You’ve been active on social media; you’ve invested in social media marketing tools and social campaigns – but do you really know how to calculate your engagement rate and use the correct formula in the right context? Let’s take a look at a few different ways to measure engagement rate, and dissect their pros and cons.
In social media marketing, engagement rate is a formula used to measure the performance of a piece of content on a social media platform. It measures the amount of engagement/interaction the piece of social content earns in relation to its reach or other audience figures. There are multiple ways to measure social media engagement rate, and depending on your social media needs, different calculations may better suit your objectives.
Engagement Rate by Reach (ERR)
Calculating your engagement rate by reach (ERR) is the most common way to measure engagement with content. This formula measures the percentage of people who chose to interact with your content after seeing it, such as shares, likes, comments.
Here’s how ERR is calculated:
ERR = Total engagements per post / Reach per post * 100
If you’d like to know your average ERR, divide your total ERR by the total amount of posts:
Average ERR = Total ERR / Total posts
Pros: ERR measures your engagement by reach, not by follower count. Since not all your followers will see your content, and some non-followers may have been exposed to your content through various other means such as hashtags and shares, ERR can be a more accurate measurement than measuring by your follower count.
Cons: Reach can fluctuate quite a bit for a variety of reasons. Please keep in mind that a very low reach sometimes can lead to a high engagement rate, and vice versa.
Engagement Rate by Posts (ER Post)
Engagement Rate by Posts (ER Post) measures engagements by followers on a specific post. Similar to ERR, it measures the percentage of people who chose to interact with your content after seeing it, but instead of dividing it by reach, it tells you the rate at which followers interact with your content.
Here’s how ER Post is calculated:
ER Post = Total engagement on a post / Total followers * 100
If you’d like to know your average ER Post, divide your total ER Posts by the total number of posts:
Average ER by Post = Total ER by post / Total posts
Pros: ER Post is typically a more stable metric, because it measures by your follower counts, instead of reach. Therefore, if your reach fluctuates often, ER Post offers a more accurate way to measure your post-by-post engagement.
Cons: As we’ve mentioned above, although ER Post provides a more stable way to measure engagements on posts, it doesn’t always provide the full picture for your engagement, since it doesn’t take into consideration for viral reach. To get a more wholistic view of your engagement rate, view your ER Post alongside your follower growth analytics.
Engagement Rate by Impressions (ER Impressions)
We’ve measured engagement rates using reach and followers as our base audience metrics above, now let’s take a look at another base audience metric: impressions. While reach measures how many people have seen your content, impressions measure how often your content appears on a screen.
Here’s how ER Impressions is calculated:
ER Impressions = Total engagements on a post / Total impressions * 100
If you’d like to know your average ER Impressions, divide your total ER Impressions by your total amount of posts:
Average ER Impressions = Total ER Impressions / Total posts
Pros: ER Impressions can be very useful if you want to know how effective your paid content is, based on impressions.
Cons: Similar to reach, impressions can be inconsistent too. And an engagement rate calculated with impressions is bound to be lower than ERR and ER Post formulas. Therefore, to get a more wholistic idea of your content performance, use ER Impressions alongside ERR.
Daily Engagement Rate (Daily ER)
You’ve gotten a good idea of what your engagement rate is against maximum exposure through ERR, now it’s a good time to evaluate how often your followers are engaging with your content on a daily basis. That’s where Daily ER comes in.
Here’s how Daily ER is calculated:
Daily ER = Total engagement in a day / Total followers * 100
Average Daily ER = Total engagements for X days / (X days * followers) * 100
Pros: Instead of only looking at interactions on one specific post, Daily ER accounts for engagements on your new and old posts, so it’s a good way to measure how often your followers interact with your content on a daily basis. Daily ER can also be tailored for specific use cases. For example, if you only want to measure daily shares, you can adjust your “total engagements” to “total shares.”
Cons: Daily ER can leave some room for inaccuracy. For example, it doesn’t take into consideration the fact that the same follower may engage with your content 10 times a day, versus 10 followers engaging with your content once. Daily ER can also vary depending on the amount of posts you share per day, making it fluctuate frequently.
Engagement Rate by Views (ER Views)
Videos are getting more and more interest on social media platforms nowadays, and if video is a tool you use often for your brand, you’ll likely want to know how many people interacted with your video after watching it.
Here’s how ER Views is calculated:
ER View = Total engagements on video post / total video views * 100
Average ER view = Total ER view / total posts
Pros: ER Views is a great way to track how much engagement your video generated.
Cons: ER Views doesn’t take into account the factors of unique views or non-unique views. In other words, a viewer may watch the video multiple times, but may not engage with the video multiple times.
Cost per Engagement
Now that we’ve talked about a few useful ways to measure your engagement rate, you might want to know how much your investment in your sponsored content is paying off. Cost per Engagement (CPE) can offer you some insight.
Here’s how CPE is calculated:
CPE = Total amount spent / Total engagements
Most social media platforms today will calculate CPE for you, but make sure to check which interactions they count as engagements, so that you can evaluate your investment in the right context.
Now that you are armed with the knowledge of how to correctly calculate your engagement rate, and the pros and cons for each method, you can dive into your social marketing strategy with more clarity and confidence. If you have any questions about social media marketing, please get in touch and find out how we can help.
Special thanks to Brian Mooney of NextWaveIHire for adding some color to our blog. Who doesn’t love a whiteboard?
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Jody Ordioni is the author of “The Talent Brand.” In her role as Founder and Chief Brand Officer of Brandemix, she leads the firm in creating brand-aligned talent communications that connect employees to cultures, companies, and business goals. She engages with HR professionals and corporate teams on how to build and promote talent brands, and implement best-practice talent acquisition and engagement strategies across all media and platforms. She has been named a "recruitment thought leader to follow" and her mission is to integrate marketing, human resources, internal communications, and social media to foster a seamless brand experience through the employee lifecycle.
