How to Conduct a TikTok Audit

Your TikTok is stalled, and you’re not sure why. You’re posting consistently, trying the trends, and using the right hashtags, but the growth just isn’t happening. A TikTok audit is the strategic reset you need to stop guessing what your audience wants and start creating content that actually resonates. This guide will walk you through a simple, four-step process for analyzing your account, identifying what’s holding you back, and building a clear action plan for growth.

What Exactly is a TikTok Audit?

Think of a TikTok audit as a check-up for your account. It's a structured review of your profile, content, audience, and overall strategy to find what's working, what's not, and where you have hidden opportunities. Instead of throwing spaghetti at the wall to see what sticks, an audit gives you the data-backed insights to build a smarter, more effective content plan. It helps you get out of a content rut, reconnect with your target audience, and turn random posting into a strategy that drives real results, whether that’s more followers, higher engagement, or clicks to your website.

Step 1: Get Your First Impression Right – The Profile Audit

Your TikTok profile is your digital storefront. Before anyone watches a single video, they see your bio, profile picture, and pinned posts. If this first impression is confusing or unclear, they’ll scroll away without a second thought. Let’s make sure yours is optimized to attract and keep the right followers.

Optimize Your Picture and Handle

Start with the basics. Is your profile picture clear, high-quality, and recognizable, even as a small circle? If you’re a brand, it should be your logo. If you’re a creator, it should be a clear headshot. Your handle (@username) should be simple, memorable, and as consistent as possible with your handles on other platforms. Avoid random numbers or underscores that make it tough for people to find you.

Write a Bio That Converts

Your bio has one job: quickly tell new visitors who you are, what you do, and why they should follow you. Don't be vague. Instead of "Lifestyle & Stuff," try something like "Helping you plan vegan meals in under 20 mins." Clearly state your value proposition. After that, add a strong call-to-action (CTA). What’s the next step you want someone to take? This could be a link to your new YouTube video, your online shop, or a free resource. Make sure the linked page is mobile-friendly and serves its purpose.

Strategically Pin Your Top Videos

Pinned videos are your account's welcome mat. They sit at the top of your grid and give new visitors a taste of your best work. Don’t let this space go to waste. You should pin three videos that accomplish one of these goals:

• Introduce You: A video that tells your story or explains what your account is about.
• Showcase Your Best Performer: Pin your video with the highest views or engagement to show off your popular content.
• Promote Something: If you're promoting a product, service, or event, create and pin a video that drives traffic there.

Review your pinned videos and ask: do these three posts represent my brand and offer a compelling reason for someone to hit "follow"?

Step 2: Go Deep on Your Content – The Video Analysis

This is where the real discoveries happen. Your content performance holds all the clues you need to build a better strategy. For this step, you’ll want to open your TikTok analytics and grab a notepad or open a simple spreadsheet.

Find Your Winners and Losers

Navigate to your TikTok analytics (Creator tools >, Analytics) and set the date range to the last 30-60 days. Your goal here is to identify your top 3-5 best-performing videos and your 3-5 worst-performing videos. What you consider "best" might vary. It could be views, but it could also be shares, saves, or comments, which often indicate a deeper connection with the audience.

In a spreadsheet, create columns for your video's topic, format, sound, and a few key metrics (views, comments, shares, saves, average watch time). As you log your best and worst videos, patterns will start to emerge immediately.

Ask yourself:

• What do my winning videos have in common? Is it a specific topic? A format like a tutorial or a stitch? Was it the storytelling style? The hook you used in the first three seconds? A trending sound?
• What about the losers? Were the hooks weak? Topics too niche or too broad? Was the video quality poor? Did you jump on a trend that didn't align with your brand?

Be honest here. Those low-performing videos are just as valuable as the high-performing ones because they tell you what not to do.

Review Your Content Pillars and Formats

Content pillars are the 2-4 core topics your account revolves around. For a fitness coach, they might be workouts, nutrition tips, and motivational content. For your audit, list your current pillars and analyze how the content within each one performs. Is one pillar consistently outperforming the others? That's a sign your audience wants more of that content. Is one pillar a total dud? It might be time to retire it and test a new one.

Similarly, look at the formats you’re using. Are your behind-the-scenes videos a huge hit while your talking-head videos fall flat? That's valuable information. A strong TikTok strategy has a healthy mix of entertaining, educational, and inspiring content presented in formats your audience loves.

Audit Your Use of Audio

Sound is the backbone of TikTok. A review of your audio strategy is essential. Are you leveraging trending sounds effectively and early? Or are you consistently a week late? Using a trending sound at the right time can give your video a significant visibility boost. However, ensure the trend is relevant to your niche. Forcing a fit can feel awkward.

Don't just think about trending music. How is the quality of your original audio? For voiceovers or talking videos, is the sound clear and crisp? Bad audio is one of the fastest ways to get someone to scroll past your video. An external microphone can be a game-changing investment.

Evaluate Your Hooks and Calls-to-Action

You have less than three seconds to convince someone to stop scrolling. Go back and re-watch the first three seconds of your recent videos. Do they spark curiosity? Do they make a bold statement? Or do they slowly ramp up? Weak hooks are a common reason for underperformance. Analyze the hooks on your top-performing videos - why did they work? Replicate that structure, not the exact words.

Now look at the end of your videos and captions. Are you guiding your viewers on what to do next? A simple CTA like, "Let me know your favorite in the comments" or "Follow for Part 2" can dramatically increase your engagement and follower growth.

Step 3: Understand Your Community – Audience & Engagement Audit

Growth on TikTok isn't just about making great videos, it's about building a community. This step focuses on who your followers are and how you're interacting with them.

Know Your Followers

In your analytics, go to the "Followers" tab. Here you'll find demographic information like their gender, age, and top countries/cities. Does this data match your ideal customer or target audience profile? If a skincare brand targeting women aged 25-40 discovers most of their followers are teenage boys, there's a serious misalignment between their content and their business goals. This information is critical for refining your content topics and tone to better attract the right people.

Analyze Posting Times

The Followers tab also shows you "Follower activity," highlighting the hours and days your audience is most active on TikTok. While posting at the "perfect" time isn’t a magic bullet, it does give your content a better chance of gaining initial traction quickly. If you’ve been posting at 9 AM but your audience is most active at 8 PM, you should test new posting times. Your goal is to get your video in front of as many people as possible as soon as it goes live.

Assess Your Community Management

Finally, look at your engagement practices. Social media is a two-way street. Are you responding to comments and questions on your videos? Replying to comments is an excellent way to boost engagement on a video and build a loyal community. Additionally, are you engaging with others? Take 10-15 minutes each day to comment on videos from other creators in your niche. It shows you’re a part of the community, not just someone broadcasting messages.

Step 4: Turn Your Insights Into an Action Plan

An audit is only useful if it leads to change. Now it’s time to consolidate your findings into a simple, actionable plan for the next 30 days. Don’t try to change everything at once. Focus on making a few high-impact adjustments.

Organize your plan into three categories:

What to Stop Doing:

These are the clear detractors identified in your audit.

• Example: Stop posting overly-promotional videos, as they get the lowest views and engagement.
• Example: Stop using the 'xyz' trend because it doesn't align with our audience.

What to Start Doing:

These are the new opportunities you've uncovered.

• Example: Start testing posting times at 7 PM and 8 PM, when our followers are most active.
• Example: Start creating more tutorial-style content around our most popular content pillar. Test new hooks inspired by our top 3 videos.

What to Continue Doing:

These are the existing strengths you need to double down on.

• Example: Continue responding to all new comments within the first few hours.
• Example: Continue making "day in the life" content, as it consistently performs well.

Set a few specific, measurable goals for the next month based on this plan, such as increasing your average view count, gaining a certain number of followers, or increasing the comments per video.

Final Thoughts

Conducting a TikTok audit demystifies what it takes to grow. By moving from a "post and pray" approach to a structured framework of analysis and action, you empower yourself to make smarter content decisions that lead to sustainable growth and a stronger connection with your community.

Once you’ve built your new strategy, keeping all your content ideas and schedules organized is the next step. After years of using clunky tools ourselves, we built our visual calendar in Postbase so you can map out all your TikTok concepts, schedule them alongside your Reels and Shorts, and get a clear view of your entire content plan. Our analytics dashboard then makes it simple to track performance, so your next audit will be even faster.