It’s a simple question with a complicated answer: how is Instagram engagement rate calculated?
To find your Instagram engagement rate, you’ll need to divide your engagement by either your followers or impressions.
So why the debate?
Well, the problem is that there are actually several ways of calculating engagement rate. And when it comes to the
“best” method… well, it really depends on who you ask!
Let’s start with the engagement part.
While most people calculate engagement by adding likes and comments, others believe that it should also include the
number of times a post was saved.
There’s also the ever-present question of whether comments and likes should be treated equally. As in, does one comment
equal one like in terms of engagement?
The reason this comes up is because some accounts get tons and tons of comments and only a hundred or so likes, while
other accounts get thousands of likes and only a handful of comments. If comments and likes are considered equal, then
the account that gets lots of comments but fewer likes would be at disadvantage engagement rate-wise.
And the complication doesn’t stop there!
By far the biggest disagreement when it comes to calculating Instagram engagement rate is whether it should be a
function of your total number of followers or total impressions.
So where does that leave us? Is there a tried-and-true method for calculating Instagram engagement rate? Is one version
better than the rest?
Below, we compare the 3 most popular methods of calculating engagement rate on Instagram, looking at their strengths and
weaknesses, and why some methods are better in certain situations:
The first option for calculating your Instagram engagement rate is to divide your total
number of likes and comments by
your follower count, and then multiply by 100 to give you a percentage.
Engagement Rate = (Likes + Comments) / Followers x 100
What’s great about this method is that because the data used in the calculation is
publicly available, it’s easy to
benchmark against other accounts.
That’s exactly why Breanne Thomas, a social and content strategist, prefers to use
followers.
“I know impressions would give a more accurate percent for my own brand, but I’m often
comparing where we’re at among
the competitive set and it wouldn’t be fair to use a different formula for the calculations,” she says.
This is a pretty common argument for using followers over impressions. If you’re trying
to compare your engagement rate
to your competitors, using followers is really your best and only option.
The same is true if you’re evaluating the engagement rate of a potential influencer
partner.
The second option is to divide your total likes and comments by your impressions, and then multiply by 100 to get a
percentage.
Engagement Rate = (Likes + Comments) / Impressions x 100
This method is slightly more accurate because it takes into account the total number of people who actually saw your
posts rather than your total number of followers (many of whom probably didn’t see your posts!).
Basically, by using impressions instead of followers you get a better overall understanding of the number of people who
saw and chose to either engage or not engage with your posts, which is essentially the definition of engagement rate.
Of course, since only you can see your account’s impressions (and you have to switch to an Instagram business profile to
see it), it’s pretty much impossible to compare your engagement rate to others using this method.
A third option is to use “true engagement” when calculating your engagement rate, which includes not just likes and
comments but also the number of times your posts were saved.
Engagement Rate = (Likes + Comments + Saved) / Impressions x 100
What’s great about this method is that because the data used in the calculation is
publicly available, it’s easy to
benchmark against other accounts.
