What is Instagram engagement?
Engagement is all about the interest that the content you are sharing receives. People who engage with your content have a number of ways of showing their interest:
- Like
- Comment
- Save
This applies to Instagram rid posts as well as stories (for stories you can add share as well)
- Like – someone has either double taped or clicked on the heart symbol below the image
- Comment – someone has written a comment on your post – it can be short (just ane emjoi or longer)
- Save – someones has saved the post, by clicking on the book mark icon (on the far right under the image) for a metric this is the number of unique accounts that have your post
- Impressions are – the number of times that all of your posts have been seen
How do you measure engagement on Instagram?
There are a number of ways to measure it, which can cause confusion, it’ best to pick one method and stick with it.
For me, it depends on whether you want to be able to benchmark your engagement rate with other accounts and with data that is freely available.
For other accounts, you can clearly see the number of likes, comments and followers. But you can’t see saves or impressions.
Option 1: Using your Instagram Followers
Within this method, there are two schools of thought – whether you should include saves or not. Hence showing an a and a b:
- Total up the number of likes and comments that a post achieved
Engagement Rate = (Likes + comments) / Followers x 100
Tip: you might be a fan of this method as you can use it to benchmark against other accounts as this data is available to all to see. (Saved data is not visible to others)
- Total up the number of likes, comments and saves that a post achieved.
Engagement Rate = (likes + comments + saves ) / Followers x 100
Option 2: Using your Instagram Impressions
Using impressions instead of followers is supposed to give you a more accurate view of how your content and account is performing with your audience as impressions is the number of times your content was actually seen. YOu might have a lot of followers, but it doesn’t mean that they have all seen your content.
Again there are two options, whether you include saves or not.
- Total up the number of likes and comments that a post achieved
Engagement rate = (likes + comments) / Impressions x 100
- Total up the number of likes, comments and saves that a post achieved.
Engagement Rate = (likes + comments + saves ) / Impressions x 100
TIP: If you are using a scheduling tool, the tool will calculate the engagement rate for you. So tools like Later or Agorpluse for example. But t his won’t allow you to benchmark with other accounts.
TIP if you are looking at the insights in Facebook or Twitter natively – they will show you the engagement rate.
How to build engagement on Instagram
To build up engagement you need to be consistent. That doesn’t mean that you need to be posting every day, but you need to be posting regularly and with quality content.
Here are my 5 tips to build engagement eerie day that you post:
📌 Find 5 new accounts and follow them (remember to comment on their content)
📌 Respond to 5 Instagram stories
📌 Share your 5 favourite Instagram posts to your story (include why you’ve shared – don’t just blindly share)
📌 Engage with a minimum of 5 posts from your followers (like, comment and save) – ideally more
📌 Respond to ALL comments on your posts, to any, mentions and DMs.
Remember It is social media, so be social.
TIP: block out time around your scheduled content so you are engaging before, during and after your content has gone live.
What next?
If you need any further help then, please get in touch I’m more than happy to arrange a 121 or bespoke training with your or your team.
To get access to regular tips, come and follow me on Instagram – you can find me here
To read my other blog posts, you can find them here
by Marianne Avery
Marianne is a social media consultant who works with small businesses to help them navigate the world of social media. To find out more about how Marianne can help you click here.
