How to Conduct a TikTok Competitor Analysis: Key Steps and Strategies

In the warp-speed world of TikTok marketing, a solid TikTok competitor analysis isn’t a gimmick – it’s a non-negotiable part of your strategy.

After all, how can you claim the top spot if you don’t know what your competitor's weakest points are - to then take advantage of them and position your brand as the superior choice?

Tapping into data and learning from your rivals’ wins and misses is your golden ticket to a successful strategy, gaining valuable insights into how to boost engagement and maximize ROI.

Let's explore together the steps for running a top-notch TikTok competitive analysis and give your strategy a revamp!

What is a TikTok competitor analysis?

A TikTok competition analysis is a full examination of your competitors’ social media presence, covering everything from content pillars, trending keywords and go-to hashtags, to content styles, audience size, and so much more.

Just like a social media audit of your own brand, keeping an eye on your competitors’ activity on TikTok isn’t a one-and-done task – it’s something you should do regularly if you want to stay ahead of the curve and truly make a difference.

A well-executed TikTok competitor analysis should give you all the insights you need to break down your competitor’s strategies, dive deep into their engagement and other key performance metrics, analyze their SEO approach and understand how they leverage influencer marketing.

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Why run a TikTok competitive analysis?

The first step in any competitor analysis is discovering your "why."

Are you trying to understand where your competitors stand in the market and what makes them different from you? Do you need real-time competitive data for TikTok to set accurate performance benchmarks?

Or maybe you're looking for fresh content ideas or content gaps, as well as ways to boost your engagement by learning from their strategies? Perhaps all of the above?

Let’s have a look at the main reasons why a TikTok analysis of your competitors just makes sense.

Understanding your competitors’ position in the market

Remember that old saying “what you don’t know, can’t hurt you”? Well, what you don’t know or understand about your competitors’ position in your industry can definitely hurt your strategy and make it harder for you to grow.

TikTok may still be relatively new, but that doesn’t mean brands on this platform are simply “winging it” anymore. Every brand with a solid presence on TikTok is most likely following a clear social strategy.

That is why it’s important to perform a TIkTok competitive analysis and take a look at specific KPIs that help you see the bigger picture.

Is there a specific type of content driving all their engagement? Have they cracked the code on how to grow their community faster?

These answers can help you reevaluate your strategy.

Setting performance benchmarks

No matter how in-depth you go, no social media content analysis of your own brand will ever truly be complete without performance benchmarks. Think of them as your measuring stick – they help put your raw numbers into perspective.

Let’s say, for instance, that your TikTok engagement rate suddenly spikes. Before you celebrate and call it a day, take a step back and see how it compares to industry standards. Are you ahead of the game, or is this just average for your niche? Benchmarks give you the full picture and help you understand where you really stand.

Comparing metrics against both your competitors and industry standards is the recipe for a successful TikTok competitive analysis.

Speaking of social media benchmarks, we recently launched our annual report, and the results are in: TikTok is leading yet again! With its impressive 2.50% engagement rate, it continues to outperform every other social media platform.

Our data also shows that TikTok dominates the social media scene in shares and impressions, which makes it an ideal choice for brands looking to maximize their visibility and engagement.

So, what does it all mean for you? It means that you can integrate these numbers into your TikTok performance report for competitors and see how your brand and your competitors measure up to the current industry standards.

Exploring new content ideas

A TikTok competitive analysis should be more than a collection of data. Sometimes, spotting a post on a competitor’s social media grid can spark a great idea for your own brand’s content.

After all, social media managers aren’t machines, able to just churn out fresh ideas on demand. In fact, coming up with new content consistently is one of the biggest challenges in social media marketing.

That’s why we all need a little inspiration now and then. Sometimes, the best place to find it is by looking at what’s already working for others in your industry.

Getting an engagement boost

Don’t get me wrong, simply performing a TikTok competitive analysis won’t magically get you more engagement.

However, this type of social media measurement can help you easily spot your competitors’ highest-performing content – those posts that get the most love, spark meaningful conversations and are instantly shareable.

Noticing what your competitors aren’t doing gives you a chance to stand out. Whether it’s a unique content format or a niche topic, filling these content gaps can lead the way to more engagement.

How to do a TikTok competitive analysis

Step 1: Identifying your TikTok competitors

The first step to a successful TikTok competitor analysis is knowing exactly who to analyze – your true competitors. The key is to focus your attention on those that are on your level or performing slightly better.

To have a full picture for competitive intelligence, it pays to look beyond just your direct competitors. Notice how brands outside your niche can still influence your audience’s buying decisions.

These are the brands your potential customers are engaging with, getting inspired by, and even comparing you to – whether you realize it or not.

Direct vs indirect competitors

Your direct competitors are brands or businesses in the same niche as you, directly competing with you for attention, engagement, and potential customers.

Indirect competitors, on the other hand, are brands that don’t directly compete with your brand but might overlap with your niche and shape consumer shopping habits– even if their focus is slightly different.

Say you are Walmart, a big brand in the retail industry. Your direct competitors would be other major retailers that post similar content about sales, product finds, shopping hauls, and seasonal promotions, such as BestBuy or Target.

Your indirect competitors might include grocery stores like Trader Joe’s and Whole Foods, home organization brands like IKEA, or beauty retailers like Sephora and ULTA.

How to find TikTok competitors

If you manage to find the right competitors to compare yourself to, everything else falls into place. There a few easy ways in which you can discover your competitors, including:

• Niche-specific keywords and hashtags. For example, if you’re a electronics retail brand like Best Buy, you could use TikTok search to explore hashtags like #TechDeals, #GadgetReview, #TechUnboxing, or #TechHaul and find competitors who are posting content similar to yours.
  
• TikTok suggested accounts. Whenever you find yourself on one of your competitor’s pages, check the Suggested Accounts section to discover other relevant brands that could qualify as your competition.
  
• Trending content. Explore your For You Page with a competitor-focused mindset. If you see any brands constantly popping up in your niche, they might be worth checking out and adding to your competitors list.
  
• Influencer collaborations. Identify key influencers in your niche and have a look at their sponsored content on TikTok to find which brands they’re working with – there you may find some new competitors.

Step 2: Tracking essential TikTok metrics

Once you’ve created a list of your TikTok metrics, the next important step is knowing what metrics to track.

Not all numbers tell the full story, so it’s important to zero in on the ones that truly align with your brand’s goals and help you grow.

Here’s a quick list of key TikTok KPIs for competitors we suggest tracking:

Engagement and engagement rate

TikTok has a reputation for its buzzing, high-energy vibe, where people don’t just watch content, they are actively engaging with it, to the point of making posts go viral overnight.

With that in mind, it’s easy to see why engagement is a key metric to track, especially when you’re looking at competitive performance data for TikTok.

Monitoring engagement helps show you how much people are resonating with the content, what posts are sparking conversations, and what content feels instantly shareable. High engagement on TikTok is a crucial factor in how often the algorithm pushes your videos to new viewers.

In a TikTok performance analysis, if your competitors score higher engagement, that might be a sign that they know their audience better, and are able to create content that aligns with their interests.

Video performance: views, video length, shares, saves

In social media marketing, video is king, and nowhere is that more obvious than on TikTok. So including video performance in your TikTok reports is essential for having a complete picture of your competitive landscape.

Sure, views may be the go-to metric for visibility and potential virality, but there’s more to the story.

Paying attention to how long your competitors’ videos are, as well as how often they’re shared and saved, can provide valuable insights into what’s really keeping audiences hooked.

Post types: video vs carousel

TikTok is definitely a video-first platform, but in recent times, they’ve been expanding into more static content like carousels.

While some brands passed on this new format, others have embraced it and are already mastering the art of engaging carousel posts.

When you’re diving into a TikTok competitive analysis, make sure to see which post format is getting the most engagement from your competitors – and maybe try it for yourself and see what works for your audience?

Follower growth rate

If we had to describe TikTok in two words, it would definitely be “warp-speed.” This platform is where you can see your social media metrics grow really fast.

For example, if one of your posts goes viral, your audience could easily multiply overnight.

So, when analyzing your competitors on TikTok, it’s best to focus on their follower growth rate rather than just the total follower count, to have a better idea of how quickly their audience is expanding.

And if you correlate this with other metrics like engagement or views, you might also find out why.

Content pillars

Any brand’s strategy on TikTok is usually built on a few content pillars. These are key categories that reflect a brand’s values, goals, and main audience interests.

For instance, a beauty brand might focus on a few main themes, such as tutorials, product reviews and behind-the-scenes content.

Analyzing your TikTok competitors’ content to understand which content pillars are working best for them can give you the opportunity to explore new themes for your own brand, or simply double down on what’s working already.

Best-performing TikToks

Taking a look at your competitors’ best posts can tell you a lot about their strategy. These are the posts that really clicked with their audience, went viral, and helped them grow their community. Which begs some questions: Was it the catchy music? The attention-grabbing hook? The perfect video length? Or maybe the topic itself?

Finding patterns in your competitors’ top-performing content is key for understanding what works for them, and learning from their wins.

Likes

Don’t be fooled by the simplicity of this metric – likes are the most basic but also the most important ways of showing appreciation for online content, and a powerful indicator of how well that content is received.

In the grand scheme of things, they may not weigh as much as shares or comments, but they are still major drivers of engagement, and a must-have in any TikTok performance evaluation.

Comments

Comments are a more meaningful and nuanced way of interacting with online content. So, when analyzing your competitors on TikTok, get a close look at their comments.

Are people asking questions? Tagging friends? Sharing opinions? How responsive are your competitors in the comment sections? Are they missing key opportunities to build connections?

Influencers & brands collabs

Influencer collabs might not be the first thing that comes to mind when creating TikTok performance reports, but these partnerships speak volumes about your competitors’ approach to TikTok marketing: who they’re working with, what kind of content they’re pushing, and how they’re reaching new audiences.

Paying attention to your competitors’ collabs is also a great opportunity to discover fresh creators who could be a perfect fit for your brand.

How to accurately track these metrics

Socialinsider makes it easy by giving you access to all these key metrics in one place. A complete picture of your competitors’ engagement, video performance, content pillars, top posts and influencer collabs within a single dashboard.

From historical posts data to video performance trends over time, you can eliminate the guesswork using this tool for a TikTok competitive analysis.

Step 3: Analyzing your competitor’s content strategy

In a TikTok competitive analysis, it’s best to start with the big picture, then slowly zoom in the details.

At a macro level, you can start identifying your competitors' top-performing content pillars, aka the topics they consistently post about.

Doing this can help you see what resonates with their audience, and find content gaps that your brand can fill.

Once that’s done, you can slowly pivot to micro-level details by analyzing individual posts and social media campaigns, and seeing which are the ideal content format for each pillar.

Here are a few areas that might help focus your analysis:

• Video formats: Are they sharing tutorials, behind-the-scenes clips, challenges, or storytelling-style videos?
• Audience engagement: How do they interact with their followers? What are their social media personas? Do they reply to comments, duet videos, or encourage user-generated content?
• Editing styles & trends: What kind of transitions, effects, or sounds do they use? Is their editing style more on the authentic or overly-produced side?
• Hashtags & trends: Are they hopping on TikTok trends, viral hashtags, and challenges to maximize their reach?

Step 4: Benchmarking your performance against competitors

To have an even clearer understanding of how you stack up to your competitors, it pays off to do a head-to-head TikTok performance comparison using Socialinsider’s Benchmarking feature.

Here’s how to do it in a few simple steps:

1. Set up your project – Create a new project dedicated to your TikTok competitor analysis
2. Add profiles – Connect your TikTok account and add your closest competitors.
3. Get benchmarks – Navigate to the Benchmark section from the sidebar and select TikTok
4. Choose your key metrics – Use the drawer menu on the right to pick the metrics that matter most to you.

Each brand has its strengths and weaknesses, and here is where you can see most clearly.

Taking Target vs. Walmart as an example, and analyzing their TikTok posts from the last 6 months, I’ve noticed that Target is a clear leader in engagement, followed closely by Walmart. But why? What’s the difference in their approach?

The answer might lie in how the type of content they share... While both brands share content pillars based around deals, shopping hauls, and seasonal finds, Target leans more into trendy, aesthetic content, while Walmart focuses on practicality and affordability.

Here are some examples.

From Target:

From Walmart:

Step 5: Developing a winning TikTok strategy based on competitor insights

At the end of the day, all the competitor insights you collect serve one big purpose: helping you create a strong, data-backed TikTok strategy that keeps your brand growing. This is the last of the 5 steps of a TikTok competitive analysis.

So, how do you take your lessons and turn them into action points? Here are a few social media best practices to keep in mind:

• Take inspiration, don’t imitate. There’s a fine line between learning from your competitors and outright copying them. “Steal” their best ideas, but also make them your own.
  
• Figure out what makes their content click. Whether it’s their tone of voice, the content pillars, some eye-catching visuals, the time of posting or anything else – it’s up to you to find this crucial piece of the puzzle.
  
• Play around with content formats & editing styles. TikTok is a playground where creativity can run wild, so don’t be afraid to experiment with different video styles, storytelling techniques, and editing tricks.
  
• Jump on trends, but do it strategically. Hashtags and TikTok challenges can give your content a visibility boost, but only if you choose the ones that make sense for your brand.

Advanced techniques for TikTok competitor analysis

The key to analyzing competition on any platform is to always stay one step ahead. To stay ahead of the curve, especially on TikTok, you will sometimes need to dig deep into your arsenal and take out the most advanced TikTok analysis tools you have on hand. Here’s what we suggest.

Dig deeper with AI & market insights

AI isn’t just great for brainstorming captions or generating unique visuals – it can also help you analyze competitors on TikTok and their content in a way that goes beyond a surface level.

With tools like Socialinsider’s Strategy Assistant (custom GPT),  you can tap into the power of AI-powered TikTok data analysis.

For instance, you can export your competitor's TikTok posts from the Socialinsider app and play with our Strategy Assistant to uncover patterns, strengths, and content gaps between brands.

Track emerging competitors & industry trends

If you want to get deeper competitive insights, find new competitors as soon as they pop up and be up to date on all the market trends, you need to see the bigger picture, and get industry-wide content trends.

One way to do this is by analyzing content pillars at an industry level. For example, in Socialinsider’s Benchmarks section, you can see the top content pillars for all brands in your project. In this case, I added retail brands Target and Walmart and studied their activity over the past 6 months.

Final thoughts

At its core, any analysis on social media is about gaining clarity—understanding who you’re up against, what’s working for them, and to carve out your own unique space in the industry.

Here’s a quick rundown of steps to keep in mind when analyzing competitors on TikTok:

• Find your competitors – both direct and indirect, so you know who’s influencing your audience, and who you should compare yourself to.
• Track key TikTok metrics – engagement, reach, content performance, and more to get the full picture.
• Analyze their content strategy – notice what’s resonating with their audience, what trends they’re using, and what content gaps you can fill out
• Benchmark your performance – compare your results to industry standards and adjust accordingly.

So, are you ready to press “play” on your TikTok competitor analysis with Socialinsider?

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