Engagement rates are the currency of the social media marketing industry.
Sure, followers and impressions are also important. But engagement metrics — like the number of comments, saves, and shares — give your social media performance perspective.
Most social media marketing experts agree that a good engagement rate is between 1% to 5% — but the larger your following, the harder these numbers are to achieve.
Keep reading to learn more about different engagement rate formulas — and use our interactive engagement rate calculator to find out how well your accounts are doing.
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What is engagement rate?
Engagement rate is a social media metric that measures how much of your audience actively engages with your content. It defines the amount of interaction a piece of content (or a campaign, or a whole account) gets compared to reach or audience size.
Why is engagement rate important? When it comes to social media analytics, follower growth matters, but it doesn’t mean a lot if people don’t care about the content you post. You need comments, shares, likes, and other actions that prove your content resonates with your audience.
Higher engagement rates also help you get better visibility on social media platforms (social algorithms surface engaging content to new audiences) and look more trustworthy to first-time profile visitors.
What counts as engagement on social media?
Depending on the social channels you use, you may choose to include all or some of these metrics when calculating your social media engagement rate:
- Instagram: Likes, comments, shares, saves, DMs, profile visits, Story sticker taps, clicks on the “Get directions” button, use of branded hashtags
- Facebook: Reactions, clicks, comments, shares, private messages
- Twitter: Retweets, mentions, comments, use of branded hashtags
- Pinterest: Likes, comments, pins
- LinkedIn: Likes, comments, reposts, shares via private message, custom button clicks
- TikTok: Likes, comments, saves, shares
- YouTube: Likes, comments, shares, downloads, saves
Free engagement rate calculator
Are you ready to calculate your engagement rate? Use the calculator below to find out your engagement rate by post.
Note: If you’re calculating your account’s total engagement, include information about all your posts (e.g. total number of posts published, total number of likes and comments, and so on). If you’re calculating the engagement rate of a specific campaign, only include the details of the posts that were part of the campaign.
If you’re looking for more detailed data or you want to calculate different kinds of engagement (like engagement rate by reach or engagement rate by impressions), download our free spreadsheet calculator that will do the math for you.
Or, better yet, start a free 30-day Hootsuite trial to easily track the performance of all your social channels in one place (so you can replicate what works and get more engagement). Hootsuite Analytics collects your stats from Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, and TikTok.
With Hootsuite Analytics, you can also:
- Find out when your audience is online
- Get personalized recommendations for your best times to post for each of your accounts
- Easily view industry benchmarks and see how you compare to competitors
6 engagement rate formulas
These are the most common formulas you’ll need to calculate engagement rates on social media.
1. Engagement rate by reach (ERR): most common
This formula is the most common way to calculate engagement with social media content. ERR measures the percentage of people who chose to interact with your content after seeing it. Use the first formula for a single post, and the second one to calculate the average rate across multiple posts.
- ERR = total number of engagements per post / reach per post * 100
To determine the average, add up the all the ERRs from the posts you want to average, and divide by number of posts:
- Average ERR = Total ERR / Total posts
In other words: Post 1 (3.4%) + Post 2 (3.5%) / 2 = 3.45%
Pros: Reach can be a more accurate measurement than follower count since not all your followers will see all your content. And non-followers may have been exposed to your posts through shares, hashtags, and other means.
Cons: Reach can fluctuate for a variety of reasons, making it a different variable to control. A very low reach can lead to a disproportionately high engagement rate, and vice versa, so be sure to keep this in mind.
2. Engagement rate by posts (ER post): best for specific posts
Technically, this formula measures engagements by followers on a specific post. In other words, it’s similar to ERR, except instead of reach it tells you the rate at which followers engage with your content. Most social media influencers calculate their average engagement rate this way.
- ER post = Total engagements on a post / Total followers *100
To calculate the average, add up all the ER posts you want to average, and divide by number of posts:
- Average ER by post = Total ER by post / Total posts
Example: Post 1 (4.0%) + Post 2 (3.0%) / 2 = 3.5%
Pros: While ERR is a better way to gauge interactions based on how many people have seen your post, this formula replaces reach with followers, which is generally a more stable metric. In other words, if your reach fluctuates often, use this method for a more accurate measure of post-by-post engagement.
Cons: As mentioned, while this may be a more unwavering way of tracking engagement rate on posts, it doesn’t necessarily provide the full picture since it doesn’t account for viral reach. And, as your follower count goes up, your rate of engagement could drop off a little.
Make sure to view this stat alongside follower growth analytics.
3. Engagement rate by impressions (ER impressions): best for paid content
- ER impressions = Total engagements on a post / Total impressions *100
- Average ER impressions = Total ER impressions / Total posts
Pros: This formula can be useful if you’re running paid content and need to evaluate effectiveness based on impressions.
Cons: An engagement rate equation that uses the number of impressions as the base is bound to be lower than ERR and ER post equations. Like reach, impression figures can also be inconsistent. It may be a good idea to use this method in conjunction with reach.
4. Daily engagement rate (Daily ER): best for long-term analysis
- Daily ER = Total engagements in a day / Total followers *100
- Average Daily ER = Total engagements for X days / (X days *followers) *100
Pros: This formula is a good way to gauge how often your followers interact with your account on a daily basis, rather than how they interact with a specific post. As a result, it takes engagements on new and old posts into equation. This formula can also be tailored for specific use cases. For instance, if your brand only wants to measure daily comments, you can adjust “total engagements” accordingly.
Cons: There’s a fair amount of room for error with this method. For instance, the formula doesn’t account for the fact that the same follower may engage 10 times in a day, versus 10 followers engaging once. Daily engagements can also vary for a number of reasons, including how many posts you share. For that reason it may be worthwhile to plot daily engagement versus number of posts.
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5. Engagement rate by views (ER views): best for video
- ER view = Total engagements on video post / Total video views *100
- Average ER view = Total ER view / Total posts
Pros: If one of your video’s objectives is to generate engagement, this can be a good way to track it.
Cons: View tallies often include repeat views from a single user (non-unique views). While that viewer may watch the video multiple times, they may not necessarily engage multiple times.
6. Cost per engagement: best for influencer marketers
- CPE = Total amount spent / Total engagements
Most social media ad platforms will make this calculation (used to measure most influencer’s engagement) for you, along with other object-oriented calculations, such as cost-per-click. Make sure to check which interactions count as engagements, so you can be sure you’re comparing apples to apples.
How to calculate engagement rate automatically
If you’re tired of calculating your engagement rate manually, or you’re simply not a math person (hi!), you might want to consider using a social media management and analytics tool like Hootsuite. It allows you to analyze your social media engagement across social networks from a high level and get as detailed as you want with customized reports.
Here’s an example of what looking at your engagement data in Hootsuite looks like:
Besides showing you your overall post engagement rate, you can also see what types of posts get the highest engagement (so you can make more of those in the future), and even how many people visited your website.
In Hootsuite reports, it’s super easy to see how many engagements you got over a period of time, what is being counted as an engagement for each network, and compare your engagement rates to previous time periods.
Pro tip: You can schedule these reports to be created automatically and remind yourself to check in as often as you want.
A great bonus is that with Hootsuite, you get to see when your audience is most likely to engage with your posts — and schedule your content accordingly.
You now know how to measure your engagement rate. So, what are the next steps?
There’s nothing wrong with calculating your engagement rate (or pulling it from Hootsuite) just to include it in your monthly reports for your boss, clients, or other stakeholders — do what you gotta do.
But you should also put aside some time to really analyze your engagement on a regular basis — because engagement rate data can help you get to know your audience better, build stronger, data-informed strategies, and easily replicate winning tactics.
Here’s what that can look like for your team:
- Fill your content calendar with engaging posts. Dive into your analytics to see which posts worked best in the past, find patterns, and look for new ways to package winning ideas or content formats.
- Find out what your audience and customers think. Tracking comments, messages, and mentions will provide you with free business intelligence, i.e. feedback on your products, branding, customer service, and more.
- Identify brand advocates. Keeping a close eye on your most engaged online fans can help you find brand advocates for sponsored deals and collaborations.
Engagement rate FAQs
How do I calculate my engagement rate?
The most common engagement formula is engagement rate by reach (ERR). It measures the percentage of people who chose to interact with your content after seeing it. To calculate your engagement rate by reach, divide your total number of engagements per post by your reach per post, then multiply the result by 100.
What is a good engagement rate?
Most social media marketing experts agree that a good engagement rate is between 1% to 5%. The more followers you have, the harder it is to achieve. Hootsuite’s own social media team reported an average Instagram engagement rate of 4.59% in 2022 with 177k followers.
Why is engagement rate important?
Engagement can be used to demonstrate the success of your social media marketing strategies. High engagement also helps you get better visibility on social media platforms and look more trustworthy to first-time profile visitors.
Is a 10% engagement rate good?
Yes! Any engagement rate higher than 5% is considered very high.
Use Hootsuite to track and improve engagement rates across all your social media channels. Try it free today.
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