Everything You Need To Know About Engagement Rates

jross

May 7, 2021 (Updated: May 4, 2023)

People presenting to an audience that is fully engaged

Engagement rate matters in everyone’s social media or content marketing campaign. It can tell you a lot. But most importantly, it tells you if your audience even cares about the content you’re producing. Low engagement means low interest. Low interest means that you might need to change up your strategy. Depending on what you’re trying to accomplish, there are different types of engagement metrics that influencers and companies use to check their engagement level. In this article, we discuss:

What Is Engagement Rate?
Types of Engagement Metrics
Engagement Rate Calculation
How To Boost Your Content’s Engagement Rate

What Is Engagement Rate?

Image via Pexels by Anna Nekrashevich

Engagement rate is a measure of the frequency with which your audience or account followers are interacting with your content. Companies determine the rate of engagement based on different metrics. These metrics include things such as comments, likes, and clicks. Though companies most often refer to social media when discussing engagement rates, it can apply to all areas of content marketing. Every piece of content you create and upload to the internet has different engagement metrics. That includes social media posts, as well as blogs, articles, and eBooks.

That’s why it’s just as important to monitor your website’s engagement as it is to measure the engagement of your social media pages. If you’re unsure which of your blog posts or articles are most popular with your target audience, you won’t be able to develop a winning marketing strategy. At CopyPress, we measure the success of your campaign and help you make adjustments to ensure our content attracts your target audience. We work with you to develop a brand voice and content style that increases engagement with your target audience.

Types of Engagement Metrics

Understanding and combining different engagement metrics is a great way to learn and identify what your company needs in order to achieve its goals. For example, a blog with a lot of views but a low click-through rate isn’t necessarily bad. It all depends on the content’s intention. If its intention was to generate brand awareness or continue to build a community, it might be accomplishing its goal. But if you wanted to capture conversions through a call-to-action, you might need to try a different strategy.

If you’re looking for social media data, most social media sites have a business section where you can view a post’s metrics, including reach, clicks, and comments. If you’re creating other content, like blogs and articles, consider using tools like Google Analytics to track your website’s engagement. There are different types of engagement metrics that you can use when measuring the results of your marketing campaigns. Those metrics include:

1. Content Reach

If your focus is on building brand awareness, it’s helpful to look at your content’s views and reach. Reach calculates how many total people viewed your post or piece of content. That includes your current audience, as well as others who found your content through other means, such as through shares, hashtags, or organic search results. Generally, the brands with more reach have higher brand awareness.

2. Comments and Discussion

Depending on how you developed your website or which social media platform you use, it’s possible people can leave comments on your content. Comments are an excellent way to judge engagement and determine what people think of your blogs, articles, or posts. It’s also a great way to start a discussion with your target audience. That can help improve brand loyalty and allow you to develop feedback on your company’s products and services.

3. Likes and Follows

Most social media platforms allow people to like your content or follow your account. As you generate these two metrics, you can improve your brand awareness and show your content to more people. The more likes your post receives, the higher chance it has to reach other people. The more followers you have, the more reputable your brand can seem compared to others in your industry.

Follows are also important for blogs and other content you post on your website. Your audience can often subscribe to your blog and have it notify them when you upload another post. Accruing these types of followers can ensure that more people see your content and give you a better idea about your audience’s size.

4. Referrals and Shares

When people share your content with others, it can show you how much they appreciate it. Most often, people share content they find interesting or valuable. For example, if you write a blog post on current industry news, people might share that because it’s relevant and trending. Otherwise, if you write a social media post that announces a new product or service release, people might share that with family or friends because it’s exciting news.

5. Clicks and Conversions

One of the main reasons people use content marketing is to convert their audience into customers by enticing them with useful information paired with calls to action. That’s why it’s important for some companies to track how many clicks or conversions their content receives. This helps them understand if their calls to action were effective and if their conversion rate is currently meeting their goals. Setting up points of conversion can include asking your readers to sign up for a newsletter, download additional content, or make a purchase.

Engagement Rate Calculation

Companies can calculate different rates of engagement by dividing the total engagement by their total number of followers or audience members, then multiplying by 100 to turn the calculation into a percentage. Here’s the formula:

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

Total engagement refers to the total number of interactions a company generates on its content. So, depending on the platform, that can include shares, comments, likes, or retweets. For instance, total engagement on Facebook would comprise the total amount of shares, likes, comments, and reactions. In contrast, the total engagement for your blog might refer to the total amount of likes, comments, and follows, depending on the platform. However, companies can use the general rate of engagement formula and change it depending on what they want to measure. Those different formulas include:

1. Engagement Rate by Reach (ERR)

This measures the percentage of your audience who chose to engage with your content after seeing it.

ERR = Total Engagement Per Post / Reach Per Post X 100

You can calculate the average engagement rate by reach as:

Average ERR = Total ERR / Total Posts x 100

This can be a more accurate measurement since not all current audience members will see your content, and some new members may see your content through shares or hashtags. However, the reach can fluctuate due to several reasons, making it difficult to control and measure.

2. Engagement Rate by Post

This method measures engagement compared to the current audience on a specific piece of content or post. It indicates the rate at which followers engage with your content.

ER Post = Total engagements on a Post / Total Followers x 100

You can achieve the average by adding up all the ER posts divided by the total number of posts. For example:

3.0% (Post One) + 2.0% (Post Two) / 2 = 2.5%

If your reach keeps on fluctuating, use this method to measure your content by post engagement more accurately.

3. Engagement Rate by Impressions

Engagement rate by impressions is most effective when measuring social media. It tracks how often your content appears on someone’s screen. This differs from reach, depending on what social media platform you use. But most often, reach determines the number of unique views your content receives, and impression determines how many times in total people saw your content.

ER Impressions = Total Engagements on a Post / Total Impressions x 100

Average ER Impressions = Total ER Impressions / Total Posts x 100

This method is beneficial if you are running a paid content advertisement and assessing how effective it is considering the number of appearances.

4. Daily Engagement Rate

The daily engagement rate gives you a sense of how often your followers interact with your account or content daily.

Daily ER = Total Engagement in a Day / Total Followers x 100

Average Daily ER = Total Engagement for Y Days / (Y Days x Followers) x 100

This formula is suitable for assessing how often your audience engages with your account because it takes old and new posts into consideration. However, this method does not consider that an audience member may engage five times in a day versus five followers engaging once.

5. Engagement Rate by Views

If video is your primary form of content creation, it’s good to know how many people interact with your videos after viewing them.

ER View = Total Engagements on a Video Post / Total Video Views x 100

Average ER view = Total ER views / Total posts x 100

If one of your video’s objectives is to generate engagement, this might be a great way to keep track of it. However, it’s also possible that a viewer may watch a video multiple times but never engage with it further. So, it’s important to understand that the calculation may have some faults.

How To Boost Your Content’s Engagement Rate

Here is a list of steps to help you boost your content’s engagement rate and improve your brand awareness:

1. Make It a Conversation

Don’t just throw your content into the world, then sit back and relax. Allow your audience to have a back-and-forth interaction with you. Include questions or a call to action and encourage your audience to comment or reach out to your company. This can help your audience communicate with you more openly. If others choose to reply, your audience can also communicate with one another. Respond to some comments and encourage further discussion. Creating a conversation can help you interact with your audience and get them excited about other content you post or publish in the future.

2. Post Consistently

The internet favors active users. Whether you’re publishing on social media or your own website, frequent posting will help get your content to a larger audience. It also shows your audience that your brand is active and worth following. Depending on the platform you use, it might be better to post at certain times of the day, and multiple times a day. Conduct research into the best times to post to your website and on social media. Then, use that information to create the most engagement for your content.

It’s also helpful to create a schedule that details what’s in each post or piece of content and when you’re going to publish them. If you create the schedule on a shareable spreadsheet, this can help you and your marketing team work together to create a stronger marketing campaign.

3. Listen to Your Audience

If you want to boost your engagement rate, analyze your content to see what resonates with your audience. Once you know what kind of content is getting more engagement, you can start to plan and deliver more content in that style. Even if the results surprise you, it’s better to focus on the content your audience wants to see versus what you already have planned.

To analyze your content, work out the engagement rate for each of your posts within a week or a month and take notes on which posts have the highest engagement rate. Then, try to focus your future content creation on those same topics, styles, or types of content. If your audience prefers to read more blog articles than Facebook posts, move your marketing strategy toward what’s most effective.

Checking the engagement rate is very important while analyzing the quality and performance of your content. If your content is underperforming, it’s important to change your marketing strategies in order to boost your outreach and conversion rate. Need help creating eye-catching content your audience wants to engage with? CopyPress has a team of creatives that know how to develop high-quality content that attracts your target audience. Schedule a free call with us today to see how we can help boost your content marketing campaign.