A Guide to Competitor Analysis on TikTok

Published on 09.09.2026 by Chizoba T

When creating a TikTok growth strategy, an important step should be to perform a competitor analysis. This can provide you with important insights into your competitors' actions, the kind of content that resonates with your target audience, and why certain videos go viral.

However, unlike what some creators think, competitor analysis on TikTok isn't just about scrolling through your competitor’s content. It is about analyzing their strategy to determine what works and any weak points you can leverage to grow your channel. In this article, we provide you with a detailed guide on how to conduct a competitor analysis on TikTok.

What is Competitor Analysis on TikTok?

Competitor analysis on TikTok is a step-by-step system of analyzing another TikTok account's content plan, how the audience engages with the content, and the performance of the content on the platform. It can enable you to identify winning content formats, identify the content gap, and improve your TikTok content strategy.

A competitor analysis refers to tracking the strategies and actions your rivals use to grow their accounts and promote products and services. Therefore, it will provide important insights into who and what you are competing against. The analysis will also show your brand’s strategy, including its content, topical hashtags, keywords, and format. You can then use the analytics against the competitors.

Benefits of Competitor Analysis on TikTok

When well done, a competitor analysis on TikTok will help you to:

  • Notice trends early enough. TikTok is a fast-moving platform. When you analyze the content, you can find new formats, challenges, and sounds when they are trending.
  • Better understanding of the audience. When you see the kind of content that your main competitor is creating and getting good results with, you can get details into the pain points of your customers.
  • Better benchmarking. If you don't have a TikTok benchmark, your TikTok KPIs will only be guessed. On the other hand, a competitor analysis will provide insight into what is working in your field and enable you to focus on realistic and data-driven goals.

Therefore, a good competitor analysis strategy will ensure that you have a good plan instead of using guesswork.

Steps in Conducting Competitor Analysis on TikTok

Now that you understand what a competitor analysis on TikTok is, let us look into the actual steps to follow when doing it.

Determine Your Competitors

Unless you understand who your competitors on TikTok are, it can be hard to conduct the analysis. A common mistake that creators and brands make is to assume that their competitors on TikTok are only the accounts selling similar products. Instead, a competitor on TikTok refers to anyone competing for attention from similar audiences.

That means a competitor on TikTok can include your direct competitors, media outlets, or even popular creators. 

Categorize Your Competitors

In the previous steps, we have noted that the competitors aren't necessarily those who sell products related to yours. To get better insights into the competition, you can categorize them into:

  • Direct competitor. This is what everyone thinks a competitor is: selling an exact product like yours. For instance, Samsung and Infinix. You will need to analyze these competitors to understand their performance and how they position their products in your major market.
  • Indirect competitors. While these are creators of products that are related to you or supplement yours, they do not compete for the same attention as you. For instance, if you sell laptops, you sell laptop bags.
  • Aspirational competitor. Refers to the top in your class, even when their industry is completely different. For instance, a B2B SaaS company can look at Duolingo even though they aren't competitors. They can, therefore, use them to get inspiration for their content.

If you are very specific when listing your competitors, the more useful the analysis will be, as you get in a better position to closely focus on the target audience. For instance, instead of looking at the cooking niche, you can get more accurate insight. To do it better, you should define the target audience. Once you understand the audience you need to reach, you can identify the profiles already competing for attention. You can read our guide on why TikTok profile view history is missing.

Choose 3 to 5 Competitors

Now that you understand who your competitors are, you will see how to search for competitors on TikTok. Not everyone who is in your niche deserves your time, even when they are direct competitors. Otherwise, you will end up wasting a lot of time. A good idea is to choose 3 to 5 competitors you can analyze more closely. 

Here are several ways you can find competitors:

  • TikTok search. You can search on TikTok in the same way your TikTok audience does, using your category keywords and hashtags. For instance, use keywords like home workout tips and hashtags like #workouttips to find the accounts that may rule the top results.
  • Audience feedback. Another easy way is to ask your followers in a comment, poll, or video about their favorite account. This can provide you with insights into the competitor your target audience watches.
  • Social listening platforms. Use tools such as Brand24 and Sprout Social to track important industry keywords. These tools can help you find some popular creators and upcoming brands you may not have noticed.
  • Cross-platform research. You don't want to stick to TikTok only. Use Google Search to find the main brands in the industry, and then look for their TikTok. You can also check for your competitors on Instagram before visiting their TikTok accounts.

Analyze the Competitor’s Strategy

Remember that when people visit your target audience’s profile, they look at it to make a first impression. That means that by looking at the different elements, such as whether they added a link in the bio, you can get insights into their priority, branding opportunities, and who they are targeting. This means competitor branding is an important element you need to analyze. 

When doing that, consider:

Their Profile Picture and Description

Consider the bio and check the following:

  • Keywords: Which keywords in their niche do they use?
  • Readability and tone. How is the vibe? Does the competitor use emojis? Is their tone professional, funny, or inspirational?

 Unique Selling Point

 How do they share their USP? Check their username and the profile picture to determine:

  • How easy is this to find, spell, and remember?
  • Is it similar to the handle on the other social media platforms?
  • How clear is the competitor profile picture, and does it look like a personal or corporate profile?

Link in Bio

When you check the competitor link, you can easily determine their conversion goals. Therefore, check if they link to a home page, landing page, etc. Also, check the call to action they use. Is it to buy a new product, sign up for a newsletter, or watch their YouTube videos?

Competitor Branding Aesthetic

You will also need to check their overall profile look and content grid, as it will show you what kind of brand personality they are trying to show. You can consider:

Captions and On-Screen Text

Consider how the competitors use words in the video. Do they include their brand colors or fonts? Go through the caption to determine the tone they use, whether informal or witty, direct, inspirational, or educational. When this language is matched with visuals, it can provide better insight into the brand’s personality.

Quality of Videos

Check the quality of their video production. Does the video sound raw or spontaneous? Do they shoot their videos on a phone, or does it look like it's shot natively on TikTok? Does the content sound highly polished with quality, professional cameras? Does it have beautiful editing that shows a more authoritative or premium brand?

Visual Cohesion

Put their video thumbnail in a grid format. Consider whether there is a consistent filter, editing style, or color palette that comes out. If your grid is cohesive, this will show a curated and professional brand. If the grid is more varied or has a messy appearance, this may make it feel unprofessional.

Competitor Content Strategy

When you notice a successful TikTok account, that doesn't happen randomly. It's a result of an effective content strategy. To benchmark this, you need to track their:

Content Formats and Pillars

A successful TikTok account doesn't create content and post randomly. They instead focus on creating content in three to four pillars. You can check their last 30 to 50 videos and categorize them into different themes, such as:

  • Educational. These are the tutorial videos aimed at helping their audience solve a certain problem, positioning them as experts in their niche.
  • Participating in trends. Are they adapting a trending challenge or sound to match their niche?
  • BTS content. This content format shows their audience the process or the people behind the content. It can, therefore, be a good content format for humanizing brands and increasing the level of trust.
  • Entertainment. Are they using content formats that are funny, show their brand personality, and ensure their content remains memorable?
  • UGC. Does the competitor use this content format to feature customer testimonials, duets, or reviews as social proof?

After understanding their content pillar, you should study how they film in terms of:

  • Hook. What kind of hooks are they using that will stop people from scrolling in the first three seconds? Is it in the form of a pattern interrupt, bold claim, provocative question, or illustrating the results?
  • Video length. Do they create short, punchy videos under fifteen seconds, or use lengthier storytelling formats? Remember that studies show the videos with the highest completion rate are those with a length of 21 to 34 seconds.
  • Native features? Do the competitors use native TikTok tools like stitches and duets to engage other creators? Are they using stickers, text overlays, or polls to increase engagement?

Competitor TikTok Sound Strategy

TikTok sounds are big on the platform and have a great impact on the ability of a video to go viral; therefore, check the competitor's sound strategy and see if they use:

  • Original audio. This is a good sound strategy for authority building. When you add your unique sounds or voiceover, you can easily stand out, make your brand voice memorable, and increase the shelf life of your content.
  • Trending sounds. You can use this strategy to drive brand awareness. When you use an already popular sound, it can help your content get into a large stream of pre-existing viewers. Check if they are just copying a trend or if they are adapting it to their niche.

Competitor Hashtag Strategy

Hashtags play an important role on TikTok in categorizing content and enabling people to find the content when they search. The competitor's hashtags can reveal the kind of audience they want to reach. A good strategy should have them combine 3 to 4 hashtags instead of using a list of 10. 

Find out if they are using a balanced hashtag strategy consisting of:

  • Trending hashtags. These are the high-search-volume hashtags for a trend on the platform. They are a good choice to help users join a big and ongoing conversation to ensure maximum reach.
  • Branded hashtags. These are usually unique to your company and can be used for community building and proper organization of UGC.
  • Niche hashtags. These are usually the specific and low-search-volume tags that are directly related to an audience or industry. Their competitor may be using them to target a more precise audience and engage that audience.

Consider the hashtags they may not be using and dig deeper if they are worth using. This is important as big accounts often use very broad hashtags that are very competitive.

Competitor Posting Strategy

You will want to check the posting habits of their TikTok account. When doing that, check:

  • Posting frequency. Consider how often the competitor posts and how they compare with the average for the industry. If they are posting three times a week, this can help them maintain their visibility. If they post five times a week, it can be quite effective and sustainable. If they are posting over seven times a week, it shows they are putting out a high-growth TikTok investment strategy.
  • Account timing. While it's important to focus more on being consistent than on what time, it can still provide some important insights. When you check their post creation schedule and compare it with their highly engaged video, you can get insight into when to reach your target audience.

Performance Benchmarking

After analyzing the profile of the competitor, dig deeper into the data. While you benchmark using quantitative data, you will get insight into what is working and be in a better position to set some more realistic goals.

Check Engagement Metrics

The TikTok algorithm is usually driven by engagement. That means these metrics will help you see if your account is connecting well with the target audience. The engagement metrics can be divided into:

  • Engagement rate by views. This is a better reflection of the performance of a TikTok video. It reflects the level of engagement of a video with an audience that saw it, no matter the size. It is measured by dividing the engagement, such as comments, likes, and shares, by the views and multiplying the result by 100. The industry benchmark is around 3.3%, so anything above this illustrates a strong performance. Consider also whether they are getting crucial interactions such as saves and shares.
  • High-value engagement (shares and saves). Don't give a lot of prominence to likes. Instead, focus on saves and shares. If someone is sharing a TikTok video, it's because they found it very helpful and worth sharing with their network. If content is saved, it means the person found it so valuable that they bookmarked it for later viewing.

When you track these metrics on the competitor's content, you can get insights into the type of content that better resonates with their audience.

Track the Retention Rate

Like any other social media platform, TikTok aims to ensure people remain on the app for as long as possible. That’s why the content that holds the viewer’s attention is given a lot of prominence. 

These include:

  • Completion rate and watch time. These are the most important metrics, with the former showing the percentage of people who watch a video and the latter showing how much time they spend on a video. If you add a hook in the first three seconds, you can perform well on these metrics.

Although it's impossible to see the competitor data on the platform, you can guess. A good idea would be to check if people are really responding to the questions asked during the video’s last few seconds. How clearly do the comments show a reference to the video? If this is a strong sign, the competition rate is quite high, and you should analyze further what made the video resonate better with the target audience.

Benchmark Core Metrics (Reach and Growth)

Study their social media account health and growth momentum by checking their:

Follower Growth Rate

While the absolute number of followers is a good metric to watch, this can be a vanity metric. A metric that will provide you with a clearer picture is the follower growth rate. It's better to have a beginner account with fast growth than a big one with declining followership. If an account has a sudden spike, it may indicate that the account had a video going viral, an outstanding ad, or an influencer program you can copy.

Average Video Videos

While it's important to track the total views, make sure you give prominence to the average views each video has. Doing that will help you eradicate the distraction from one viral hit and instead provide you with a more balanced performance. If you get a high ratio of views to followers, it can be a great sign that their content is performing well on the For You page and is working beyond their current following/

Profile Views

The profile views will help you get better insights into greater interest. Even though the video views can show the reach, the profile views can show that the video was quite compelling to make people quit scrolling and learn more by clicking on the name of the competitor. If they get a lot of profile views but with few clicks on the profile, this is a sign that they are creating entertaining content, but their brand isn't connecting strongly with the audience.

Community Building Competitor Analysis

Consider the strategy the competitor uses in community building and take time to build a profile of the competitor's audience. If you are trying to see their Who analytics, you might not be able to view the competitor's private analytics, such as age, location, and gender. Therefore, a good idea would be to use the Ads Manager feature to build an interest-based audience. Also, check the Why of their audience by reading the comments. This will provide insights into their pain points, passions, values, and shared slang, humor, etc.

Check the Vibe

You can leverage sentiment analysis to understand the audience’s tone. What are people saying about their brand? Are they speaking positively, negatively, or in a neutral way? You can leverage the top social listening tools to get this data. However, when doing that, remember that while AI is clever, it can easily miss the irony, sarcasm, and regional slang. So, also take time to manually read the comment to get this data.

Check their Community Management Methods

To track if they are managing their community well, consider:

  • Responsiveness. Do they respond to their audience’s queries within one day? Do you do that in personalized messages or generic replies, or do you not respond at all?. 
  • Driving conversation. How proactive are they in driving conversation? Do they take time to pose queries in the caption or pin any insightful comments? If they are just posting the video, this is more of a one-way broadcast.
  • Proactive in engagement. Are the competitors actively driving conversation in their niche? Check if they are dropping a witty comment on another creator’s content. 

In Conclusion

Competitor analysis on TikTok can be a good strategy for determining the content that meets the needs of your audience. It can provide insight into the competitor's strategy, helping you learn from it to grow your channel. Therefore, go ahead and use the steps outlined in this guide for your detailed competitor analysis on TikTok. You can read our guide on  Instagram vs TikTok vs. YouTube for influencer marketing.