In a world where social media has such an important role in our day-to-day lives, it’s pretty obvious that more and more people are turning to that side of virtual life. And we can’t blame them.
But now, just imagine social media as a new world, another universe, where you still have to pay for what you do. Well, sure you still pay money for ads and so on, but the engagement rate is the currency in a world like this one.
From this article, you will learn what exactly is engagement rate, why is it so important and how to calculate it properly for each social platform.
1. What is engagement rate
Engagement rate is the key to understand social media. In other words, this is the way to measure how people interact with the content you publish.
Let’s think about the true meaning of it. To engage means to become involved in something, to be active in some circumstance. And that’s exactly how to translate it into the social media language.
Engagement shows how people interacted, actively, with your content: through likes (or other reactions), comments, shares.
Marketers will consider the growth of followers, the impressions, likes, and so on when they want to get the data, but they will always look carefully at the engagement rate.
After all, engagement is the metric that will give you a whole new perspective on your performance on social.
Wondering why?
Because of the interaction.
Social media is meant to make people interact with the content and interact with each other. That’s when you know that what you do on the platform starts to bring true value.
Engagement rate is the one and only metric that will always tell you if your content resonates with your audience.
Now, let’s do the math: the engagement rate will be the total engagement divided by the total number of followers, all multiplied by 100.
Let’s see what this means for each platform.
3. Engagement rate for each platform:
The engagement rate formula for Facebook
When it comes to both Facebook and Instagram, social media managers usually report engagement by fans and followers since the engagement by reach is only available for the owned accounts.
And if you want to compare with your competitors, then you should definitely look into what this metric is telling you.
According to Facebook, their definition for post engagement is the following:
The number of times that people engaged with your posts through reactions, comments, shares, and clicks.
Let’s turn to the algorithm that Socialinsider uses for Facebook:
The sum of reactions, comments, and shares received on the posts published in the selected time period.
And since the average value is the one that we’re interested in, here’s how Socialinsider calculates the average engagement rate on Facebook:
The average engagement rate per post by fans on Facebook is calculated as the total engagement (reactions, comments, and shares) divided by the number of posts the page published. The result is then divided by the number of fans, and all multiplied by 100.
But, if you want a more in-depth look into your performance, you can always take a look at your average engagement rate by reach.
The average engagement rate per post by reach on Facebook is calculated as the total engagement (reactions, comments, and shares) divided by the number of posts the page published. The result is then divided by the total reach, and all multiplied by 100.
Keep in mind:
- Engagement – The sum of reactions, comments, and shares received for the posts published in the selected time period.
- Average Engagement – The engagement of the posts (reactions, comments, and shares) divided by the number of posts published in the selected period.
The engagement rate formula for Instagram
As mentioned before, on Instagram you’ll encounter the same situation with the engagement rate by followers and by reach.
This means that reach is an Instagram metric available only for owned accounts.
That’s why we should consider both average engagement rate by followers and average engagement rate by reach, depending on the data that we want to report.
Instagram’s formula for engagement is the sum of likes, comments, and saves that you receive on the posts you publish.
However, Socialinsider doesn’t use this formula because Instagram API doesn’t offer access to the saves metric for competitors’ profiles. In this way, without adding the number of saves, you’re able to perform a quick social media competitor analysis and get insightful social media industry benchmarks.
Digging deeper, the average engagement rate will be defined as follows:
The average engagement rate per post by followers on Instagram is calculated as the total engagement (likes and comments) divided by the number of posts the profile published. The result is then divided by the number of followers, and all multiplied by 100.
The average engagement rate by reach will be indeed similar with what we’ve seen on Facebook.
The average engagement rate per post by reach on Instagram is calculated as the total engagement (likes and comments) divided by the number of posts the profile published. The result is then divided by the total reach, and all multiplied by 100.
Keep in mind:
- Engagement – The number of likes and comments received for the posts published in the selected time period.
- Average Engagement per Post – The engagement of the posts (likes and comments) divided by the number of posts published in the selected period.
The engagement rate formula for Twitter
A social media analytics tool will always give you more insights into your performance on a specific platform, and Twitter is no exception.
Twitter defines its engagement as the total number of times a user interacted with a Tweet, including Retweets, replies, follows, likes, links, cards, hashtags, embedded media, username, profile photo, or Tweet expansion.
More than that, Twitter calculates the engagement rate by impressions: Number of engagements divided by impressions.
Socialinsider defines the Twitter engagement as the sum of likes and Retweets received for the Tweets published in the selected time period.
For more insights, you should look into the average engagement rate.
The average engagement rate per tweet by followers on Twitter is calculated as the total engagement (likes and Retweets) divided by the number of tweets the profile published. The result is then divided by the number of followers, and all multiplied by 100.
Keep in mind:
- Engagement – The number of likes and retweets received for the tweets published in the selected period.
- Average Engagement – The engagement of the tweets (likes and retweets) divided by the number of tweets published in the selected time period.
The engagement rate formula for LinkedIn
LinkedIn lives up to the hype when it comes to engagement, both literally and analytically. People engage a lot here and data never lies.
LinkedIn calculates its engagement as the sum of clicks, likes, comments, shares, and follows – while the engagement rate on LinkedIn is calculated by the number of impressions.
On Socialinsider, you’ll find the LinkedIn engagement as the sum of likes, comments, clicks, and shares received on the posts published in the selected time period.
Going back to the metrics, here’s how to measure the engagement rate on LinkedIn.
The average engagement rate per post by followers on LinkedIn is calculated as the total engagement (likes, comments, clicks, and shares) divided by the number of posts the profile published. The result is then divided by the number of followers, and all multiplied by 100.
Keep in mind:
- Engagement – The number of likes, comments, clicks, and shares received for the posts published in the selected time period.
- Average Engagement – The engagement of the posts (likes, comments, and shares) divided by the number of posts published in the selected time period.
The engagement rate formula for YouTube
Slowly but surely, YouTube has become the most popular video-sharing platform in the world. It is also the second-largest search engine globally, making it a very attractive place to share some content right now.
And this means that we have to turn to data so we can do the magic.
According to its insights data, YouTube engagement metrics (views, likes, dislikes, and subscriptions) reflect how many times a video or channel has been interacted with.
With Socialinsider, your YouTube engagement will be the sum of likes, comments, and dislikes received on the videos published in the selected time period.
Furthermore, the average engagement rate will give you more insights into your performance.
The average engagement rate per video by subscribers on YouTube is calculated as the total engagement (likes, comments, and dislikes) divided by the number of videos the profile published. The result is then divided by the number of subscribers, and all multiplied by 100.
Keep in mind:
- Engagement – The number of likes, comments, and dislikes received for the videos published in the selected time period.
- Average Engagement – The engagement of the videos (likes, comments, and dislikes) divided by the number of videos published in the selected time period.
The engagement rate formula for TikTok
This is the platform of the moment so we need a minute to look into the real insights to see how to measure the success on this huge social network.
TikTok analytics presents the engagement formula as the sum of video views, profile views, likes, comments, and shares.
Because TikTok’s API is very limitative, a social media analytics tool can’t have access to all the data. That’s why Socialinsider defines the engagement on TikTok as the sum of likes, comments, and shares received on the videos published in the selected time period.
On TikTok, the average engagement rate will be…yes…you guessed right: similar to the formulas you already know.
The average engagement rate per video by followers on TikTok is calculated as the total engagement (likes, comments, and shares) divided by the number of posts the profile published. The result is then divided by the number of followers, and all multiplied by 100.
Keep in mind:
- Engagement – The number of likes, comments and shares received for the posts published in the selected time period.
- Average Engagement – The engagement of the posts (likes, comments and shares) divided by the number of posts published in the selected time period.
Now, it’s time to go in-depth and see what does this mean for your competitors.
A social media analytics tool will help you loads, especially if you want to get more insights.
Socialinsider can give you a hell of a ride, so get ready to be amazed.
I added the Facebook pages for Mercedes-Benz, BMW, and Audi and then I used the Benchmarks feature to take a better look at their performance. As you can see, reach is a metric provided only for your own accounts, so you can’t really grasp that data when it comes to competitors.
But you should definitely consider engagement and average engagement rate (as seen in the photo) because that’s how you will have e better overview of the social media performance.
Final thought
Now that we had fun with data, it’s time to create the marketing strategy that best suits your needs, but also according to the platform you’re using.
All these insights are essential for social media, and engagement rate might be more important than you imagined.
So don’t forget to keep track of that for your profiles and look into what your competitors are doing.
Related articles:
- [Instagram Study] 102,700,573 Posts Show How Instagram Engagement Rate Decreases Back to Its Initial Values From 2019
- [STUDY] LinkedIn Engagement Rate: 39,465 Business Posts Show How Visual Oriented Content Gets Ahead on LinkedIn
- [Case Study] The Power of Facebook Videos for 14 Industries: What Engages Each Industry Audience
