What is engagement rate? Why does it matter? How can you increase it?
These are all questions that we’re going to be covering in this article. But first for the maths side of the question: how exactly to calculate the engagement rate of your Instagram profile.
Engagement rate equals the number of likes and comments that you get, divided by the number of followers you have, with this total x 100.
What this does is give you a percentage which becomes your engagement rate – essentially letting you know which percentage of your followers are engaging with your content on a regular basis.
NOTE: If you have lots of fake followers but a low number of likes and comments, this will result in a low engagement rate despite the high follower count. This is why bridging the gap between quality and quantity is so important when it comes to Instagram followers and engaging your community.
Why Does Engagement Rate Matter?
In short, your engagement rate on Instagram tells you how much your audience resonates with and enjoys the content that you post.
If you have a very high engagement rate, then you know that the content you are sharing is appealing to your followers, and that you have correctly ascertained the kind of content that your target demographic wants to see on Instagram.
If you have a very low engagement rate, then this could indicate a discrepancy between what you are posting and what your followers want to, or are expecting to, see. This could also be a sign that you’ve purchased followers that stem from bot accounts rather than real accounts, with these bots boosting your follower count but contributing little else to your Instagram reputation and profile.
So, it seems fair to conclude that engagement rate is a good indicator of the quality of your Instagram followers and how engaged they are with what you are posting.
How to Increase Your Engagement Rate
A “good” engagement rate will vary depending on your industry and what you are wanting to achieve through your Instagram. If you purely use the platform to boost your business as a form of supplementary marketing, then the chances are that you aren’t funnelling too many resources into the platform and so a low engagement rate isn’t the end of the world.
If, however, you are a sole Instagram influencer and rely on your community to bolster your reputation and profile, then a low engagement rate can be a problem.
If you want to increase your engagement rate and ensure that you are achieving the right balance between a high quantity of followers and a high quality of followers, here are a few tips to try…
- Get to know your followers and what they want to see, by using polls and Q&As in your stories
- Create content which lends itself to engagement and to comments – and ask for comments and feedback in your captions!
- Use analytics to learn the best time to post for your audience, so as to maximise the chance of followers first seeing your content, and then engaging
- Make your content shareable – creating yet another avenue through which potential new followers could find your profile and your content
Above all, if engagement is something that you’re concerned with or you want to optimise the quality of your followers, then you need to focus on producing and sharing valuable content. If content is thrown together with little regard for its purpose, followers are not going to engage with it – you have to give them a reason to engage and interact with you.
We hope this is helpful and inspires you to revisit the importance of engagement across your Instagram profile!
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