To have a successful Instagram profile it is very important to take into consideration the value of the Engagement Rate, for this reason, within this article, I will explain how to calculate the Engagement Rate of your Instagram profile.
Often this is a process that can be easily done by statistics programs that will give you the answer you are looking for in a few seconds, but I will tell you a secret: it can easily be done by hand.
Engagement rate: what is it?
Before understanding how to calculate the Engagement Rate of your Instagram profile, it is necessary to define and understand what it is:
The Engagement rate is nothing more than a little number that indicates the proportional relationship between the number of followers and the interactions that your users have with respect to the different contents that can be created within the platform.
This value represents how many people come into contact with your content and the interaction that it stimulates and therefore how engaging this content is.
Instagram's organic traffic is estimated to be around 10% today, this means that only 10% of your followers are able to organically see your content, and the more interactions these contents receive, the more the algorithm will reward them as quality and will certainly propose them to many more people possible.
To calculate the Engagement Rate there are several effective solutions:
Rely on statistical tools, as I mentioned before, which extract this data in a very short time.
Calculate it the old fashioned way, by hand.
Engagement Rate Formula: How to Calculate It
Before we begin, it is important to consider that the Instagram algorithm
It is constantly fluctuating today, therefore it also takes into account other interesting elements, such as:
Impressions or the total number of times your content is viewed.
Reach or the number of individual views of your content
Click on the website
Profile views
Number of Followers
Further actions to consider are :
Comments
Saved Posts
Content Views
I like
There are therefore different methodologies for calculating the Engagement Rate that may differ in complexity or depth of analysis.
Here is the formula for the general calculation of the Engagement Rate:
Here are some more in-depth examples:
Engagement Rate by Reach/Coverage :
Add up the likes of your last 10 photos, leaving out the most recent/the total number of followers of the account in question. Once you have obtained this little number, it is essential to multiply it by 100 to obtain the percentage that will indicate the value of the engagement rate.
This method will allow you to statistically calculate user engagement, thus averaging the interactions received on the sample of the last 10 posts.
Engagement rate per post :
Total interactions of a single post / your total followers* 100
This second methodology allows you to understand the engagement that your followers demonstrate towards a single content.
Engagement Rate per Impression :
Consider the total number of interactions received in reference to a single post/the total number of Impressions*100
This calculation will allow you to understand how many times a certain content has appeared on a feed, without the user necessarily stopping to look at it.
You're probably wondering:
Now that I have obtained this value, what do I do with it?”
The solution to this question lies fundamentally in the interpretation of this data.
Establishing the ideal margin of this value is not easy at all, it depends on several key factors, including the topic of the profile itself , therefore the founding theme of your Instagram profile.
Although there is currently no official guideline data on ideal engagement percentages , these can be identified by bands of followers owned:
1-5k followers= 5-8%
5-10k followers = 4%
10-100k followers= 2-3%
100k followers=2%
more than 1 million followers = 1.8%
Furthermore, Instagram is known for being the social network with the highest engagement rates compared to any other, however to maintain this value it is essential to periodically analyze the results and track this data over time .
What are the main factors that influence the engagement rate of an Instagram profile?
Post publishing time
The content of the post itself
The number of followers on the profile
The frequency of publication
Interactions with profile content and messaging
Another important aspect to consider is that, as the number of followers of an Instagram profile increases, the Engagement Rate does not always increase proportionally , so very often the more followers you have, the lower the indicative ER percentage.
Why?
Because there will be more users to reach to show your content to, it is therefore not easy to define a strategy that can allow you to acquire as many followers as possible while maintaining a threshold of attention and engagement equal to the increase in the latter.
Engagement rate is often correlated with....
A low engagement rate is often related to a poor quality of your fan base. Am I telling you that it is often related to buying followers? Yes.
Let's deepen this deduction with some real cases (for privacy I will omit the name). You can still use the Not Just Analytics tool to have this data, yours and your competitors.
First example with Low Engagement Rate on a profile with about 17k followers:
A low Engagement Rate that reveals a fanbase that has grown unevenly, with peaks in followers in certain periods and losses in others.
Another example of Low Engagement Rate on a profile with about 10k followers:
So let's analyze the growth of followers: after a growth peak you are constantly at a loss. Even in this case we absolutely cannot speak of a linear and constant growth.
Let's now see a case of High Engagement Rate on a profile with 83k followers:
Follower growth? Linear and constant!
And finally one last example of High Engagement Rate:
Here too the growth rate is linear and constant!
It is not a written rule that a low Engagement Rate is synonymous with follow/unfollow techniques or buying followers, but it can be a cause. Buying followers brings non-target users who are not interested in our content.
How to increase engagement rate?
Starting from the calculation of the Engagement Rate, based on what was said previously, the theme of involvement and interaction is of fundamental importance, therefore to have an Instagram profile capable of attracting and retaining your followers, there are small and simple measures to take into account:
Posting times are important , because posting content at a time when your followers are likely to be glued to their screens will allow you to receive more interactions in less time.
Create in-depth content that connects your followers to your profile and makes your account preferred over others
Constant consistency
Use hashtags wisely , they are a great source for gaining new followers
Interact and encourage your users to perform small actions that are rewarded by the algorithm
Stories are an effective and above all easy tool to tell your followers about yourself.
In conclusion, I want to give you one last piece of advice: CREATE VALUABLE RELATIONSHIPS , convey your uniqueness to your followers, entertain them and at the same time tell your story.
Imagine you are behind that screen:
What would you like to be told?
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