Are you ready for it? The 2024 TikTok Benchmark Report is here, with all your fave TikTok stats alongside case studies from top brands!
Peep the most essential TikTok benchmarks like engagement rate by follower AND view, hashtags, follower count growth over time, mentions, and so much more. And don’t miss profiles from brands leading the pack to inspire your next viral video.
Let’s get TikTok benchmarking!
Key TikTok Benchmarking Takeaways
TikTok is (still) out-engaging other channels.
Median brands are earning an average eng. rate per follower of 2.6% on TikTok, which is 4x Instagram and way, way more than Facebook and Twitter.
Follower counts are growing, with mid-sized accounts growing fastest.
Accounts with between 10-50k followers are seeing the most follower growth month over month, but brands of all sizes are consistently adding to their follower counts.
Higher Ed, Travel, and Sports Teams rock.
These industries earned top engagement across multiple metrics, which isn’t too surprising since they dominate on other channels too.
TikTok posting is on the rise.
Brands are averaging about 2 videos per week on TikTok, which is a little up from last year but still less than the average frequency on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.
TikTok Videos per Week
It can be hard to know how often your brand should be posting on social media, but figuring out the posting frequency that works best for your followers really matters. Benchmarking your brand’s TikTok posting frequency against your competitors and brands of a similar size is the best way to figure out how many videos per week you should be aiming to post.
TikTok Videos per Week: Distribution
The average brand in this study publishes about 2 videos per week, or about 8 per month.
- The top 25% most active brands published videos at least 4 times per week on average.
- A full 30% of brands publish less than once a week.
Creating compelling videos for TikTok is definitely an investment for brands. The median posting frequency here is less than half of what we see for Instagram posts in our annual social media benchmark report.
TikTok Videos per Week: Account Size
The larger your account, the more likely you are to publish more frequently.
- The smallest bin we studied (0K-5K followers) averaged about 1 video per week.
- Accounts with 1M+ followers post 6 or more times per week.
Having more followers doesn’t necessarily make you post more, but it’s unsurprising that larger accounts invest more energy into their content.
TikTok Videos per Week: Industries
There’s a wide range of frequencies as we examine posting behavior by industry.
- Media brands top the charts with the average brand posting more than four times per week.
- The least active industries, Financial Services and Alcohol, publish about once a week.
Media and Health & Beauty consistently post the highest volume of content across every channel we study, so it’s no surprise that they’re frequent posters on TikTok too.
Most industries are posting less often on TikTok than on Instagram.
Engagement Rate by View
We think Engagement Rate by View on TikTok is one of the best measures of a video’s quality because it measures whether your content moved them to action. Counting the number of times a viewer liked, commented, or shared and dividing it by the overall number of views indicates just how compelling your content was. If your video wasn’t high-quality, viewers will be less likely to engage with it, and therefore you’ll earn a smaller engagement rate per view. If your video attracted attention, viewers will be more likely to take the extra step of engagement before swiping to the next video.
Engagement Rate by View: Distribution
The average brand in our study earns an engagement rate by view of 3.4%.
- Just 6% of brands earn double-digit percentages for engagement rate by view.
- Low engagement rates by view are an indication that boosting is a substantial part of the reach for a video. About 22% of brands average less than 2% across all their videos, suggesting they’re boosting an appreciable portion of their videos.
Engagement rate by view is a roughly comparable metric to engagement per impression that we see on other platforms like Instagram. In our most recent Instagram report, we noted that brands have been consistently earning a 5% engagement per impression.
Engagement Rate by View: Account Size
Mid-sized accounts see the smallest engagement rates by view.
- Brands with 1M+ followers have an average of 6% eng. rate per view, about 50% higher than brands in the 10K – 50K range.
- Accounts with fewer than 10K followers earned engagement rates by view closer to 3%, or half that of their big-follower brethren.
Given the strong role that the FYP algorithm plays in the world of TikTok, it isn’t surprising to see a positive correlation between account size and engagement rate by view.
Engagement Rate by View: Industries
Sports Teams, Nonprofits, and Influencers top the charts when it comes to highly engaging content.
- The Sports Teams in this report average an eye-popping 9% engagement rate by view, down from 11% last year.
- On the low end, Food & Beverage, Home Decor, and Financial Services brands are all below the report-wide average of 3.4%.
Sports Teams and Nonprofits consistently top the charts when it comes to engaging content, so it’s no surprise to see them rocking it on TikTok. While Influencers aren’t a hit on every channel, they’ve certainly cracked the TikTok code this year.
Engagement Rate by View Standout Performer: NYT Cooking and Food
Food and TikTok go hand-in-hand, with snappy recipe how-tos and food reviews topping the engagement charts. NYT Cooking and Food cooks up a delicious mix of food reporting, recipe videos, and repurposing content from their video-focused online presence. The lifestyle brand earned a 5.87% engagement rate per view, which is nearly double the median brand on TikTok this year.
Behind-the-scenes videos worked especially well for NYT this year, with videos about a supersized wonton shop or touring a cookie cutter factory earning killer engagement rates per view.
Views per Follower
TikTok’s For You Page changed the game by emphasizing content the algorithm thinks you’ll like over content from creators you follow. As a result, it’s important for brands to measure how both followers and non-followers are engaging with their content. Benchmarking your brand’s views against your followers is a useful engagement metric for understanding how your views stack up against your follower count.
The average brand in our study earns about 12.8 views per 100 followers on each video they post.
- Though most brands don’t achieve at such a high rate, the top 25% of brands earn more than 35 views per 100 followers per video on average.
- On the low end, more than 40% of brands earn fewer than 10 views per 100 followers, on average.
Even though the FYP drives tons of views on TikTok, we think it’s also useful to benchmark how many views an account will achieve, on average, as a function of followers.
Views per Follower: Account Size
The larger the number of followers, the lower the views per follower.
- Accounts with fewer than 5,000 followers average about 43 views per 100 followers on each video.
- That ratio decreases with accounts between 200,000 and 1 million followers averaging just 4 views per 100 followers on each video.
It isn’t surprising to see that views per follower decline, on average, as accounts grow in size. This dynamic is one that we also see on other platforms like Instagram. Smaller accounts tend to post less frequently, which also helps increase the views on each individual video.
Views per Follower: Industries
Higher Education, Travel, and Sports Teams top the list of industries earning views per follower.
- Home Decor, Retail, and Tech & Software brands land towards the middle of the pack.
- Media brands and Influencers lag behind the cross-industry median, earning about 6% on average.
Higher Education and Sports Teams perform well consistently across the channels we study, so it’s no surprise they stand out on TikTok as well.
Travel brands make the most of video-forward TikTok, helping potential travelers feel like they’re on vacation with their videos to rake in the views.
Views per Follower Standout Performer: Emporia State University
Emporia State University earned an impressive 96 views per follower last year, which is about 7x the median. The Kansas-based D2 school also performed well in our latest Higher Education Social Media Report thanks to a small but mighty following and high-quality videos that resonated with followers.
Emporia’s TikTok channel was all about fun videos showing a slice of campus life or big announcements like in-state tuition for all (yes, they borrowed Oprah for that one). Finding the right balance between playful and informational videos served the university well on TikTok.
Want to see what other top colleges and universities are up to on TikTok? Peep our Higher Education Social Media Engagement Report for the latest.
Engagement Rate by Follower
If you’ve ever read a Rival IQ benchmark report before, you won’t be surprised to see one of our favorite metrics, engagement rate by follower, on the scene. Engagement rate by follower helps users control for audience size when measuring engagements on social. It’s crucial to go beyond engagement total because audience size is hugely important: 200 likes is great engagement for a brand with 2,000 followers but is a drop in the bucket to a brand with 200,000 followers.
Engagement Rate by Follower: Distribution
On a per-video basis, the eng. rate by follower for the median brand comes in at 2.6%.
- About 20% of brands earn an engagement rate by follower of 8% or more.
- On the lower side, nearly half of the brands we studied averaged an engagement rate of less than 2%.
TikTok engagement rates by follower outpace the next most engaging channel, Instagram, but about 4x (and don’t get us started on Facebook and Twitter).
Engagement Rate by Follower: Account Size
Brands with larger accounts see lower engagement rates by follower on average.
- Accounts with fewer than 50K followers see their average engagement rates come in around 3%.
- Larger accounts with more than 1 million followers see their per-video average engagement per follower come in just under 2%.
As we saw in the previous section, larger accounts tend to earn fewer views per follower, and that lower reach will contribute to lower engagement rates by follower.
Engagement Rate by Follower: Industries
Higher Education and Sports Teams top the list for engagement rate by follower with performance well beyond the cross-industry average.
- Food & Beverage, with an average engagement rate of 4%, round out the top three industries.
- Health & Beauty and Fashion brands perform well below the cross-industry average.
Higher Education blows other industries out of the park when it comes to engagement rate by follower thanks to engaged fans and top-quality content throughout the school year.
Engagement Rate by Follower Standout Performer: Phoenix Mercury
WNBA darlings the Phoenix Mercury knocked it out of the park (wait, wrong sport) on TikTok this year, averaging a whopping 42.4% engagement rate by follower and more than 20 million views per video. The Arizona-based team cracked fans up with behind-the-scenes glimpses of their favorite players, and weren’t afraid to get more than a little silly with videos of court dances or checking how tall players *really* are.
The Mercury was especially active on TikTok in the summer months and saw an engagement rate jump to match, reminding us that when the content is good, more is always more.
Average Monthly Follower Growth
TikTok’s growth has been up and down over the last few years, so it’s useful for brands to measure their own growth to see if they’re increasing their audience size or not.
Across all account sizes, brands on TikTok are growing their followers at least 2% on a monthly basis.
- Smaller accounts with fewer than 50K followers are averaging monthly growth of more than 3%.
- Technically, accounts larger than 1M are growing at 1.9%, but who’s counting? (We are.)
We love to see accounts of all sizes continuing to grow month after month, year after year. There’s no surer sign of TikTok’s ongoing relevance.
Hashtags per Video
Brands love a hashtag to help increase the chance of landing on the coveted #FYP by telling viewers and the algorithm alike what their video is about.
Brands include about four hashtags per video on average.
- Brands lean towards fewer hashtags, with only about 40% of brands including 5 or more hashtags in their videos.
- 16% of brands include one or fewer hashtags in their videos.
Hashtags are a powerful way to land content in the all-important #FYP. Be sure to note your brand’s individual hashtag engagement to pick the right number of hashtags for your videos.
Videos with Mentions
Mentioning another handle in a video is a powerful way to amplify TikTok reach, whether it’s replying to a fan or trying to catch the attention of a favorite creator.
The average brand doesn’t mention other accounts very often, only in about 11% of their videos.
- Just 7% of brands include a mention in more than half of their videos.
- About 12% of brands never mention another account.
Mentions help non-followers find new videos that are related to brands and accounts they already love. These numbers suggest that brands are favoring original content over replies or mentions.
Brands that include mentions consistently (but not too often) tend to see higher per view engagement rates.
- Brands that use mentions in 10% or fewer of their videos have the highest per-view engagement rates.
- Brands that include mentions in more than 30% of their videos have the lowest engagement rates per view.
Like just about everything in life, mentions work best in moderation for brands on TikTok.
Videos with Mentions Standout Performer: ESPN
If you’re posting 22x the videos of your average competitor on TikTok and still rocking an 9.7% engagement rate by view, you must be doing something right, and ESPN definitely is. The media brand is an absolute content machine and earns millions of views on their sports-themed videos, never missing a highlight or touchdown.
ESPN mentions at least one other handle in nearly half of of their videos, suggesting they’ve figured out how to keep the conversation going on TikTokt. A big chunk of their successful videos with mentions were UGC, which helps explain how they had so much content to post.
TikTok Benchmark Methodology
Rival IQ analyzed over 374K TikTok videos posted between January and December 2023 to bring you insights for your 2024 marketing strategy.
We included over 2,000 handles that were active with posts in 2023 and a minimum of 1,000 followers. Handles were included only if we had all of their data for the entire time period, regardless of how frequently or infrequently they published TikTok videos. These handles reached across 14 different industries, including beauty, media, influencers, sports, higher education, and more.
TikTok Terms Glossary
We know there are many different ways to measure engagement, so here’s a quick round-up of all the TikTok benchmarking metrics we studied in this report and their definitions.
Engagement Rate by Follower: The average number of engagements per follower on a per-video basis.
Engagement Rate per View: The average number of engagements per view.
Engagement Total: The total number of interactions (likes, comments, and shares) on videos.
Hashtags per Video: The average number of hashtags on a per-video basis.
Monthly Follower Growth Rate: The average monthly growth rate over the report period.
Videos with Mentions: The percentage of a brand’s videos that include at least one mention of another account.
Videos per Week: The average number of videos a brand publishes per week.
Views per Follower: The average number of views per follower on a per-video basis.
Wrapping Up Our TikTok Benchmarks
Congrats to all the brands we surveyed and everyone out there fighting the good fight to create frequent and eye-catching video content on one of the most challenging social media channels. We love seeing a little growth, and hope your bosses do too if your channel is on the rise.
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