TikTok Engagement Rate: What It Is, How To Calculate It

Inexperienced TikTok content creators focus almost exclusively on how many followers they add after posting a new video. Having a large TikTok fan base matters to many would-be influencers, of course, and having a large number of followers can be an impressive measure of importance on the social media platform.

However, a large TikTok follower count isn’t the only metric that counts when your goal is earning large audiences and lots of devoted fans. The amount of engagement that videos receive from TikTok users — the likes, shares, and comments they register — can determine whether the content receives lots of exposure across the app, or virtually none.

Here’s why engagement rate is so important. TikTok’s algorithms determine how much visibility a post will receive, and the algos base much of that decision on how much engagement a TikTok post receives. The more activity a video generates, the larger its audience will be — and all of those potential followers will get their first chance to become fans of the creator.

Perhaps the biggest payoff for a high engagement rate is placement on the For You page (FYP), which is generally reserved for the app’s most popular posts. Appearing on the FYP is a key to sending content viral.

A TikTok video’s engagement rate matters for another reason, too. It provides important feedback to producers, helping them understand which types of videos trigger positive interaction and which don’t move the needle very much. Knowing what the audience likes (and doesn’t like) lets them fine-tune their approach to future content creation.

To reap those benefits, though, you have to know how to crunch the numbers.

How To Calculate Engagement Rate on TikTok

You can use two different approaches when you want to determine your videos’ engagement rates.

The Difficult Way

Don’t worry, it really isn’t that difficult, even if math wasn’t your strong suit in school. At most, all you’ll need is a calculator and a little patience.

1. Visit your TikTok profile by clicking the “Profile” icon at the bottom right of your home screen. Locate the thumbnail of the video you’re interested in; you’ll find it in the content grid that’s in the middle of your profile page.
2. Find the number of views your video has received by looking underneath the thumbnail. The number shown there is your view count; make a note of it.
3. Tap the thumbnail to open the video full-screen, and click the “Comments” icon (three dots in a speech bubble) on the right-hand menu. At the top of the popup, you’ll see the total number of likes and comments your video has received. Add each of those numbers on paper or in your calculator.
4. Finally, check your video and look under the “Share” icon (a sweeping right arrow). The number under the arrow is the number of times your video has been shared. Add that number to your total of likes and comments.
5. Now, take the total number of engagements (likes, comments, and shares), and divide it by the total number of views you wrote down when we started.
6. Multiply the result you just got by 100 to turn it into a percentage.

Here’s a theoretical example. 200 likes + 30 comments + 20 shares = 250 engagements. Divide 250 by the number of views the video has received, 10,000, and you get 0.025; multiply by 100, and you get your engagement rate: 2.5%.

The average TikTok engagement rate is between 2-8% (with rates usually higher for small- and medium-sized accounts), so in this example, there’s more content optimization to be done just to beat the average engagement level across the platform.

All of that data collection has your head spinning? Try this instead.

The Easier Way

If you have a TikTok business account, you don’t have to go searching for the raw numbers needed to calculate engagement rates. (Personal account owners can easily switch to a business account by going to Profile > Menu > Settings and privacy > Account, and then clicking the “Switch to Business Account” link.

Simply log into the TikTok for Business website and navigate to the Analytics section. There you’ll find your video’s like, comment, and share counts in the “Overview” section, with the number of views available in the “Reach” tab.

That gives you all the numbers you need to plug into your calculator and compute your engagement rates. If that’s still too much work, there are many third-party apps and websites that make engagement rate calculators available.

Good luck!