Social Media Engagement Rate

Engagement rate is one of the key measurements for any social media marketing campaign.

It gives social media managers a picture of the quality of their content, independent of the number of followers their account has. But what is considered to be a good engagement rate for your brand and what is the best way to calculate it?

In this post, we look at social media engagement rates and how your brand can ensure they’re tracking it effectively.

What is an engagement rate?

Engagement rate is a metric used to track the level of interaction users have with your content. Consumers that are engaged with your brand will interact with you in a variety of ways including liking your posts, sharing, commenting, and clicking through to links.

How are engagement rates calculated?

There are two primary ways to calculate your engagement rate – one relies on publicly available data such as the total number of interactions your social media posts receive, while the other relies on data that only you (the account manager or owner) have access to.

While both ways of calculating engagement are valid, it is the latter that can give you a better understanding of what interests your community of followers.

High engagement rates will indicate audience health (how responsive your audience is and how many are “real” followers), interesting content types and your awareness of your brand.

Traditionally, you can calculate your social media engagement rate using the following formula:

Total engagements on a post / total followers x 100

Measure Engagement rate with our calculator. Enter your engagement metrics and see your social media performance

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Let’s see what that means for each of the social media platforms.

Facebook Engagement Rate

Facebook engagement rates are often reported by the number of engaged users divided by the total reach of that post and multiplied by 100 to get a percentage. Engagements on Facebook include reactions, shares, comments and link click-throughs.

The engagement rate for a campaign period of 2 weeks might look something like this:

(Total engagements for the campaign period = 10,000 / total reach for campaign period = 30,000)*100 = 33%

If you want a more in-depth look at your performance, you can always look at your average engagement rate by reach.

The average engagement rate per post by reach on Facebook is calculated as the total engagement divided by the number of posts the page published. The result is then divided by the total reach, and all multiplied by 100.

So, if over the same 2 week campaign period you got 10,000 engagements across 4 posts, your engagement rate would look something like this:

(Total engagements for the campaign period = 10,000 / total number of posts published = 4) / (total reach = 30,000)*100 =8.3%

It’s important to keep note that engagement is classed as the sum of reactions, comments, and shares received for posts published within a campaign period.

The average engagement is classed as the engagement of the posts (reactions, comments and shares) divided by the number of posts published in the campaign window.

What is a good engagement rate for Facebook?

According to industry experts, a good engagement rate for Facebook is as little as 1-2% however this normally applies to large corporations like Nike who benefit from the awareness of sitting on your social media feed un-clicked rather than a start-up that’s trying to get you to click through onto their website.

Although 1-2% is considered OK for large brands, many brands should be striving for an engagement rate of at least 5% especially if you want to build up an authentic community.

Instagram Engagement Rate

Calculating your Instagram engagement rate can be a difficult task to do. To find your engagement rate, you will need to divide your engagement by either your followers or impressions.

But what is classed as engagement? Is it solely likes and comments, or should this include saves too?

Below we take a look at the 3 most popular methods of calculating your Instagram engagement and when it makes sense to use certain ones.

Calculation 1: Total engagements/followers

The first method of calculating your engagement rate is to divide your total engagements (likes and comments) by your follower count and multiply by 100 to give you a percentage:

Engagement rate = (total likes 20,000 + total comments 10,000)/total followers (50,000) x 100 = 60%

The great thing about calculating your engagement rate this way is that the data is readily available meaning it’s easy to benchmark against other accounts so you can put steps in place to effectively improve engagement rates for your next campaign.

Calculation 2: Engagement/impressions

The second calculation is to divide your total number of likes and comments by your impressions, and then multiply by 100 to get your percentage.

Engagement rate = (total likes 20,000 + total comments 10,000)/total impressions (75,000)x 100 = 40%

This method is more accurate as it takes into consideration the number of followers that actually saw your posts on Instagram rather than your total number of followers (who may not have seen your posts at all).

By calculating your engagement rate this way, it gives you a better understanding of the number of people who saw your posts and actively chose to engage with them.

To calculate this method, you need an Instagram business account however it’s more difficult to benchmark against other brands this way.

Calculation 3: True engagement/impressions

The last option is to use true engagement when trying to calculate your engagement rate. This doesn’t just include likes and comments, it also takes into account saves too.

Engagement rate = (likes 20,000 + comments 10,000 + saves 5,000) / impressions (75,000) x 100 = 46%

If you have an Instagram business account you can find this information easily, but because more people are inclined to either like or comment on a post rather than save your results shouldn’t differ much from the second calculation.

What is a good Instagram engagement rate?

With over 1.3 billion users worldwide, Instagram provides a huge opportunity for many companies to share visual content.

Engagement rates on Instagram are typically higher than on Facebook and Twitter and this is partially due to the content published. With one post per screen, users can either choose to engage with your brand or scroll past.

2-3% is considered a good engagement rate for Instagram and anything higher is considered even better.

Twitter Engagement Rate

A good social media analytics tool should give you more in-depth insights about your engagement rates across your social media channels, and Twitter is no exception to the rule.

The average engagement rate is the best calculation for Twitter and is calculated by the total engagement (likes and retweets) divided by the number of tweets the account has published over a certain time period. The result is then multiplied by 100 for a percentage.

(likes 6,000 + retweets 1,250) / tweets (25) / number of followers (4,000) x 100 = 7.25%

What are good engagement rates for Twitter?

Engagement rates are typically lower for Twitter than for Facebook or Instagram.

Many experts consider 0.5-1% to be a good engagement rate, with anything above 1% considered a good performer.

Like Facebook, smaller businesses should aim for much higher Twitter engagement rates as they should have a much more engaged audience.

Why should your brand track engagement rate?

In social media, engagement rate is deemed as one of the most important social media metrics when reporting on social media analytics. Engagement rate defines a numerical value that can be used to measure the success, or failure, of a piece of content on your social channels. It also provides an indication of how engaged your followers are with your content.

Engagement rates offer social proof of your business

Social media engagement extends beyond the number of total followers you have across each social channel and although it helps prospective customers to your brand see what you’re like, it’s how you engage with your social media followers that causes them to pay attention.

If your followers are regularly commenting on your posts saying how much they love your products, services, or content then prospective customers will be more inclined to feel this way too.

Think of it as a positive review for a restaurant, it makes you want to go and eat there. And positive engagements on your social networks are the same too.

Increased social media engagement rates boost your brand awareness

Social network platforms have the power to bring people closer together For businesses this means that your reach can go far beyond the country you’re in.

Every time someone engages with your social media, your brand awareness increases. Someone following or liking your page won’t always show up in someone else’s feed but if they’re sharing your content, this is what’s going to get your brand seen by new audiences and get you the most engagement.

The more engaged your follower count is the more your brand will show up in the algorithms

Each social media platform has its own set of elements and user analytics. This data is analysed and used to create an algorithm that delivers content to its users. To put it simply, each time you engage with a brand on social media it affects what you see next time.

Tips to improve engagement rates

The key to becoming successful on social media is all in engagement. Below we outline some top tips to increase your total engagements on your social channels to achieve business growth in line with your social media strategy.

Analyse engagement on your social network channels

It might sound obvious, but in order to improve your engagement rates, you must first understand your current engagement rates. Take a look at your current number of followers and how many comments, likes and shares you’re getting on average per post or campaign period.

Once you’ve done this, track it regularly so you can understand periods where your content is performing well, or underperforming. This will help you to gain an understanding of what’s working well, and what isn’t working so well.

Know your audience

It’s hard to engage your audience if you don’t know who you’re talking to.

For example, a corporate bank’s social media will vastly differ to that of a skateboarding brand.

Knowing your audience won’t just help you know what content and language to use, but it’ll also help you understand what social network sites you should be on as well as the best times to publish.

Create and share valuable content

Once you’ve analysed your engagement and know who your target audience is, you should then focus on creating high-quality, valuable content.

You want to ensure your content is valuable to your audience, and that it speaks to them. You should think of posts on your social channel as a conversation, rather than as a broadcast.

If you’re just talking about how brilliant your brand is, or what you have for sale, it’s going to be harder to establish a connection and engage with your audience effectively.

For example, if your business sells shoes, posting pretty pictures of your shoes is only going to get you so far. Consider posts about how to style them to help your followers out.

Don’t be afraid to get creative with your social media posts either, consider adding giveaways, asking questions, performing polls and reposting customer content to broaden your social media engagement.

Stay topical

Sometimes it can be difficult to know what to post, so if you’re lacking in ideas why not join a conversation that’s already happening?

Commenting on current trends in a way that is authentic to your brand gives you an opportunity to connect with your audience in a timely way. Trending TV shows, big sporting events, public holidays or viral memes can all be great ways to connect with your followers.

Show your human side

Studies have shown that most social media users are more likely to engage with a brand when they feel there is a human connection, so don’t hide it.

A lot of brands encourage their social team to either personally sign off on their posts, answer questions or comments, or acknowledge questions.

Schedule your posts

Another way to generate engagement on your posts is by posting regularly. This can either be a few times a day at key times or every day at a similar time.

Social media scheduling apps are a great way to line up content for the day or week ahead.

Interact with users beyond your feed

Comments, likes and shares are all well and good, but these public shows of engagement aren’t the only way to see that your audience cares. Direct messages, reactions to Instagram stories are also great indicators of engaging content and an engaged audience, so make sure you respond where you can here too.

Mix things up

What works today may not necessarily work tomorrow so you should consider looking for new, innovative ways to engage with your audience that will resonate with them. If you always post still images, consider mixing your posts up with videos and reels and seeing how they perform.

Final thoughts

The engagement rate your brand receives on social media is all about how social your brand is. When you put the time and effort into interacting with your followers, you get it back – to show your followers you’re connected to them and they will connect to you.