Engagement Rate of Social Media And Its Comprehensive Analysis!

• By Shamsher Singh Bhullar

• 14th September 2021

If you are a little bit aware of social media marketing, you must have heard of the term ‘engagement rate’ though you may or may not be aware of what it is, what role it plays, how to calculate it, and so on. But just to give you a quick idea of how crucial it is— when massive businesses or brands plan to run a social media marketing campaign by associating with an influencer, one of the first key things that they look for is the engagement rate of an influencer they are associating with. Even many times, brands prefer an influencer with a higher engagement rate than the one with more followers. That critical is the engagement rate.

I hope you are now curious enough to understand the engagement rate of social media, as I am excited to explain it. This post will offer you a comprehensive analysis of the engagement rate, which will include answering the following key queries:

• What is the engagement rate?
• What is the role of engagement rate?
• How do we calculate the engagement rate?

What is the Engagement Rate? 

Engagement rate is a measure of the interaction of your social media content relative to your followers. If we break it into very simple terms, here are two things that you need to focus on: interaction and followers. Your business has an account on social media, no matter if it is Facebook, Instagram or Twitter, and you have followers.

The moment you post content on social media, there are two kinds of metrics that matter to you: first is the vanity metrics which include things like followers, likes, and impressions, and second the engagement metrics which include things like reactions, likes, comments, shares, saves, direct messages and more.

The word interaction in the definition of the engagement rate collectively stands for engagement metrics and followers you know are your followers on the social media account.

What is the Role of Engagement Rate?

If we try to look at the essence of the engagement rate, I would like to say it tells more about how many people have interacted with your content than how many people your content has reached, which further decides the entire strategy for your social media marketing campaign. And that is also the very basis most social media marketing agencies use when they measure the engagement rate of their clients.

How Do We Calculate the Engagement Rate?

The most commonly adopted method to calculate the engagement rate is by dividing the total engagement on the post by the number of followers multiplied by 100%.

Just to make things more precise, the engagement metrics can vary from platform to platform, and there is no standard method of calculation of the engagement rate for all platforms. What it means while calculating the engagement for a Facebook post, you have three primary engagement metrics that is like, share and comment, but when it comes to Instagram, one may include direct messages, save, and click-throughs also. So, the whole concept of engagement rate is subjective.

Here are the three methods top social media marketing agencies use to measure the engagement rate of a social media campaign for a client:

Engagement rate by followers

It is defined as the total engagement on a post divided by the total followers multiplied by 100%. 

Engagement Rate = Total Engagement on a Post/ Total Followers *100     

This method is preferably used for measuring engagement on Facebook. However, many social media companies prefer using reach and impressions instead of followers as not all the account followers see the published posts.

Engagement rate by reach

It is defined as the total engagement on a post divided by the total reach multiplied by 100%. 

Engagement Rate = Total Engagement on a Post/ Total Reach *100       

Reach is the measure of the people who see you content. The reason it is a better measure than followers is that your content often reaches people who do not follow your content through shares, hashtags, likes, and other means. LinkedIn is a popular example of that where you are able to see the activity of your connections in your newsfeed of the accounts that you do not follow.

Engagement rate by impression  

It is defined as the total engagement on a post by total impressions multiplied by 100%.  

Engagement Rate = Total Engagement Rate on Post/ Total Impression *100

Impression is the measure of how often content appears on the follower’s screen. This measure becomes vital when it comes to measuring the engagement rate on Instagram. On Instagram, users often keep interacting with the same content.

These are the three main methods to measure the engagement rate. Now, have a look at what is good engagement rate is.  

What is a Good Engagement Rate?

Most of the social media experts agree that an engagement rate between 1% to 5% is a good engagement rate. Instagram is king when it comes to the engagement rate of social media platforms if we do not include TikTok in it. TikTok is a social media platform, but it is banned in many countries and has yet to establish itself as the platform for brands to advertise their products or services as per experts. That’s the reason Instagram is considered the platform with the best engagement rate.

According to Hootsuite’s own social media report, the average Instagram engagement rate was 4.59% in 2020.

How is Deftsoft Helpful for Your Business?

We are useful to you and your business in many ways. But mainly, we can run a social media marketing campaign for you, not just considering this one factor of engagement rate but a multitude of factors. We have been into digital marketing for over a decade. Explore the benefits of our expertise by connecting to our social media marketing team