Instagram has been ranked as the second most popular social media platform globally. Studies have shown that about 13% of the world’s population is very active on social media platform.
People come to share their photos and videos on the platform, and their followers can view, like, and comment on any post they like.
Brands are taking their businesses online to interact with Instagram users interested in their products and services. Statistics have proven that Instagram is like a goldmine for businesses and entrepreneurs.
Instagram is a great way to effectively connect with your target audience and prospective customers who do not reside in your respective location. 80% of Instagram users follow at least a business on the social media platform.
About 72% of those users are bound to purchase a product that they see online.
This is why many people are concerned about followers and how many people like their posts. The real factor to be worried about on Instagram is your engagement rate.
We will be explaining what Instagram engagement is, how to calculate it, and tips to help you enhance your engagement rate on the social media platform so as to move your business to the next level on Instagram.
There’s a lot of ground to successfully cover in this article, so let’s begin.
What’s an Instagram Engagement Rate?
You’ve probably heard about Instagram engagement rates, and you’ve wondered what they are and how it works. To put it simply, Instagram engagement rate is the sum up of the like and comments each post of yours get.
The number is then divided by the followers you have. Instagram engagement rates are accurate metrics to keep an eye out for.
It helps you to learn just how frequently your followers actually interact with the content you post.
Being aware of your Instagram engagement rates will help you direct your focus on important data rather than channeling your efforts into vanity metrics like how many followers you have at any moment.
Why it Matters
There are many varying reasons why you should care about your engagement rate and keep an eye out for it. Below are some crucial reasons why having a good engagement rate matters if you use Instagram for business.
- Helps You Determine Audience Interest
If your target audience finds your Instagram posts appealing, you’re sure to get a higher engagement rate from such a post. When you review your Instagram posts to determine which has the highest Instagram rate, you will find which topics, graphics, and messages your audience are most interested in. This would help you plan out your Instagram strategy armed with the knowledge of what your target audience is more interested in buying from or working with in the future.
- Improves Your Brand Relevance
One way to improve your brand’s relevance is to keep an eye on the engagement rate. Compare the engagement rate between months and between years. It will give you a definite idea of when your audience’s sentiments are changing and when your engagement rate is beginning to grow. Monitoring your Instagram engagement rate will help you keep your brand’s relevance by pointing out when your strategy works and when things need to change.
- It Serves as a Social Proof
When new customers learn about your brand, they might check out your engagement rate before purchasing your product or service. Potential clients are not the only ones who keep an eye on your engagement rate; other brands, influencers, and prospective partners check out your engagement rate as social proof before they propose to partner with your business. When you have a high engagement rate, it shows that you attract loyal and satisfied customers. If your Instagram account has many followers but a low engagement rate, people might think your followers are not real, which could significantly hurt your credibility on the social media platform.
How To Calculate Instagram Engagement Rate
The formula for calculating Instagram engagement differs according to brand and influencers. However, brands can also use the common formula used by Influencers. Simply pick a formula and then stick to it to facilitate consistency.
To calculate the Instagram engagement rate by reach for brands, simply add the number of likes and comments for a post, divide it by reach, and multiply by 100.
For influencers, you can calculate your engagement rate by the audience. Simply add up the likes and comments for posts, divide by the number of followers you have, and then multiply by 100. The equation looks at this:
Likes + comments
________________________________ X 100
Total number of followers/Reach
To help you understand this formula better, let’s consider an example; this would simplify the process and help you find your own Instagram engagement rate.
John has 60,000 followers on Instagram and gets about 800 likes and 56 comments for a post. In line with the equation provided above, we need to add the likes and comments together.
That makes it a total of 856, which is the engagement rate. To determine John’s engagement rate, the engagement, which is 856, is then divided by the number of followers John has (60,000).
856 ÷ 60,000 = 0.0143
The result gotten is then multiplied by 100 to get the engagement rate.
0.0143 x 100 = 1.43
This shows that John has an engagement rate of 1.43 percent.
Calculating your Instagram engagement rate is quite easy, and the calculation is also just as simple. However, marketers, influencers, and entrepreneurs need to familiarize themselves with the process to be able to calculate it at any time.
Getting the data needed to calculate the engagement; you can do this through two different processes, and they are stated below:
Using the Native Instagram Insight
Note that Instagram insight is only available to businesses and accounts that have high engagement on their accounts.
To get your engagement using insights, open the Instagram app and go to your profile by clicking on the profile icon at the lower right corner of the screen.
You can find the insight icon at the top of the page. Click on it and format it to view posts for the period you would like to monitor, like the week before or a month.
Write out the reach, comments, and likes for the posts you want to calculate the engagement rate for. You could record it in a Google sheet to be able to access the information later.
Also, take note of the number of followers you have and then use the formula provided above to calculate the engagement rate.
Using a Social Media Dashboard
There are various social media management apps online that you can use to manage various social media platforms and save yourself time and stress. Download one and after entering your Instagram login details.
Navigate to Reports and select ‘content reports.’ Select the time frame you would like to view and then export the report sheet to a CSV.
Download the file and then add up the columns at once. Once you add up the column, use any of the formulae to calculate your Instagram engagement rate.
What’s A Good Engagement Rate On Instagram?
Now that you have successfully calculated your Instagram engagement rate, you’re probably wondering if you have a good engagement rate or your engagement rate needs to be improved.
You need to note that there is no universally good engagement rate; it depends on many factors. One way to find out if your engagement rate is good is to compare it with your competition;
this is because what works for one brand might not be the benchmark for another brand.
To determine what numbers actually means and whether it is good for your business or brand, below is an industry guideline that you can use to determine whether your result is good or needs improvement
- Less than 1% = a low engagement rate
- 1% – 3.5% = a good engagement rate
- 3.5% – 6% = a high engagement rate
- Above 6% = very high engagement rate
There are industries where the average engagement rate falls between 1% and 5%. To determine what works for your industry accurately, you need to do ample research, but the industry guideline shared above serves as a good baseless to measure your engagement rate.
There has been a decrease in engagement rates in recent times, so bear in mind that these rates are not set in stone. Sometimes, having an engagement rate of 0.80%.
Bear in mind that different things influence the engagement rate of a post on Instagram. The post’s timing and how frequently the account holder makes posts on the social media platform can affect the engagement rate.
The number of followers, content shared, and the message being passed can also determine the post’s engagement.
The Instagram algorithm also comes into play as it comes with limitations that might affect your engagement rate.
However, engagement rate is a vital metric to note when choosing the brand and influencer to work with or to partner within a campaign.
After calculating your brand’s engagement rate, endeavor you take the necessary steps to ensure accuracy. First, you need to confirm the engagement rate derived from your industry and ensure you are using the same formula as competitors in your industry.
You also need to sustain a healthy perspective. If you have a good engagement rate on Instagram, you need to strive to achieve higher engagement rates and keep up with changes in your industry’s engagement rates.
How to Increase Your Instagram Engagement Rate
Now that you’re well aware of your engagement and what the benchmark for your industry is, the next question becomes how to increase your Instagram engagement rate.
We’ll be sharing top tips that can help you increase your Instagram engagement rates. It doesn’t matter if your Instagram engagement rate is low or on the high side; these tips work well for all accounts.
Check out the strategies provided below and ensure you take advantage of them to increase your Instagram engagement rates significantly.
- Post at the Ideal Time and Regularly.
Are you posting at a time when your Instagram users are not online? That might explain your low engagement rate. The best method to improve your engagement rate is to make posts when your Instagram followers are online and upload regularly. One way to determine the best time to post is to check the audience tab on Instagram insight. This will provide you with information on what time and days your Instagram users are online. You can also use your social management app to get this information and accessing audience data in the reports section.
Now that you’re aware when they’ll be online ensure you make regular posts. If you’re posting regularly or multiple times a day, it will increase engagement with your audience. At the same time, quantity doesn’t equal quality. Irregular posts can discourage your followers from engaging with your account. However, take care not to overdo this action and overwhelm your users.
- Utilize the Right Hashtags
Whether you’re a fan of hashtags or not, they can help increase your Instagram engagement rate. Using the right hashtag can connect you with the largest audience and draw prospective customers to your account. When an Instagram user searches for a hashtag and sees your post, they could resonate with the post and follow you to see more of your posts. The highest number of hashtag you can use on each post is 30, but you can use lesser than the stipulated number. Ensure that you use a mix of hashtags like popular, niche-related, and branded hashtag to enhance your reach and promote engagement.
You can put a hashtag strategy in place to ensure you’re not just throwing hashtags at your followers that might not work for you. Make sure the hashtags you use on every post is relevant to the post. The Instagram algorithm takes note of these factors to help rank your post-high on searches and might not look favorably on your post. Aim for a strong community or an audience that’s focused on your industry and use hashtags that connects you to them
- Engage Other Accounts To Grow Your Followers
While uploading great content works well to improve engagement, remember it is a social media platform and therefore requires you to socialize with other accounts. Instead of simply making posts and just replying to comments on your post, you also need to make the extra effort to interact with other accounts. Check out influencers, fans, peers, and other relevant accounts to your brand and engage with their content. Not only does it grow a sense of loyalty on their side, but their audience will also take note of your engagement, and this might get you new fans.
It is a great strategy that could organically increase your followers and improve your engagement rate at the same time. This is because new followers tend to engage more than old followers. They are also presented with multiple of your posts when they first begin to follow you to have an idea of the kind of content to expect from you and help them engage with you easily.
- Make Use of CTAs (Call to Actions)
If you don’t have a call to action on your post, it might be the reason why your posts are not getting as much engagement as you would want. It could simply be a call to like a post if they agree with the message the Instagram post is passing, or it could be a call to comment on their view or answer to a question. When you invite your followers to take action on a post, it is an opportunity that increases your engagement. You could also ask them to check the link in your bio to check out similar products or content.
You can also add CTAs to your Instagram stories to increase engagement on that end. This could be replies and reactions, but it allows you to engage your followers and build relationships with them. Instagram stories allow you to add polls, quizzes, and several other interactive buttons to your polls that could help you increase your engagement. Starting from your next posts, ensure you add a call to action that fit your brand and get that engagement rate soaring.
- Collaboration Works
You can also try collaborating with other brands and influencers; it helps to improve your engagement rate. One strategy you can explore is partnering with a brand that provides complementary products or services to what you offer. This gives you access to a new set of audiences that are most likely eager to engage with your account. Your partner, which could be an influencer or brand, gets to talk you up to their followers who already trust you and are willing to learn more of what they have to say about you. This strategy takes into account the loyalty of Instagram followers; you only need to find the right partner that matches your goal, and it could be a great way to boost your engagement rate.
One idea you can try out is running a competition together or swapping stories for a day. You, however, need to make sure that the audience and goal are aligned. If you know your audience would be interested in your partner, then that’s a sign you should go ahead with such a partnership. Ensure that you outline the goal of a partnership before kicking off a collaboration. However, the right collaboration will effectively boost your number of followers and your engagement rate at the same time.
- Understand Your Audience
You cannot just be creating content and hoping it aligns with what your audience wants. Get to understand your audience to figure out what works for them and what doesn’t. You can check out statistics to get a clear idea a couple of times every year. If you do not understand your audience’s various personalities, there’s no way to increase your engagement rate. However, knowing what your followers are interested in will help you create content that they will engage in. Make use of Instagram insight to get a clear understanding of your audience. Explore the audience tab on the insight menu. It will present you with information about your audience age range, gender, and top location.
When you have this information, it can help you better understand your audience and what they’re looking for. While you’re also working hard to know your audience and provide content that suits their preference, ensure that your content is accessible to your audience by utilizing all the accessibility tools provided by the social media platform.
- Improve Your Captions
Sometimes, the right caption is all you need to draw attention to your post and increase your engagement rate. If your caption is not catchy, your audience might just scroll past your post without engaging or responding to your content in any way. Some people do not even use any caption when they make posts; this only works if you have already garnered millions of followers. One way to get the right caption to improve your engagement rate is to generate a brand voice and stick to it for consistency. Ensure that your brand voice is generated with your audience in mind. This could be serious short captions or something that lightens the moods.
You can also try out long captions that tell stories that capture your audience’s attention. This is because the Instagram algorithm also factors how long people stay on your posts; this is used to calculate the engagement metric. You could experiment with long and short captions to see which one works best for your target audience. Your caption could also be a call to action that will invite engagement on your post and improve the engagement rate.
- Mix Up Your Content
Don’t be scared to switch things up. Sometimes, the fact that you post the same kind of thing consistently could bore your audience and reduce your engagement on a post. Instagram has evolved and lets you post more than just photos; take full advantage of the features made available to increase your engagement rate. You can mix things up and add videos to your feed; this could be story videos, reels, live videos, posts, or even IGTV. Include it all and use it strategically. You can also use user-generated content on your post or Instagram memes that relate to your brand. Ensure that you check the engagement rate for every post you publish with a new kind of content to see how your audience likes the new content. Look out for patterns, and this will provide you with an idea of the right content-mix for your followers.
FAQs
- What is the average accepted Instagram engagement rate? This varies from industry to industry, but most industries accept 1% – 3% as the average percentage for the Instagram engagement rate.
- Can Instagram stories improve engagement? Yes, there are many features available to explore in Instagram stories that you could use to engage with your audience and increase your engagement rate on the platform.
- What is the ideal time to make posts on Instagram? Research has shown that making posts from 11 am-1 pm is usually the best time. You can schedule posts to be uploaded by this time if you don’t think you would be available to improve the engagement rate.
Conclusion
The engagement rate is important for brands and businesses. You also need to ensure you get good engagement rates to determine your brand relevance and how your content is performing.
The formula provided below helps measure and determine if your post is doing well enough based on your industry guidelines.
Implement these tips as strategies for your Instagram posts and analyze if they’re working for you. One or two of these tips are bound to boost your Instagram engagement rate significantly.