Engagement rate refers to the percentage of an audience that interacts with a particular post, advertisement, or content piece. It essentially is a measure of how successful a piece of content was in engaging its viewers. Engagement rates are especially important for marketers and businesses because they can be used to assess the success of their campaigns and calculate ROI.
The engagement rate is determined by calculating the number of interactions (likes, shares, comments, etc) divided by the total reach (number of people who were exposed to the post). This gives an indication as to how many people engaged with the post on a given platform. For example, if 100 people were exposed to your post and 20 people liked it, commented on it, or shared it then your engagement rate would be 20%.
Common benchmarks for engagement rates vary across platforms and industries, but generally speaking you should aim for a higher rate than average. For example, according to Sprout Social’s 2019 benchmark report an engagement rate of 0.2-0.5% is common for Twitter while 0.33-1% is typical for Instagram posts. On Facebook posts, engagement rates between 2-6% are considered good but this can vary depending on industry and type of content posted.
Aside from assessing overall campaign performance, tracking trends in engagement rates over time can help marketers identify what content works best with their particular audience and adjust strategies accordingly. Engagement rate also provides insight into how audiences interact with different types of content such as videos versus images or long-form articles versus shorter posts which can help brands create better content in the future that resonates even more with their followers. This data can also be used to inform decisions about budgeting for different types of campaigns and evaluating ROI in terms of user interaction rather than just clicks or sales numbers alone.
