Influencer content as well as all sorts of social media content means very little without engagement. To see how your influencers are drawing attention to your brand, consider using an engagement rate calculator.
Engagement calculators give you all the data without effort. Just plug in the name of your influencer and get spelled-out engagement insights. As an added bonus, you can peep at your influencers’ average engagement rates (ERs) before you work with them.
Read on to learn how to use an engagement rate calculator in your influencer marketing, what engagement rate formulas to use, and why engagement matters more than you might realize.
Table of Contents
Define Engagement Rate
What Does Engagement Rate Signify?
How to Calculate Engagement Rate: Two Ways
What Is an Engagement Rate Calculator?
How Can I Use Engagement Rates in My Influencer Marketing?
Why Should I Care About Instagram Engagement Rates?
What Is a Good Engagement Rate on Instagram?
What Is an Instagram Influencer’s Average Engagement Rate?
What Type of Content Gets the Best Engagement on Instagram?
Additional Metrics to Track
- Why Use Meltwater's Instagram Engagement Rate Calculator
Define Engagement Rate
Engagement rate refers to the level of interaction and involvement from a specific audience.
Types of engagement include clicks, likes, shares, and comments. Influencer marketers use this metric to determine how successful an influencer’s content is in capturing their audience’s attention.
What Does Engagement Rate Signify?
Engagement rate indicates how many people felt inspired to take action on a post. Liking, sharing, commenting on, or clicking on content indicates a high level of interest, which signifies the content is of high quality.
The higher the engagement rate, the more marketers can assume that an audience cares about the content they see.
How to Calculate Engagement Rate: Two Ways
Average ER can be calculated in different ways. Here are two popular methods to determine how engaged an influencer’s followers are.
Calculating Engagement Rate By Hand
Engagement rate is calculated by dividing the total number of engagements (likes, comments, shares, clicks) by the total number of impressions (views or reach) and multiplying it by 100. It looks like this:
(Total engagements / total impressions) x 100 = Engagement Rate %
This percentage indicates the proportion of people who have actively engaged with the content out of those who have seen it.
Let’s say an influencer’s post reached 10K followers and had 900 likes, 200 comments, 50 shares, and 75 link clicks. In this case, the total number of engagements would be 1,225. Using the above formula, the manually calculated engagement rate would be 12.25%.
Use an Engagement Rate Calculator
An engagement rate calculator uses that same formula but does the math for you. Add the influencer’s profile and the calculator will generate an average rate of engagement for one or all of the influencer’s posts.
Platform-specific calculators (such as an Instagram engagement calculator) can give you more specific insights.
What Is an Engagement Rate Calculator?
An engagement rate calculator is a data-driven tool that calculates influencers’ engagement rates for you. Rather than collecting data and plugging numbers into a formula manually, you can input the influencer’s profile and generate an engagement rate.
Powered by data, this calculator can help you learn more about an influencer’s engagement rates in seconds. You can see:
- How influencers stack up against each other
- The average number of engagements their posts receive
- What type of engagements they receive
How Can I Use Engagement Rates in My Influencer Marketing?
Engagement rates have become an essential metric in influencer marketing, offering valuable insights into a campaign’s effectiveness. By understanding and reviewing engagement rates, brands can make informed decisions about which influencers they partner with.
One way to leverage engagement rates is by gauging the authenticity of an influencer's following. High engagement rates indicate genuine interest and interaction from followers. This suggests the influencer has built a loyal community that trusts their recommendations. (To be clear, engagement rate calculators do not take into account the potential for fake followers; they simply follow the data.)
On the other hand, an influencer with a sizable audience and a low engagement rate could mean they’re missing the mark with their audience. Or they might have an army of bot followers. Knowing the engagement rate gives you a starting point to investigate further.
Use engagement rates as part of your Instagram influencer audit. Along with other metrics like audience size and follower growth, you might be able to identify “fake influencers” who won’t help you achieve your goals.
Analyzing engagement rates can help identify which influencers are most effective at driving specific actions. For instance, if you want to boost website traffic or increase product sales, you should look for influencers with high click-through rates or conversion rates. You’ll be more likely to reach an audience that’s more likely to take action.
Why Should I Care About Instagram Engagement Rates?
Follower count isn’t the only indicator of an influencer’s success. In fact, it can be quite deceiving. Engagement rate adds context to follower count, showing you what percentage of an influencer’s audience is actively connecting with their content.
In addition to engagement rate, you could also look to see what types of engagements the influencer’s content generates. If they’re getting hundreds of likes but no comments or shares, the content might not be as strong as the engagement rate would indicate. However, if the content is getting a large number of comments and shares, the audience is likely very motivated by the influencer.
An engagement rate calculator can offer major value to your influencer marketing strategy. If you know the influencers you want to partner with, you can input their profiles into the calculator to see the level of response they tend to generate. This can help you set realistic expectations for your influencer marketing campaigns and form partnerships with the right people.
What Is a Good Engagement Rate on Instagram?
A good engagement rate on Instagram is somewhere between 1 and 5%. The low end of this is considered average, while the high end is considered great.
Above 6% is an excellent engagement rate on Instagram.
Generally speaking, the higher the engagement rate, the better. However, it’s also true that the more followers a user has, the harder it is to achieve a high engagement rate. What's considered a "good" engagement rate can vary by audience size. For instance, a micro-influencer's 11% engagement rate might be considered excellent, while a celebrity's 7% engagement rate might also be considered excellent given their millions of followers.
What Is an Instagram Influencer’s Average Engagement Rate?
You can calculate the engagement rate on single posts, or if an influencer is particularly active on Instagram, you can calculate their average engagement rate across multiple posts.
To do this, calculate the total number of engagements over the span of 30 days, then divide it by the total number reached by those same posts. You could also choose to calculate average engagement based on their last 10 posts (or whatever number you choose).
You can use this same process to discover an influencer's average likes, comments, and shares, too. To do this, calculate the total number of the desired metric (such as likes), then divide it by the total number of posts.
What Type of Content Gets the Best Engagement on Instagram?
Instagram is a platform of discovery and inspiration, so it’s no surprise that Instagrammers crave authentic content that speaks to them.
Post engagements are high with images and image carousels. Posts should also have multiple relevant hashtags to help spread the content to more people who are actively searching for content that fits those hashtags.
- Instagram Reels tend to capture user attention better than other features on IG. And since they take longer to consume than the standard image, they can also give your brand a little more “screen time.”
- Instagram Live is also driving engagement and interest. More than 100 million people watch Instagram live streams each day, or about 1 in 5 Instagram users.
- Adding a call-to-action to your post encourages the user to take action. This might be to leave a comment or click a product link, for example. Your CTA can also be a great item to A/B test in your Instagram influencer strategy to see what gives you more engagement.
Additional Metrics to Track
Just like follower count, engagement rate doesn’t always tell the full story. Influencers with high engagement might still not be the best fit for your brand.
The engagement rate metric is best used alongside other influencer marketing metrics that indicate social media performance, such as:
- Audience demographics
- Follower growth rate
- Content topics
- Brand keywords
- Overall sentiment
While engagement rate can provide a sound starting point, don’t rely solely on engagement to make your influencer decisions. Due diligence can help you protect your brand while driving the best results.
Why Use Meltwater's Instagram Engagement Rate Calculator
Meltwater Influencer Marketing's Instagram engagement rate calculator is a must-have in your influencer marketing toolkit. Get real-time, up-to-date data on any influencer’s engagement rates so you can see how their content is influencing and inspiring others.
Meltwater takes away one of the most time-consuming chores of influencer vetting so you can focus more on strategy and building strong relationships:
