Do TikTok Stories Increase Engagement?

Quick insight into how TikTok Stories have influenced the engagement of the CSU TikTok account.

in Engagement

Three students walking and laughing during the Ram Welcome Carnival on the intramural fields at C S U.

The short answer is: Yes. TikTok Stories do help to increase engagement and build a bigger audience.

As the CSU TikTok account grows, we’ve started trying out new features and exploring how they increase our analytics. Part of my role as a student co-creator is to watch TikTok’s engagement and see what content we produce performs well. During Ram Welcome (CSU’s welcome week for new students), we embarked on TikTok Stories for the first time.

Since it was Ram Welcome, there were lots of events happening on campus, and we decided that TikTok Stories might be a good a way to showcase content happening around campus in a fast way. Although, to my surprise, TikTok Stories are essentially a TikTok video that shows up in your feed and disappears after 24 hours. However, they do drive engagement and help to get information out there fast.

A student waving a wand in the air that creates large bubbles as other students watch during the Ram Welcome Carnival on the intramural fields at C S U.Since TikTok has allowed videos to range from five seconds to 10 minutes, Stories do seem to be a bit weird, but I do enjoy how flexible Stories allow you to be.

Engagement by the numbers

As far as the engagement goes, the CSU TikTok did receive more engagement over the week of Ram Welcome. From August 16-22, the growth rate was up +0.55%. That may seem small to some, but in terms of people and followers that is about 84 new followers in a week, which now puts us at 15,319 followers in total. On top of that, we received 2,503 new profile views, or an increase of +267.99% more engagement with our profile.

Increasing views on TikTok Stories

Since TikTok Stories are very similar to a regular TikTok video, getting views and grabbing attention can be difficult. For most TikTok videos, it is important to grab attention within the first few seconds. Stories are very similar, but since they aren’t around very long, keeping a viewer’s attention is even more vital. If you can keep viewers’ attention throughout the whole Story, you’re more likely to lead someone to your profile, see your videos, and hopefully follow you. It’s important to remember that TikTok Stories are not Instagram Stories. Instagram Stories tend to lean more toward the aesthetic side, and TikTok Stories should be a lot more laid back and fun. Your energy will help to create a more engaging video that will attract people to your page.

All of that has helped us to continue to reach more people and produce TikTok content that our audience wants to see. TikTok Stories have helped CSU produce fun, engaging content that gets information out there fast. All of this is from my perspective as the CSU Social and Digital Media intern. For the upcoming weeks and months, we will be using the TikTok Stories at football and volleyball games, and other CSU events around campus. Be sure to check it out!