Experimenting with a new social channel can be daunting especially with the added hurdle of finding ways to measure how you’re doing.
If you’ve been eager to try out TikTok but were reluctant due to a lack of guiding data, here’s a walkthrough of how you can use its native analytics and third-party sources to help you iterate your approach and get the most out of your experience:
Navigating the TikTok Analytics Dashboard
The first important thing to note about TikTok and how the app collects data is that gathering and displaying information begins a week after you set up your Pro account. For this reason, it’s highly recommended you push out as much content as early as possible to get the most informative insights.
Patience will be key as you begin to carve your presence and get comfortable with the platform’s capabilities and how you can use them to cater to your audience.
There are three fundamental categories that TikTok displays within the dashboard:
- Profile overview
- Content insights
- Follower insights
By selecting the corresponding tabs at the top of the Analytics screen, you can unveil more granular specifics and how they’re shaping your overall performance.
Overview Data: Profile Views, Video Engagement, and Follower Counts
TikTok measures your profile and view videos and tracks your followers in either a 7 or 28-day window. Regardless of the window of the time that you’re looking to explore (week vs. month), the data is tracked by the day, making it easy to decipher which content is contributing to the most growth.
You can easily track a funnel of customers and gain knowledge as to what types of content they prefer, when exactly they began engaging with your profile, and whether you’re sharing the videos they deem relevant.
On the surface, these may not feel like the most advanced set of numbers you can get, though they can help you navigate important decisions such o when you post, what you post, how often, and who the content is ultimately being created for.
Content and Audience Data
By hovering over to the ‘Followers’ tab of your Analytics dashboard, you’ll be able to see a gender split and a percentage breakdown of your audience by location in the formats of a pie chart and your standard line chart. Locations are labeled as ‘Top Terrorities’ and designated by country (e.g. Canada, U.S., UK).
Shifting gears to your ‘Content’ tab, you’ll be provided with a high-level picture of the total views of each video you share within the past week, organized from newest to oldest. In addition, TikTok tracks which of these videos, if any, trended on the ‘For You’ page and the number of views these garnered.
If you want to dig further into the performance of a particular post, the Content analytics offers the ability to track more specific measures including:
- Total like count of post
- Total number of comments
- Total shares
- Total playtime of the video
- Total video views
- Average watch time
- Traffic source types
- Audience territories
When viewed alongside the overview of top territories in the Followers tab, the audience territories will enable you to compare how different types of contents and formats are sitting with individuals from different locations. If one post did exceptionally well in a given location, it becomes an easy decision to continue to deliver those types of posts. In contrast, if you see a dip in engagement, you’ll know it’s time to go back to the drawing boards.
Harnessing Third-Party Data with Pentos
TikTok’s native tools are great for harnessing data about your profile — but what about the insights of other accounts?
Enter Pentos, an analytics solution that helps you analyze the performance of other TikTokers, as well as get insights on trending hashtag challenges.
Registering for a free account gives you access to up to three accounts worth of insights. For added functionality and more analytics, two other tiers options are available with subscription prices starting at $20/month.
Once you supply the username of the profile you wish to track, TikTok will give you a dashboard containing the following profile information:
- Average engagement rate
- Total hearts
- Total number of videos posted
- Average likes
- Average comments
- Total number of accounts the profile follows
Many marketers recognize the value-add from shaping their content to align with topics that are already trending. On TikTok, hashtag challenges are a fun way to experiment and learn from a community of influencers and then craft stories that align with their interests. With Pentos, you can gauge which of these have the highest engagement and whether a certain challenge is worth putting time and effort behind it.
More specifically, you’ll have insights such as:
- Average hashtag engagement rate
- Total views of hashtag content
- Total number of posts
- Average likes
- Engagement rate
Pentos will also allow you to track how your own branded hashtags perform so you’re able to refine your approach based on which challenges attracted more interaction versus those that don’t resonate as well with your audience. In this way, you can attribute outcomes such as community growth and conversions to the resources you’re allocating against sponsored content.
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