Knowing your engagement rate is essential to your success on Instagram. Not only do you need it to pitch to brands, but you also need to know how your content resonates with your audience. Any sized following with an extremely low engagement rate is a good indicator that something is not working and that changes need to be made.
With the help of a few simple steps, you can easily calculate your engagement rate!
What is an engagement rate? Engagement is the interaction that users have with your content. There are multiple ways to define this interaction. Some argue that engagement should include saves, repostings, and tags. But typically, when engagement is mentioned, people refer to likes and comments.
How to calculate the engagement rate? The simplest and most widely used formula for calculating engagement rate is;
(number of likes + comments) / number of followers x 100 = engagement rate
Using this formula, you can calculate your engagement on a single post and your average engagement on your last few posts.
Sources will vary based on how many posts to use to get the average amount of likes and comments. But anywhere between 5 and 10 posts seem to be the agreed-upon range for your current engagement rate.
Best engagement rate calculators? Hate math? Us too. Here are some of the best engagement calculators you can use.
Why calculate your engagement rate? You might be asking yourself why your engagement rate even matters.
Fair question.
First, to monetize your account, you need to know the exact stats when you pitch to brands. Pitching is just proving why a brand should work with you. Brands are more likely to work with influencers with a solid engagement rate.
Second, if you calculate your engagement rate and it's pretty low, you know you have some things to work on. You could think that you're killing the game with how many followers you have. Still, a severe disconnect must be addressed if those followers never interact with your profile.
Knowledge is power, and your engagement rate is the knowledge you need.
What is a reasonable engagement rate for a micro-creator? According to a recent study, Instagram influencers with 1,000 to 5,000 followers receive the most interaction. They have an average engagement rate of 4.84%.
So if you’re under that, you need to work on it because most mega influencers have between 1% to 2% engagement, which is only considered ok due to their significant following.
3% to 5% would be considered "good" engagement, but you want to aim for GREAT! If your engagement isn't what you think it should be, don't get too discouraged. There are some practical "dos and don'ts" when creating and maintaining a quality engagement rate.
Do's and Don'ts of high engagement Do: Focus on building a strong, close-knit community. A committed group is an engaged group. Make sure you take the time to interact with your followers in comments, DM's, and story responses.
Don't: Assume that a large following guarantees a high engagement rate. You could have 10k followers and 12 likes on your last post. We want quality over quantity when it comes to followers.
Do: Invest time into a posting schedule. We have discussed figuring out when you should post on your Instagram. When building your engagement, make sure you take the time to create a researched posting schedule to optimize your chances of being seen.
Don't: Buy followers. This one should be a no-brainer, but so many people still fall victim to this age-old "hack." Buying followers gets you just that, followers, but not engagement. Since we know that engagement is more important than follower count, having bots follow you that never interact with your content gives you literally nothing. Skip the headache, and don't buy followers.
Do: Have patience and value your community. Engagement growth isn't going to happen overnight. To see the results you want, you will need to find a way to enjoy the journey.
Don't: Expect change to happen immediately. Trust the process and give yourself grace.
Closing thoughts
So, what's the bottom line? An engaged community is a powerful thing. It can help you reach more people with your message, and it also helps to build relationships with those people. An engaged community can be one of your most valuable assets when formed correctly.
So, we hope that this article has helped you understand how to calculate your engagement rate and start building a more engaged community! If you want to learn more about this topic, we suggest purchasing our book, The Micro-Influencer’s Brand Partnership Bible . Thanks for reading!
