Engagement metrics are the currency of the social media marketing industry.
Of course, vanity metrics like subscribers and impressions mean something. But engagement metrics, like the number of likes and comments, provide insight into your social media performance.
Most social media marketing experts agree that a good engagement rate is between 1% and 5%, but the more followers you have, the harder it is to achieve.
Keep reading to learn more about the different engagement rate formulas and use our interactive engagement rate calculator to see how good your accounts are.
What is engagement rate?
Engagement rate is a measure of how actively your audience engages with your content. In social media marketing, it measures the number of interactions with a piece of content (or a campaign, or an entire account) versus reach, followers, or audience size.
Why is engagement level important? When it comes to social media analytics, follower growth matters, but it doesn’t really matter if your audience doesn’t care about the content you post. You need comments, shares, likes and other actions that prove that your content resonates with the people who see it. A high engagement rate also helps you gain better visibility on social media platforms and appear more trustworthy to new profile visitors.
General Engagement Metrics
Depending on the social channels you use, you may want to include some or all of these metrics when calculating your social media engagement rate:
- Instagram: likes, comments, reposts, saves, private messages, profile visits, clicks on story stickers, 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, reposts via direct messages, clicks of custom buttons
- TikTok: likes, comments, saves, shares
- YouTube: likes, comments, shares, downloads, saves
Free Engagement Rate Calculator
Ready to calculate your engagement rate? Use the calculator below to find out your email engagement rate.
Note. If you’re calculating your account’s overall engagement, include information about all of your posts (e.g., total posts posted, total likes, etc.). If you’re calculating engagement rates for a specific campaign, only include information about posts that were part of the campaign.
If you need more detailed data, or want to calculate different types of engagement (such as engagement by reach or engagement by impression), download our free spreadsheet calculator to do the math for you.
Or, even better, start a free 30-day trial of Hootsuite 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.
6 Engagement Rate Formulas
These are the most common formulas you will need to calculate your social media engagement rate.
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 choose to interact with your content after viewing it. Use the first formula for a single post and the second one to calculate the average bid across multiple posts.
- ERR = total interactions per post / reach per post * 100
To determine the average, add up all the ERRs of the posts you want to average and divide by the 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 of your followers will see all of your content. And non-subscribers could access your posts through reposts, hashtags, and other means.
Cons: Reach can fluctuate for various reasons, making it another variable to control. Very low reach can lead to disproportionately high levels of engagement, and vice versa, so be sure to keep that in mind.
2. Engagement Rate by Post (Post ER): Best for Specific Posts
Technically, this formula measures the engagement of subscribers with a particular post. In other words, it’s similar to ERR, except instead of reach, it tells you the rate at which subscribers are interacting with your content. Most social media influencers calculate their average engagement rate this way.
- Post ER = Total number of interactions with the post / Total number of subscribers * 100
To calculate the average, add up all the ER posts you want to average and divide by the number of posts:
- Average ER per post = Total ER per post / Total number of posts
Example: post 1 (4.0%) + post 2 (3.0%) / 2 = 3.5%
Pros: While ERR is the best way to estimate engagement based on how many people have seen your post, this formula replaces follower reach, which is generally a more stable metric. In other words, if your reach fluctuates frequently, use this method to more accurately measure post-post engagement.
Cons: As mentioned, while this can be a more reliable way to track post engagement, it doesn’t necessarily tell the whole story because it doesn’t take viral reach into account. And as your follower count increases, engagement rates may drop slightly.
Be sure to review these statistics along with subscriber growth analytics.
3. Impression Engagement (ER Impressions): Best for Paid Content
- ER impressions = total post interactions / total impressions * 100
- Average ER Impressions = Total ER Impressions / Total Posts
Pros: This formula can be useful if you run paid content and need to measure performance based on impressions.
Cons: The engagement rate equation, which uses the number of impressions as a basis, should be lower than the ERR and ER equations for posts. Like reach, impression metrics can also fluctuate. It might be a good idea to use this method in conjunction with coverage.
4. Daily Engagement (Daily ER): Best for long-term analysis.
- Daily ER = total daily engagements / total followers * 100
- Average Daily ER = X Days Total Engagements / (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 particular post. As a result, it balances interaction with new and old messages. This formula can also be adapted for specific use cases. For example, if your brand only wants to measure daily comments, you can set up “general engagement”accordingly.
Cons: There is a lot of room for errors in this method. For example, the formula does not take into account the fact that the same subscriber can engage 10 times per day, compared to 10 subscribers who engage once. Daily commitments can also vary for a number of reasons, including the number of posts you share. For this reason, it might be worth comparing daily engagement with the number of posts.
5. View Engagement Rate (ER Views): Best for Video
- View ER = total video post interactions / total video views * 100
- Average ER Views = Total ER Views / Total Posts
Pros: If one of your video’s goals is to grab attention, this can be a good way to keep track of it.
Cons: View counts often include repeat views from the same user (non-unique views). While this viewer may view the video multiple times, they will not necessarily interact multiple times.
6. Cost Per Engagement: Best for Influencer Marketers
- CPE = total amount spent / total number of interactions
Most social media advertising platforms will do this calculation (used to measure the engagement of most influencers) for you, along with other object-oriented calculations such as CPC. Be sure to check which interactions count as interactions to make sure you’re comparing apples to apples.
How to Calculate Engagement Rate Automatically
If you’re tired of manually calculating engagement rates, or you’re just not good at math (hello!), you might want to consider using a social media management tool like Hootsuite. This allows you to analyze your social media activity at a high level and get as much detail as you want with customizable reports.
Here’s an example of what your Hootsuite engagement data looks like:
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In addition to showing the overall engagement rate of posts, you can also see which types of posts are generating the most engagement (so you can increase them in the future) and even the number of people who have visited your site.
Hootsuite’s reports make it very easy to see how many interactions you’ve received in a given time period, what counts as an interaction for each network, and compare your engagement metrics to previous time periods.
Pro Tip: You can schedule these reports to be generated automatically and remind yourself to review as often as you want.
A great bonus is that with Hootsuite you can see when your audience is most likely to engage with your posts and plan your content accordingly.
Now you know how to measure engagement. So what are the next steps?
There’s nothing wrong with calculating your engagement rate (or taking it from Hootsuite) just to include it in your monthly reports for your boss, clients or other stakeholders – do what you have to do.
But you should also set aside some time to review your engagement regularly, because engagement rate data can help you get to know your audience better, develop better data-driven strategies, and easily replicate winning tactics.
Here’s what it might look like for your team:
- Fill your content calendar with interesting posts. Dive into your analytics to see which posts have worked best in the past, look for patterns, and find new ways to package winning ideas or content formats.
- Find out what your audience and customers think. Tracking comments, posts 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 active online fans can help you find brand advocates for sponsored deals and collaborations.
Frequently Asked Questions about Engagement Level
How to calculate engagement rate?
The most common engagement formula is the Engagement by Reach Score (ERR). It measures the percentage of people who choose to interact with your content after viewing it. To calculate engagement by reach, divide the total number of interactions per post by reach per post, and 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% and 5%. The more subscribers you have, the harder it is to achieve this. Hootsuite’s own social media team reported that the average engagement rate on Instagram in 2022 was 4.59% with 177k followers.
Why is engagement level important?
Engagement can be used to demonstrate the success of your social media strategy. A high engagement rate also helps you gain better visibility on social media platforms and appear more trustworthy to new profile visitors.
Is 10% engagement a good thing?
Yes! An engagement rate above 5% is considered very high.