps and sites, such as Grin, that will tell you your engagement rate if you enter your profile username.
What counts as “good” engagement on TikTok?
Good engagement on TikTok varies with how many followers you have, but on average, it’s ideal to be between 4%–18%.
If you have less than a 4% engagement, we don’t recommend you pitch brands quite yet.
Keep working on your presence!
How do I improve my engagement rate?
If you aren’t happy with where your engagement rate is, don’t get discouraged. There are many ways to build your community organically.
- Be consistently active on the app - You can’t build a following if you are never online. With TikTok, you must post around 5-8 times daily… that's a lot of content! Maybe come up with a posting schedule to know when you need to be active and when you can take a break. We also HIGHLY encourage you to create batch content. Pick a couple of days a week that you film as many TikToks as you reasonably can. That way, you aren’t trying to come up with quality content daily.
- Interact with your followers. It is not enough to post nonstop. You need to interact with the followers you have. TikTok is a very interactive app; take advantage of that! Respond to comments, go live, host Q&A’s, whatever you can think of to bridge the gap between yourself and your followers.
- Use analytics to drive your content - Consistently checking your analytics on TikTok is an excellent tool for monitoring how well your content is doing. Take the time to learn who your audience is, where they live, what they do, and what they like. Notice what content does well and what flops. Use this knowledge to your advantage as you plan future content.
Conclusion
So, what do you think? Are you convinced that TikTok is a goldmine just waiting to be tapped into? If you need a little more convincing, consider this: at the time of writing this article, TikTok has over 1 billion users (yes, with a B). That’s an audience your brand cannot afford to ignore. With numbers like that, it’s clear that TikTok should be among your top priorities when planning your marketing strategy.
If you need to increase your engagement, implement our suggestions and see how you do! Take a few minutes to calculate your engagement rate; if you are in the sweet spot of 4.5%–18%, great! Keep doing what you’re doing.
And if you still don’t feel confident in your ability to create content or increase engagement on your own, don’t worry – we can help. Buy our book, The Micro-Influencer’s Brand Partnership Bible, and let us show you how it’s done. Thanks for reading!
