This is the second part of a Two-Part Social Media Series that teaches you how to calculate your Engagement Rate. Engagement Rates vary by which metrics you choose to use to analyze your account. I am going to go over the 3 Engagement Rates that I created for my Instagram Engagement Rate Calculator. There are others you can use but I felt that these were the most important 3 and the ones I checked literally daily. I know, I know. I am a bit impatient. Trust me. When you have worked so hard on your account, and this happens to you, it is unbelievably stressful. If you do not know what happened to me, I go into detail in the first part of my Two-Part Social Media Series. I encourage you to start with the first part of the series which helps you understand why it is so important to do your own calculations versus depending on software and other websites. Here is the link: https://lifewithdenise.com/2022/07/how-to-get-rid-of-bots-and-fake-followers/
So, if you are here, and you are going through this, it IS GOING TO BE OKAY. You will get through this hurdle, but you need to act diligently.
Now, back to the 3 Types of Engagement Rates that this tool calculates for you.
The 3 Types of Engagement Rates I Find the Most Useful
1.) ER by Reach
This calculates your ER (engagement rate) by how many people your account was seen by. This is important because Instagrams algorithm only shows your content to a percentage of your followers. These followers are usually the more engaged ones. Therefore, there are many followers that are NOT seeing your content. Calculating your ER based on your reach means those who have actually SEEN your content. This allows you to get a better understanding of how engaged your audience is.
I came across this issue when I placed an ad campaign on one of my posts. When you place ads on your posts, or use hashtags, your content is now being seen by an audience that is NOT following you. So, what does this mean? This means that when your posts are going viral due to your hashtags or being seen by a larger audience due to your ads, using the ER by Reach metric will be more accurate.
Let me explain with an example. You have 10,000 followers, but your post was seen by 30,000 people, due to hashtags and/or ad(s). Then the ER will be much different when calculated by 30,000 people than by 10,000.
Therefore, this is a great way to show brands that your posts have a farther reach than they may think due to the placement of ads and/or hashtags.
2) ER by Followers
As you may have already assumed, this calculates your ER by how many followers you have. It is the most common way to calculate your ER because of how easy it is. When people ask what your ER is, this is most likely the rate they are wanting.
However, if you have a BETTER rate by Reach, I would want the brand(s) to know this. And I would most likely include that ER, as well, when communicating with them.
3) Daily ER
The last ER that I want to be able to calculate accurately is the Daily Engagement Rate. This gives me an idea of how my content is performing daily.
So, how does this Instagram Engagement Rate Calculator work?
It is very simple. Just plug in your numbers. Your reach can be found under Insights in your Instagram account. Everything else you can just add up manually and plug into the calculator.
It may seem a bit cumbersome. Many of you will want it done for you. And so, many of you will turn to those websites that do not have access to all your Instagram data and receive very inaccurate results.
Or, you can use this Instagram Engagement Rate Calculator. Plug in all the relevant information that ONLY YOU have. And you will get a TRUE Engagement Rate for your account. For the time period in days, I always enter 30. This gives me the monthly ER. Feel free to play with these numbers though.
In your Instagram account, your Insights will allow you to filter your data by different time periods in days. These are: 7, 14, 30, and 90 days. You can use that information when plugging it into the calculator so long as you change the time period to match. It is that simple!
If you guys have any trouble, feel free to reach out to me or leave a comment below. I will help you as much as I can. Alternatively, you can also reach out to me on my Instagram, @realdenisewilliams. I am pretty active on there as well.
I hope this helps you guys out as much as it helps me out!
xoxo, Denise
