How to Find the Engagement Rate for Content

Engagement is a buzzword you may often hear as you market your business online. While it may conjure images of popping the question and slipping a diamond ring onto a finger, we aren’t talking about that kind of engagement. No, we’re referring to audience engagement and how to find the engagement rate for your online content. Unsurprisingly, Ignite Social Media has listed “engagement” as #11 out of the 20 most commonly used social media buzzwords. 

Engagements are the actions your audience takes in response to your content, which can be a like, comment, share, clicking a link, clicking to view a photo or video, etc. It means your content is getting noticed, and your audience interacts with it.

Tracking your audience’s social media, and other online involvement, will yield metrics data showing audience engagement. Learning how to find the engagement rate for your content can tell a lot about how your audience interacts with your online content if you interpret it correctly.  

Different ways of measuring your engagement rates depend on what you’re trying to accomplish for your business. Although we mainly refer to social media platforms when discussing engagement rates, the metrics can apply to anything online, such as blogs and eBooks. 

Let’s take a closer look so you’re comfortable talking about, measuring, and interpreting your engagement rates on the most commonly used social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn. 

Types Of Metrics

In today’s world, most businesses use social media to some extent for marketing. A good engagement rating on one platform doesn’t mean a good rating on another; it depends on your target demographic, goal(s), metric, and platform. These common engagement metrics can measure the different results of your content marketing campaign:

• Content Reach: This metric is key for brand awareness. Reach calculates how many people viewed your post. It distinguishes those who found it through shares, hashtags, or organic searches. 
• Comments: You want your posts to generate discussion with your audience. Comments help gauge interaction and reveal what people think about your articles, posts, videos, etc. 
• Likes And Follows: It’s great that social media platforms allow people to “like” or follow your content. These two metrics help gauge audience size and increase brand awareness. Followers are crucial for your blogs and web content, too. 
• Shares And Referrals: When people share your content, it shows they believe it’s relevant. People share interesting or valuable things and want to pass on the information to family and friends. 
• Clicks And Conversions: Ideally, you want your content marketing to convert clicks into customers. The number of clicks and conversions your content inspires directly affects your company’s bottom line.

Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram, and other social media platforms have a place where you can view your posts’ metrics. For web content such as blogs and articles, tools such as Google Analytics can track your customer engagement rates. 

How To Calculate

Calculating your engagement rate is a piece of cake if you’re good with numbers. But if you still have nightmares about high school algebra, don’t panic. There’s an easy formula for how to find the engagement rate for your content.

Different engagement rates are found by dividing the total engagement (total number of interactions a business generates on its content) by the total number of followers or audience members and multiplying by 100 to turn the calculation into a percentage. Here’s the basic formula:

Engagement Rate = Total Engagement/Total Followers or Total Audience x 100 

Depending on the platform, total engagement includes shares, likes, comments, and other reactions. You can use the general rate of engagement formula and change it depending on what platform or metric you want to measure.

For example, a Facebook post that gets 1,000 views and 100 engagements has a 10% engagement rate: (10 engagements/100 views) x 100 = 10%.

Engagement rates on Facebook are determined by the total number of shares, likes, comments, and other reactions; however, engagement rates on your blog are based on likes, comments, and followers — depending on the platform. 

So, once you get comfortable with this relatively simple formula, you’ll have a sense of accomplishment and exceptional insight into your content marketing.

What’s A Good Rate?

Once you calculate an engagement rate, your next question is obvious: Is that any good? A good engagement rate definition depends on the platform you’re using. According to industry experts, here’s what makes a good engagement rate on the top 4 social media platforms:

• Facebook: Algorithms can change quickly on Facebook. Small businesses should shoot for at least a 5% engagement to get the most from Facebook. 
• Twitter: Engagement rates are lower on Twitter than on Facebook. Small businesses should aim for 1% or higher.
• LinkedIn: A decent engagement rate for LinkedIn is 2%; however, it’s not uncommon to get as high as 6%. 
• Instagram: Instagram has higher engagement rates than its three counterparts, partly due to the nature of the platform. With one post per screen, an engagement rate of 3% or higher is excellent.  

Engagement rates matter in every company’s social media or content marketing campaigns. Monitor engagement rates regularly to stay on top of your marketing strategy and ensure you reach your target audience. Learning how to find the engagement rate for your content is an excellent way to measure success and identify weaknesses in your online marketing so you can make necessary adjustments. Increasing engagement with your target audience and boosting brand awareness will take your company to the next level.

To learn more about how to create engaging content, you can fill out the form below to download your free copy of our Content Marketing Guide.