About a year ago, TikTok introduced Pro Accounts: a new type of account that may be especially helpful for businesses looking to grow their audience on TikTok. As of right now, the only difference between a TikTok Pro account and a regular TikTok account is that a Pro account grants you access to analytics.

Analytics give you key insights to your account’s performance on TikTok. You’ll be able to keep track of your follower growth and profile and video views, and learn who your audience is and how they’re finding you. Armed with this information, you can figure out what strategies are working well and which aren’t, so you can better hone your TikTok strategy and reach a wider audience.

How do you switch to a TikTok Pro account?

You’ll need to have an existing profile on TikTok before you switch to pro. So if you don’t have a TikTok account yet, now’s the time to create one.

Here’s how to switch to Pro:

Enter your profile and tap the three-dot icon on the upper right corner of the screen.

Tap “Manage my account.”

Tap “Switch to Pro Account” on the bottom of the menu.

You’ll be prompted to choose the category of your business. If you’re not sure which to choose, you can always just pick “Public figure” or “Other.” Then click Next.

Accessing TikTok analytics

Once you’ve switched your account to Pro, you can access your analytics by tapping the three-dot icon on the top right corner and tapping “Analytics” in the menu.

TikTok’s analytics page is quite similar to Instagram Insights. (You can learn more about Instagram Insights in our post, What Exactly Do Your Instagram Insights Mean?) The page contains three sections: Overview, Content, and Followers.

Overview

On the Overview page, you’ll see 3 graphs: Video Views, Followers, and Profile Views.

Video Views shows you how many times your videos have been watched by other TikTok users over the past 7 or 28 days. (You can toggle between those time periods by tapping “7 days” or “28 days” on the top right of the graph.) If you post fairly consistently, you may be able to detect patterns on this graph that can tell you which day of the week your audience is most active, and that can inform your decisions about when exactly to post new content.

Followers shows you how many followers you have and how your audience has grown over the past 7 or 28 days. This gives you a general idea of how your following is expanding, and it lines up nicely with the other graphs so you can pay attention to any correlations.

Profile Views shows you how many TikTok users have viewed your profile over the past 7 or 28 days. You may notice that some content leads more people to your profile, and you can compare these numbers to your follower growth to see how many people who visit your profile choose to follow you.

Content

The content section shows you how each of your videos is performing.

At the top you’ll see the posts you’ve added in the past 7 days, and on the bottom right corner of the thumbnail, you’ll see how many views the video has gotten. Below, you’ll see your posts listed according to how many views they received.

You can tap the thumbnail of an individual post to see more specific information about that post: total play time, total views, average watch time, how viewers reached your post, and where those viewers live.

Pay special attention to the average watch time and compare it to the length of the video: are people watching it all the way through, or scrolling past after a few seconds? If the latter, that means your video may not be drawing them in enough. This is a sign that you should work on making those first few seconds really engaging.

Followers

This section teaches you about your audience.

You’ll see graphs that break your followers down by gender and by location. That’s not a ton of information to go on, but it can still be useful in helping you understand what kind of person is most interested in the content you’re posting on TikTok.

Knowing who your followers are can help you compare them to your ideal customer profile, giving you an idea of whether you’re reaching the people you want to reach. Furthermore, it can help you better tailor the content you upload to TikTok to the audience you have there.

Should I switch to a TikTok Pro Account?

If you’re a small business owner, the answer is absolutely yes! Unlike on some other platforms like Instagram or Facebook — which make it harder for businesses to reach audiences organically — there are no downsides to switching to a pro account on TikTok, at least as of July 2020. The only difference is gaining access to analytics, and that can be extremely valuable in helping you analyze your account’s performance and figure out how to improve it.

For more insights on how to use TikTok effectively for your business, check out our guide here.

Action Items:

• If you have a TikTok account, go ahead and upgrade to Pro.
• Check out your analytics page and note how your posts and profile have been performing over the past week and month.
• Write down any insights and conclusions, and think about what you can learn from them that might help you improve your performance down the line.