What is a Good Engagement Rate on Instagram and How to Calculate It

Does the engagement rate really matter? Many IG users have been trying to find an answer to this question since the platform changed its algorithm of getting posts to the top of the rating. Previously, all the posts have been displayed on the basis of the time when they were added, but now the mechanism has changed. It required time to understand that Instagram moves the content to the top on the basis of the engagement rate. The higher it is within the first minutes after it was added, the more chances for your post to go viral.

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Now you may wonder ‘what is a good engagement rate on Instagram and how one can calculate it?’. You should understand that a good engagement rate for accounts with a small or big number of followers will be different.

Look: this article will tell you what engagement rate is considered to be good and offer you several ways how to calculate it taking into account different data.

What to Consider as Good Engagement Rate on Instagram

The notion ‘engagement rate’(ER) is a key term for the influencer marketing characteristic of Instagram. It is not a secret that 80% of IG accounts are meant for business and this data helps to get a more clear understanding of how efficient account is for advertising. In fact, this phrase is used to describe a formula that reflects the amount of interaction IG account receives due to the content posted. This data is calculated on the basis of the follower, like, comment and saving number, posts added, reach and impression rate.

What is very important for a business promoted via IG? It is necessary to have a clear understanding of what number of people managed to see the post and what is more important – who of your followers is ready to undertake actions if you ask them about anything. This is exactly the thing you can perceive from the engagement rate first of all.

People often ask ‘what is a good engagement rate on Instagram’, but you must understand that the data will differ depending on the total follower number What is interesting, the more followers an account has, the lower the ER there is. The main cause for that is the user’s inability to interact with such a big number of people, so this rate decreases respectively.

An average ER on Instagram is about 5% and it is considered to be a good one. This rate is so high because most of the accounts have a follower number under 1,000 people and most of these followers are interested in the activity of the user and care about his or her life. Therefore, they like the content posted, leave comments and save the most memorable posts. Influencers who can boast a bigger number of followers can’t reach such a high engagement rate and usually its average looks as follows:

• Account with 1K – 5K followers has ER of 5.6%;
• Account with 5K – 20K followers has ER of 2.43%;
• Account with 20K – 100K followers has ER of 2.15%;
• Account with 100K – 1M followers has ER of 2.05%;
• Account with over 1M followers has ER of 1.97%.

Of course, these are average numbers provided by Phlanks. However, if an account has purchased followers or they are acquired in another not natural way, its ER can be much lower and it can be a sign for advertisers to avoid cooperation with such influencers.

How Can You Calculate Engagement Rate Per Post

Despite the fact that ER is a unique notion, you can calculate it in several ways. The reason for that is different data used for calculations. There is still no direct answer to the question of which type of ER calculation is the most accurate and informational. Usually, the results of these calculations are used for different purposes and it helps to make a more detailed analysis and get more accurate results comparing them. For example, it is clear that not all the followers you have seen your recent post and only a percentage of those who have seen it has liked or left a comment under it.

Consequently, there are three different indicators for determining the ER: total follower number, those who have seen the post, those who have reacted to it. However, this is a simple example for everyone to get an idea that the final data can differ from the entry one depending on the indicator selected, but in fact, there are at least 7 ways how to calculate engagement rate on Instagram and keep on reading to learn more about them below.

Followers

One of the most widely used ways of calculating IG ER is to use the following formula: ER = sum(likes + comments)/followers × 100%.

It means that a user should count how many numbers of likes and comments he has received and divide it by the follower number he has. When he multiplies this number by 100%, he will get a percentage equivalent.

This way of measurement is one of the most popular ones since all the data is available in the account. Moreover, you can compare your own ER to one possessed by your competitors using the same data. One more important aspect is the possibility to count the difference between the minimum and maximum rates taking the most and the least popular posts for this purpose. Moreover, you can choose a certain period from one day to several months and determine your ER to get an idea if it has increased or not.

Likes + comments

ER can be also learned if you divide the total number of both likes and comments by the impression indicator – the number of times other users have viewed a post. This information can be found in IG insights available for business accounts only. The formula looks as follows: ER = sum (likes + comments)/ impressions × 100%.

Since the number received by dividing likes and comments by impressions is very low, it is necessary to multiply it by 100% to get a percentage rate instead.

Likes + comments + saved or impressions

Experts offer an opportunity to calculate so-called true engagement taking into account not only likes and comments left under your posts but also the number of times they were saved. Speaking about the terminology, this number can be found in the Instagram insights in the Engagement tab. Consequently, true engagement is calculated using the following formula: TER = sum (likes + comments + saved)/ impressions × 100%.

It means that to get TER percentage, you should visit your IG insights and find out two types of data: engagement and impressions, divide them by each other and multiply the number received by 100%.

Since the number of saves is usually minimum, probably, your true ER can be close or even the same as data received in a previous way.

Reach

If you try to measure ER by reach, it will give you information about a percentage of individuals who decided to interact with your content, not only see it. Users can get this data for a single post or measure it for several posts within a certain time period. For this purpose, ER for every post can be determined using this formula: ER = sum (likes + comments + saved)/ reach × 100%.

When you divide engagement provided by insights by reach and multiply it by 100% for every post, it is possible to count an average ER for all the posts analyzed. Consider this formula: Average ER = sum (ER per every post)/ number of posts.

This type of measuring ER is considered to be more accurate than one based on followers because not everyone who is subscribed to you could see the content posted. Moreover, people who are not subscribed to your profile could also reach this content by means of shares and hashtags, so this data seems truer to life. However, it is necessary to understand that reach is subjected to high fluctuations, so it is better to calculate it on the basis of several posts.

Posts

It is possible to find ER per every post added. For this purpose, you need to find out an engagement in the IG insights that says the exact like, comment and save the number you had for this post as well as check a total follower number on your profile page. The formula looks in this way: ER = sum (comments + likes + saved)/ followers × 100%.

Trying to determine ER per several posts of yours, it is necessary to get a percentage rate per every single post and use this formula: ER = sum (ER per every post)/ number of posts.

This is the way you get an average ER for several posts. It is a more popular way of calculating ER though it does not give a clear picture of the viral reach.

Daily

Sometimes it is useful to get an idea of how often every follower of yours engages with the content posted on a daily basis. You can also find out how your ER drops if you do not add any content during the day or whether it increases if your number of posts added within one day is 2 and more. It can be found out by measuring a daily engagement rate (DER) using this formula: DER = sum (comments + likes + saved)/ followers × 100%.

It is possible to learn your engagement in IG insights for one day and divide it by the total follower number you have. Then, it is necessary to multiply the result by 100% to get a percentage rate instead.

These calculations will let you get an idea of how frequently followers do interact with the content you have posted or add during a day. However, you should know that even if one follower engages with your posts several times per day, it will be still considered as one by insights, so there is room for error in this method too.

It is also possible to measure an average DER using a formula that looks as follows: Average DER = sum (likes + comments + saved) /followers × number of days × 100%.

You should remember that engagement must be calculated for the same number of days you multiply followers by.

Views

Video posts can have different ER in comparison with images. If you would like to learn how engaging your video post was, it is necessary to determine ER on the basis of views. It will give you information about a percentage of users who decided to interact with the video posted after they have watched it. You can take advantage of this data when you can’t decide what type of content encourages more interaction.

How to find out the ER based on views? Follow this formula: ER = sum (likes + comments + saved)/ views × 100%.

However, when you decide to measure the ER of video content in this way, there is also room for error since one user can watch a video several times but interact only once.

Read also: 6 Reasons Why Instagram Engagement Rate So Low

Conclusion

One of the key data calculated by IG influencers is the engagement rate. Brands and users put much effort to make it grow as high as possible since they increase the amount of impact they have on their followers along with this data. Moreover, many influencers who earn on advertising get revenue on this basis: ER influences the number of their earnings if their equation is based on cost or engagement basis. Therefore, it gets clear why every user of the social media website wants to achieve a good Instagram engagement rate and make it grow no matter how high it is at the moment.

This article has explained what the ER can be considered good and how this number depends on the total follower number possessed by the account. Moreover, you could learn that ER can be calculated in multiple ways and it lets influencers find out how ER depends on the frequency and way users interact with the content posted.