And how doing so will help you stand out when competing for sponsored deals
Photo by Volkan Olmez on Unsplash
Measuring Instagram engagement rates for business-related decisions in influencer marketing, content creation, algorithm-optimization, and advertising is crucial, but how exactly should we measure it, and why is it so important? Let?s break it down.
Engagement is the most important metric on Instagram because it tells you how strongly an audience cares about the content (and that?s how you make money).
When building a business on Instagram, everything you do should be focused on 1. maximizing the number of people who look at your content and 2. care enough about it to take action whenever you ask them to do anything (tap, click, buy, comment, share, think, etc.).
You can buy or hack your way to millions of people looking at your content, but if none or a very low percentage of them care enough about it to engage with it (like, comment, share, save, repost, etc.), then how can you expect them to make the even more involved step of visiting your website, or buying your products, or donating to your charity, or being interested in the products you promote? You can?t (and you shouldn?t).
You, I, and most other people look at hundreds of posts on Instagram, but we usually only ?like,? comment, share, save, or buy the ones that we care about. The posts that we don?t care about, we tend to ignore. We also tend to engage the most with the posts from the people we care about the most.
Being able to create content that generates real engagement is the first necessary step to driving traffic and creating monetary value on Instagram (traffic = people who are interested in buying your product = sales = monetary value).
Finding and onboarding the most highly engaged influencers on Instagram is how we grew Depop in America and how I growth hacked my Instagram account to make a living from it. Btw, have you every asked yourself if your Instagram is actually even worth growing? If not, you should. It might help save you a whole bunch of time and energy. It?s not worth it for everyone?
That?s why highly engaged influencers on Instagram are getting larger paying contracts than content creators who only have a large follower number, but not high engagement. All things equal, out of two Instagram content creators with the same amount of followers, the one with the higher engagement will drive better results because a larger percentage of their audience takes action when viewing their content. That?s why you want to have the highest engagement possible on your account or pay to be tagged by influencers who do if you intend to make money on Instagram.
Here?s how you measure engagement properly:
1. Calculate the Average Number of Likes in Posts Four through Ten
To measure engagement properly, you want to know an account?s current engagement, not its historic one. That?s why you calculate the average number of likes on an account?s posts four through ten. These are the posts that generally give you the best indication of its current engagement during the past week or two. To calculate, you add the number of likes in posts four through ten and divide that number by seven.
Why measure posts 4?10 and not more or less? You want to measure current engagement, and posts four through ten are the posts that, in general, give you the best indication of an account?s engagement in the past week or two. Posts one to three tend to have been posted recently, which means that they are still getting likes on home feeds, and you won?t get a realistic measurement of engagement by using those. Posts 11 and older tend to have been posted weeks before the time of measurement, which means that they represent the engagement the account generated in the past, but not necessarily currently. Why measure likes and not comments? Right about now you?re probably asking yourself ?why should we measure likes and not comments? Aren?t likes easily bought?? Yes, likes are easily bought, but so are comments. And one bought comment will make a much bigger difference in manipulating engagement rate than one bought like, since there?s a much smaller number of comments than likes on the platform. This makes likes generally much more complicated to manipulate consistently over time in comparison to comments. Also, average like engagement metrics on Instagram are readily available, which allows us to know what high or low like engagement is, in comparison to other accounts (more on this later). There is no such engagement data for comments, which makes it a less useful metric when comparing.
If the account that you?re measuring posts more than once per day, you should calculate it by measuring posts 4?15 and dividing that number by 12. By taking into account a larger number of posts, you?ll be measuring closer to one week?s worth of engagement (since they post more often).
2. Divide the Average Number of Likes on Posts Four Through Ten by the Total Number of Followers:
Once you have the average number of likes in post four through ten, you divide that number by the total number of followers of the account, and you get the engagement rate.
By doing this, you?re technically measuring the average number of followers who cared enough about that account?s content over the past couple of weeks to take action and like their posts.
The higher the engagement, the larger the percentage of their audience cares enough about the content to take action. The higher the likelihood that they are willing to click, follow, or buy something tagged in their posts, the higher the value.
Here?s a guide to understanding what is good and bad engagement on Instagram:
I wouldn?t expect any significant value driven from Instagram accounts with 12% or less engagement.
Knowing this, if you are paying an influencer to promote your brand/product/account, I recommend that you work with someone who has at least 12% engagement. They are much harder to find (here?s an article on how to find the most valuable influencers), but they are in the top 1% of most highly engaged accounts on Instagram and the most likely to give you the highest return per dollar spent. In the same line, if you are a content creator, you should aim to have at least 12% engagement (and over 15K followers) to be able to charge top dollar now and in the future. With the amount of content competition on Instagram, accounts in this tier are the most likely to be able to build long-term highly valuable businesses.
3. Make Sure the Engagement Isn?t Artificially Manipulated
Last but not least, if you?re calculating engagement rates to make decisions regarding influencer marketing or potential partnerships, it?s important to make sure that the numbers you?re measuring aren?t artificially manipulated.
To do that, first, check their comments to see if they seem to have a high percentage of pod-related or Instagram bot-like accounts leaving inauthentic comments (pods are commonly used by influencers to artificially raise engagement rates). You can also use Social Blade to check for inexplicable and frequent spikes in follower growth (most people who buy followers will buy engagement) or just be plain sure by using third-party tools like Hypeauditor to get a professional audit (they charge, but they are the only reliable Instagram audit service I?ve found so far). If you want to learn more, here?s a guide on how to automate an Instagram bot.
Overall, if it seems fishy, it probably is, so stay away from accounts that you?re wary about. There are more than enough highly-engaged, accessible, awesome-looking content creators with 15%+ engagement out there to work with (i.e., @zolita, @sheckwes, @pr0matic, @aubrey.anna, @ripcris, @alekrduncan, @_emmachamberlain, or thousands of others ? )
That?s it! You now know how to properly measure engagement rates on Instagram.
So, if you want to earn money from your account, work hard to create content that people love to engage with, or pay people who do to promote you. It?s the only way to build a long-term sustainable business without spending tons of money on ads!
Oh yeah, and if you want to learn more about other strategies that?ll help you grow on Instagram quickly, read these articles on everything you need to know about Instagram hashtags, how to write an Instagram bio, how to increase your Instagram engagement, the best Instagram bots, how to automate in Instagram bot that isn?t spammy, the state of Instagram bots in 2020, how I make money on Instagram, how to create a visually appealing Instagram grid, why you?re losing followers and how to fix it, how to create effective Instagram story ads, how the Instagram algorithm works, how to build an Instagram repost account that makes money, how to check if you?re shadowbanned, how to create effective Instagram sponsored posts, how to automate your Instagram posts, as well as everything you need to know about TikTok Bots, how to find the most valuable influencers on Instagram, how to measure what an influencer is worth, how to reach out to influencers, and how to measure your influencer marketing ROI.
everything you need to know about TikTok Bots, how to know if your Instagram is worth growing?, the best Instagram content scheduling and post automation tools,
Good luck pals!
Btw, here?s an article about the best Instagram content scheduling and post automation tools. Using them will help your posting process a lot more efficient ??
