How to Run a TikTok Audit For Your Brand

TikTok, the 5th most popular social media platform with over a billion monthly active users, engages 23.02% of internet users, making it a powerful channel for digital marketers targeting GenZ.

Despite its vast potential, many marketers find their TikTok efforts fall short. Regular posting, engagement, and growth strategies often yield unsatisfactory results, highlighting that without a strategic approach, consistent efforts can fail in TikTok marketing.

Here, a social media audit is of great help.

A TikTok analytics audit reviews your business’s overall activity and metrics, assesses growth, and aligns efforts with business goals. It’s the first step in turning your TikTok presence from a missed opportunity to a powerful marketing tool.

TikTok audit: an in-depth guide

What is a TikTok audit?
Why run a TikTok audit?
How to perform an audit on TikTok?

FAQs about TikTok audit

What is a TikTok audit?

A TikTok audit, grounded in social media analytics, is an evaluation of your TikTok account to gain a detailed understanding of your brand's performance on the platform.

Just like any other social media performance audit, it gives you a holistic view of your TikTok strategy’s effectiveness. Similar to a regular health checkup, a TikTok inspection helps ensure your account remains in optimal condition.

Moreover, you can also spot what's working for your brand and what needs to be modified or changed.

Why run a TikTok audit?

TikTok offers immense potential, particularly among Gen Z.

A strategic TikTok audit is imperative in powering up your consistent efforts into significant results by providing a clear understanding of how your TikTok account is performing and contributing to your brand's growth.

You can run this audit manually or streamline the process using a social media audit tool like Socialinsider. And it is not limited to TikTok, since the tool can also help you run a Facebook audit, Twitter audit, LinkedIn audit or help you conduct in-depth competitive analysis across all major social platforms.

Now, let's get into the nitty-gritty of why you should be running a TikTok performance review.

Understand the level of brand awareness TikTok is generating for your brand

Imagine you’re doing great on TikTok, getting considerable engagement on your videos. But how are you going to evaluate how your TikTok presence is contributing to your overall brand awareness?

Through regular TikTok audits, you will get the chance to discover how effectively your content is increasing your brand's visibility.

By examining metrics such as follower growth, video views, and the reach of your posts, when you complete your audit, you will get insights into how well your brand is being recognized and remembered by your target audience.

Keep your brand fresh and relevant to the TikTok audience

One of the major challenges with trying to grow on TikTok is that trends don’t last long. Previously, trends used to last about 7-10 days, but now they often fade within 3-5 days.

As a brand, it’s crucial to not only stay updated with the latest trends but also continually refresh the content you share.

By regularly reviewing engagement metrics and audience feedback, you can identify what resonates with your audience and adjust your strategy accordingly. This will help your brand maintain its appeal and relevance on a constantly changing platform like TikTok, where trends and audience preferences shift rapidly.

Ensure you follow the SEO guidance on TikTok.

It's crucial to ensure your TikTok content is SEO-optimized for increased visibility and engagement. Incorporate relevant keywords and hashtags within your captions to enhance your reach.

By strategically using popular and trending terms, you can significantly improve your chances of being discovered by a wider audience, ultimately boosting your marketing efforts and achieving better results on the platform.

Identify TikTok trends

TikTok is a trend-based platform and TikTok ideas like videos that educate and entertain are the viral ones. Every week a new trend comes and from celebrities to businesses, everyone starts creating videos on those trends.

Following trends is the best strategy for TikTok growth and not keeping up with it could make the brand look dull and outdated.

A TikTok profile audit allows you to identify the trends that are currently popular and how you can incorporate them into your content strategy.

If you have a brand you admire on TikTok for its creativity and success, you can leverage an audit of their profile to discover the trends they are using. Integrating these trends into your strategy ensures your brand remains at the forefront of what’s trending, increasing the likelihood of your content going viral.

"Successful TikTok creators not only have big followings but also understand the unique culture and trends of TikTok. They can help businesses make content that fits with TikTok users, driving more engagement and brand awareness. These creators know how to make authentic and interesting content that works well on TikTok," suggests Inigo Rivero, one of the first EMEA employees at TikTok. and the Managing Director at House Of Marketers.

Analyze your TikTok Strategy

By reviewing the types of content you post (such as carousels and videos), the content themes you cover, and your hashtag strategy, an audit helps you determine what works best for your brand.

A TikTok profile analyzer will allow you to address questions like:

• What is the best video length for my brand’s TikTok videos?
• Should I feature more people in my TikToks?

The findings from your audit will allow you to refine your approach, focusing on content types and themes that generate the most engagement and aligning your hashtag strategy with your social media goals.

Discover what partnerships were most successful

Collaborations with influencers or other brands can significantly boost your social media reach and engagement.

A TikTok audit helps you evaluate the performance of these partnerships by analyzing TikTok metrics such as follower growth, engagement rates, and overall impact on brand awareness.

When you use the audit to identify which collaborations were most effective, you can plan future partnerships more easily.

Example: Imagine you run a luxury brand and partnered with a popular influencer to promote a new product. After the collaboration, you notice a spike in followers and engagement on your TikTok account. Conducting a TikTok brand audit reveals key metrics and insights, such as:

• Follower Growth: You see a 30% increase in followers during the collaboration period.
• Engagement Rates: Posts featuring the influencer's content had 50% higher engagement rates compared to your other posts.
• Brand Awareness: There was a noticeable rise in brand mentions and positive reviews across social media.

The TikTok audit will also show if the videos featuring the influencer demonstrating product usage and sharing skincare tips had higher engagement and drove significant traffic to your website. Based on this data, you can conclude if the collaboration was successful enough or it didn’t.

Therefore, one of the lessons to learn from auditing your TikTok profile will be how to plan future partnerships by identifying similar influencers who align well with your brand and have the potential to generate significant results.

How to perform an audit on TikTok

When you audit your TikTok strategy, you need to establish a framework that will help you be more effective in your content planning and development in the future.

#1. Define TikTok objectives and KPIs

Just like any other platform examination, the first step while conducting a TikTok audit is to define your objectives.

Setting clear goals is the first step toward running an effective TikTok analysis.

Start by asking yourself questions like:

• What is the actual size of my audience, and how engaging is my content?
• What are my best-performing videos?

Once you have a clear picture of what you want to discover by running a TikTok audit, the process will get a lot easier to handle.

#2. Analyze your profile and branding

Your profile is the face of your brand on any social media platform, and it’s crucial to make a positive and lasting impression on your audience. To achieve this, your profile should be visually appealing and aesthetically pleasing, reflecting the essence of your brand effectively.

To do this, you need to do a full profile check and ensure you’re using all the elements correctly.

Take these steps to ensure the effectiveness and appeal of your profile:

Name: To successfully optimize your profile, you need to have something in your display name that is easily searchable.

Profile picture: Make sure your profile picture is high-quality, featuring a sharp and clear image that looks professional across all devices. It should accurately represent your brand, whether through a well-designed logo or a professional headshot, in line with your brand’s social media style guide.

Bio: Your bio should provide an answer to what your content is about and what it offers to your audience. For example, if you’re a fashion brand and your content is focused around the idea of giving ideas for styling and dressing, you should indicate to your audience what kind of content you’re producing through your bio.

You have an 80-character limit for your TikTok bio, but make it compelling with emojis and key keywords.

CTA (Call to Action): As a brand on TikTok, you’re there with a specific purpose, whether it's selling products, boosting brand awareness, or something else. Your CTA should clearly reflect this purpose and guide your audience on the next steps.

If your goal is to sell products through your website, include a direct link to your site or provide an email where interested users can contact you.

Playlists: Playlists on TikTok help to organize your videos into categorized collections, making it easier for viewers to explore related content. If you haven't already, create playlists that group similar posts together to enhance user navigation and engagement with your content.

Pinned Posts: Use pinned posts to highlight your most important content at the top of your profile. This feature allows you to keep key updates, popular videos, or significant announcements readily accessible to viewers.

If you haven't done so already, pin content that best represents your brand or delivers crucial information, ensuring that users see your top posts first when visiting your profile.

#3. Evaluate your content and content pillars

When auditing TikTok accounts, you must remember that content is the very soul of a profile. The quality of your content directly influences your chances of achieving your goals on the platform.

Conducting a thorough social media audit for your account’s content pillars allows you to identify your top-performing videos and assess whether they align with your current objectives. This process helps you pinpoint what’s working, what needs improvement, and how you can optimize your content strategy to better meet your goals.

You can do this manually or streamline the process by using a TikTok analytics tool like Socialinsider. Furthermore, the platform also unlocks access to comprehensive social media insights about competitors that would be labor-intensive to gather manually.

To gain valuable strategy optimization ideas, in your analysis, it’s important to audit the following.

• Content types

Identify the type of content, whether carousels or videos, that resonates most with your audience.

Once you have this information, refine your TikTok content strategy to emphasize these high-performing formats. This doesn’t mean you should exclude other content types but focus primarily on those that yield the best results for your brand.

• Content pillars

Next, analyze which content pillars have been most effective for your brand. This process helps you understand which topics or themes your audience is most interested in.

For example, if you're conducting a content audit for Rare Beauty’s TikTok account and want to check engagement for a content pillar like "blush," Socialinsider will provide all the important metrics. The data includes the total number of posts related to blush within a specified timeframe, as well as key performance indicators to evaluate the effectiveness of this content pillar.

• Audio used

When conducting a TikTok audit, it’s hard to miss audio. A comprehensive TikTok audit should also include analyzing how trending audio impacts content performance. This, in turn, will give you an idea of your audience’s preferences and engagement patterns.

"We examine which sounds or music tracks have driven higher engagement in the videos. By identifying trending sounds, we can determine if incorporating these sounds aligns with increased views and interaction. However, we also ensure that the chosen sounds resonate with our brand's identity and message. Consistency in sound selection helps maintain brand recognition and reinforces our client’s brand image among TikTok users," suggests Jason Hennessey, the Founder & CEO of Hennessey Digital.

• Video views

Analyzing your video views is essential to understand which types of videos resonate most with your audience.

Are educational videos generating the highest engagement, or are they the entertaining ones?

By thoroughly analyzing your videos, you can adapt your content strategy to prioritize the formats that yield the best results for your brand.

• Optimal video length

The TikTok algorithm is evolving and has started to promote long-form content more than short videos. However, audience preferences vary among different niches and demographics. You must identify the optimal video length for your brand.

Once you understand your audience's preferences, you can tailor your content strategy to deliver videos that captivate and retain their attention effectively.

• Top posts and bottom posts

Identify your best and worst-performing posts to discover patterns in content performance.

When analyzing which posts generate the highest TikTok engagement and which ones underperform, you can get insights into what resonates with your audience and what may need improvement. This analysis allows you to refine your content strategy to prioritize high-performing content and optimize your TikTok presence for maximum impact.

"Identify the content categories attracting the highest levels of interaction. Search for recurring elements in posts that resonate well. At TP-Link, we observed that tech how-to guides and product demonstration videos garnered the most attention. So we scaled our efforts on creating similar videos," suggests Laviet Joaquin, leading the Marketing team at TP-Link.

Additionally, Socialinsider provides a comprehensive overview of key metrics, including:

• Total number of posts over a specific period: evaluate how consistent you’ve been in your posting by tracking your overall posting activity within a selected timeframe.
• Average number of posts per day:  analyze if your posting frequency is optimal to maintain consistent engagement (remember that you don’t want to spam your audience)
• Total and average video length: Review the average length of your videos to gauge content trends.
• Posts categorized by content type: Analyze your posts based on different formats, such as videos or carousels, to identify which types are most effective.

Leverage these insights to refine your TikTok strategy and maximize your brand’s performance on the platform.

#4. Audit your TikTok followers

The primary goal of any social media strategy is to attract followers, as more followers lead to increased brand awareness and potentially more sales.

Here’s how a TikTok follower audit can help you improve your TikTok strategy:

• Follower growth rate evaluation: Regularly examine your month-over-month growth. Steady and healthy growth indicates that TikTok should be a priority for your social media efforts. If you notice a decline, investigate the possible reasons behind it and adjust your strategy accordingly.
• Remove fake followers: Like other social media platforms, TikTok also has fake and bot accounts. Ignoring these accounts can skew your engagement metrics and negatively impact your growth. Regularly conduct a TikTok fake follower check to maintain accurate and meaningful engagement rates.
• Spot influencers engaging with your content: TikTok is teeming with influencers. If some of them are following or engaging with your content, take the opportunity to connect with them and build relationships. These connections can lead to valuable future collaborations, enhancing your reach and credibility.

#5. Audit your TikTok engagement and video views

Understanding which types of content resonate most with your audience is a crucial part of any social media audit.

By analyzing trends in likes, comments, shares, and views across your videos, you can refine your content strategy to focus on what works best. This approach allows you to track the effectiveness of your overall TikTok presence, revealing that content gains views when it is original and optimized based on the audience's preferences.

Lastly, by examining engagement patterns, you can identify areas for improvement, such as optimizing posting schedules or content themes, to enhance your reach and engagement on the platform. This comprehensive understanding ensures that your TikTok strategy remains dynamic and responsive to audience behavior.

Socialinsider gives you a complete overview of your engagement, helping you to understand engagement and video views on a profile level to identify patterns.

It also gives you a post-level view of your engagement.

#6. Analyze competitors

How can you truly know how your brand is performing on TikTok until you don’t do a TikTok competitor analysis?

Performing a quick competitive analysis helps you gauge your TikTok performance against other brands and relevant accounts.

To complete your auditing process with a competitive edge, select three to five competitors and conduct a brief analysis of their TikTok presence. Examine their follower count, engagement rates, and posting frequency.

Review the types of content they publish and how often they update their profiles. Consider what’s working for them and what gaps you might be able to fill in your own strategy.

You can get a lot of insights from a quick competitor analysis.

Socialinsider offers a powerful feature for conducting social media competitor analysis by providing industry benchmarks.

You can select competitors of your choice, and Socialinsider will display all critical engagement metrics on a unified dashboard, giving you a comprehensive view of how you compare within your industry.

#7. Identify patterns

A TikTok account check is key to spotting patterns in your TikTok strategy and refining your approach for better results.

Content Patterns

Analyze which content types consistently resonate with your audience on TikTok. Determine whether educational videos, entertaining skits, or trend-based challenges perform best. Adjust your strategy based on these insights to maintain engagement and interest.

Audience Growth Patterns

Track metrics like follower growth rate and demographics to understand how your audience is evolving. This is also where a fake followers audit is mandatory, as it will help you understand what’s the actual size of your audience and create better user personas.  

Leverage insights to optimize your content and posting strategy to attract and retain followers effectively.

SEO Practices

Review TikTok hashtag usage, keywords, and video descriptions to enhance discoverability. Identify effective SEO strategies by analyzing search rankings and optimizing content accordingly.

#8. Create a list of actionable insights that you should leverage

You have all the TikTok tips and strategies to help you thoroughly examine your profile. Now, for the last step and your first step towards starting your audit, create a list of all the actionable steps you need to take.

Once done, go start your auditing profile and boost your social media ROI.

Final thoughts

As a social media strategist, your main responsibility is to leverage social media to expand your brand’s reach and influence. And given the current scenario leaving TikTok out of the plan is like leaving money on the table.

To help you conduct a thorough social media analysis, we have developed a comprehensive social media audit template. This will help you effectively analyze and optimize your presence across different social media channels, setting your brand on a path to success.

FAQs about TikTok audits

Should hashtags be included in a TikTok performance audit?

Absolutely, hashtags are a critical component of a TikTok performance audit. Including them in your audit will help you identify which hashtags are driving engagement and visibility for your posts, allowing you to optimize your strategy and reach a broader audience.