The Correct Formula: How to Calculate Engagement Rate

If you’re looking for ONE way to evaluate an influencer’s profile, we have two words for you:

Engagement rate. 💁

That’s right–understanding how to calculate engagement rates for influencers is critical for figuring out if they’re going to be able to get you the results you’re looking for. Knowing the correct formula for calculating engagement rates will help you make better decisions whether you're using Instagram, TikTok, or another platform.

In this guide, we’ll teach you the formulas for calculating engagement rates for any social media platform your heart desires. We’ll discuss the best methods to use based on your goals, and we’ll also discuss how to know if the engagement rate you’ve seen is accurate (there are a few traps to avoid–so we want to make sure you know about them!)

If that sounds good to you, let’s get started!

What is an “engagement rate?”

Let’s discuss what an engagement rate is and how it can sometimes be different than it appears. 🫢

An engagement rate is…

Engagement rate is a metric that measures the level of interaction that content receives from its audience. This metric helps determine how effectively content resonates with an audience.

This includes likes, comments, shares, saves, and other forms of interaction. 👍

A high engagement rate indicates that the content resonates well with the account’s audience.

A low engagement rate means that the person posting the content may need to adjust their strategy–which is a nice way of saying that the content doesn’t resonate with their audience.

We’ll show you how to calculate the engagement rate in a minute, but before we do that, there are a couple of things you need to know…

Using engagement rate to evaluate influencers

Based on the above definition, if an influencer has a “good” or “high” engagement rate (which varies based on the platform–we’ll discuss this below), this is a very good sign.

Suppose you find an influencer with high engagement rates. If the influencer promotes your products in a way that resonates with their audience, then the chances that your brand will benefit from that engagement are good–you’ll see increased engagement, greater brand awareness, and potentially sales, too.

A high engagement rate is one of the most important metrics marketers look for when evaluating influencers.

However, a low engagement rate means that the audience probably isn’t interested in what the influencer is posting–so the chances of seeing benefits for your brand are smaller.

But BRANDS BE WARNED: Engagement rates (especially on Instagram) can be skewed. If the influencer grew their account artificially (either by buying followers or participating in follow-for-follow loops), then their audience isn’t genuine–they’re not following the account because they loved what he/she/they posted. They followed for other reasons.

In those cases, you should avoid collaborating with them even if the engagement rate is high.

Let’s dive into how to tell if an influencer grew their account artificially:

How to know if an influencer is skewing the engagement rate

It’s not always easy to tell, but it’s worth checking. Follow these steps:

• Ask for audience insights. Specifically, check where their followers are based. If it’s a random country on the other side of the world, that’s a bad sign.Percentages are important here. If 3% of their followers are based on the other side of the world, and 80% are based in the country where the influencer lives, that’s fine. But if it’s the other way around, RUN. That’s a bad sign. Think of it this way: If you’re a US-based brand selling to US-based consumers, but most of the influencer’s audience is based in India, what’s the point of advertising to them? This isn’t about figuring out if the influencer bought fake followers or not–it’s about audience fit. Are the people you’re trying to reach a significant part of their audience? If not, it’s not a good deal for you.
• Check for fake followers. Look at some of the accounts that follow them (you can also use a fake follower checker if you’d like, but you’ll still have to do a manual check to ensure it’s accurate), and see how many look real.And by “look real,” we mean:Do they have profile pictures?Do they have a decent amount of followers?Are they following a decent amount of people?Do any of their followers have privacy settings turned on?Do they have any posts?Do those posts have captions?If their followers seem real, that’s a good sign. These are general approaches, but it’s pretty easy to spot fake accounts–you’ll know something’s off when you see them.If most of their followers have 0 posts, super small followers and following numbers, and no profile picture–that’s a bad sign.Again, this depends on percentages. If you spot one or two, whatever. But if MOST of their followers look fake, that’s a red flag.
• Look at the niche of their followers. If most of their influencers are from the same niche as the influencer, this is a sign of a follow-for-follow loop, where influencers support each other by following each other. It sounds cute, but it’s bad news for your brand because it means that most of their following and engagement isn’t from real, interested customers–it’s from other influencers. You can also spot this if the number of people they’re following is similar to the number of people following them.

The engagement rate formula for Instagram

You’re most likely to encounter fake followers and follow-for-follow loops on Instagram. So, even after you find the engagement rate using this formula, make sure you do the checks we discussed in the previous section.

Here’s how to calculate the engagement rate on Instagram:

Instagram engagement rate (aka ER) = (Total Engagements/Total followers) x 100

Finding the numbers

Total Engagements are the sum of the posts' likes, comments, shares, and saves.

Total followers is the number of followers the account had when the post was made.

Example calculation

If an Instagram post has 500 likes, 50 comments, 30 shared, and 20 saves, and the account has 10,000 followers (this isn’t a math textbook, we like to keep the numbers even!), then:

ER = (500+50+30+20/10,000) x 100

Or, in other words: ER = 6%

Calculating the average engagement rate

If you’d like to calculate their current average engagement rate, you’ll need to add the engagement rates from the last six posts. Because this is a lot of manual work, you’ll probably want to use a tool.

This is how we calculate the engagement rate for each influencer on Social Cat–we pull data from the last six posts, so you only get the most up-to-date, current data. After all, if an influencer posted something that didn’t do well three years ago, that’s irrelevant to your decision about whether or not to work with them today, right? Statistics from outdated posts aren’t helpful to you as a brand, so we leave them out.

By the way, all our engagement stats are imported directly from Meta and TikTok to Social Cat. The integration means our data is accurate in real-time–so you don’t have to worry about finding the perfect influencer and then realizing their profile isn’t correct.

We also vet each influencer manually before allowing them onto our platform, checking for fake followers and follow-for-follow loops. So, start a free trial today if you’d like to save yourself a TON of work (and get access to real-time engagement rates for over 30,000 influencers). We think you’ll love it. 😄

How to calculate TikTok engagement rates

TikTok’s primary metric is views, so you’ll notice an interesting change in this equation! Here’s how to calculate the engagement rate on TikTok:

TikTok engagement rate = (Total Engagements / Total Views) x 100

Finding the numbers

Total Engagements is the sum of all likes, comments, and shares on a post.

Total views is the number of views the post received.

Example calculation

If a TikTok video has 1,000 likes, 200 comments, and 100 shares, and the video has 20,000 views, then:

ER = (1000+200+100 / 20.000) x 100

Or, in other words: ER = 6.5%

The engagement rate formula for Facebook

Here’s how to calculate the engagement rate on Facebook:

Facebook engagement rate = (Total Engagements / Total Reach or Followers) x 100

Finding the numbers

Total Engagements on Facebook is the sum of all the likes, comments, and shares on a post.

Total Reach is the number of unique people who saw the post–you’ll have access to this for your posts or ads, but you might not be able to see it on an influencer’s page. It’s great for testing how viral a particular post is.

Total Followers are the number of people who “like” or “follow” a page or user. You can use this when reach is unavailable or when you’re trying to gauge how a post performed with a specific audience.

Example calculation

If a Facebook post has 200 likes, 50 comments, and 30 shares, and the post was seen by 10,000 unique users (aka reached 10,000 people), then:

ER = (200+50+30 / 10,000) x 100

Or, in other words: ER = 2.8%

How to calculate YouTube engagement rates

Here’s how to calculate the engagement rate on YouTube:

YouTube engagement rate = (Likes + Dislikes + Comments + Shares / Total Views) x 100

Finding the numbers

Actually–this one’s pretty simple! Gather all the stats in the formula, add them together, and divide by 100!

This formula helps gauge the TOTAL interactions (positive and negative) with a particular piece of content. You’ll notice that, for YouTube, the number of subscribers doesn’t figure into the equation at all–while this might be something to watch when looking for channels to reach out to, it’s not needed for calculating engagement.

Example calculation

If a YouTube video has 500 likes, 50 dislikes, 100 comments, and 20 shares, and the video has 20,000 views, then:

ER = (500+50+100+20 / 20,000) x 100

Or, put another way: ER = 3.35%

The engagement rate formula for LinkedIn

Here’s how to calculate engagement rate on LinkedIn:

LinkedIn engagement rate = (Total interactions / Total Impressions) x 100

Finding the numbers

Total interactions include comments, reposts, sends (if you have that data), clicks, and likes in any of LinkedIn's six options.

This metric is vital for B2B marketers to understand how well their professional content performs with their target audience.

Example calculation

If a LinkedIn post has 100 likes, 20 comments, 10 shares, and 50 clicks, and the post has 5,000 impressions, then:

ER = (100+20+10 +50 / 5,000) x 100

Or, put another way: ER = 3.6%

How to calculate X engagement rates

Here’s how to calculate engagement rate on X, formerly known as Twitter:

X engagement rate = (Total Engagements / Total Impressions) x 100

Finding the numbers

Total Engagements include likes, retweets, replies, and other interactions like quote retweets–count them all!

Total Impressions are the number of times a tweet is displayed in different user’s timelines. You can find this by tapping “view analytics” on the post.

Example calculation

If a tweet (side note: SO FUNNY that we still call it a tweet–guess we can’t call it an X, right?) has 100 likes, 50 retweets, and 30 replies, and it has been seen 5,000 times:

ER = (100+50+30 / 5,000) x 100

Or, put another way: ER = 3.6%

Why are there different methods of calculating engagement rates?

The basic answer is this: different platforms measure interactions differently, which affects how engagement rates need to be calculated.

The slightly more complicated answer is that different social media platforms prioritize different types of interaction, so you have to calculate engagement based on the metrics that the platform prioritizes. Otherwise, you could end up with something that looks good on paper but doesn’t get shown to many people on the app.

For example, Instagram and Facebook focus on follower interactions, so you need to consider the number of followers to obtain your result.

TikTok and YouTube, on the other hand, emphasize VIEWS because they have algorithm-driven content discovery. So, you need to consider views, but you can ignore subscribers/followers in your calculations.

So, using different equations for each platform means measuring what you’re supposed to measure—meaningful interactions specific to each platform's approach.

It’s a pain, but your calculations will be much better for it!

Which method is best?

The method you choose for determining the engagement rate on platforms like Facebook (where both views and followers are essential) ultimately depends on your goals.

If you’re trying to reach a specific, existing audience, calculate using followers as your base. This is most useful when trying to cultivate brand loyalty and follower engagement.

If you’re trying to go viral, use a view-based engagement rate. This is best for understanding how effective the content was at reaching a broad audience and growing your reach.

You can calculate both engagement rates for most platforms, so the one you choose should be dictated by your goals and the platform’s emphasis on followers vs. views. If you know which one you need, just change the bottom input on your equation.

Are online engagement rate calculators a reliable tool?

Online engagement rate calculators are convenient but don’t tend to be super reliable.

Unfortunately, a calculator can only be as accurate as the data inputted into it, and most of the engagement rate calculators you’ll find online get their data from public sources–which tend to be a bit out-of-date.

If you find an engagement rate calculator that integrates with Meta, TikTok, or Google (like we do at Social Cat!), that’s a good sign–and it’s probably reliable. You can start a free trial today if you want to check out our automatic engagement rate calculations on Social Cat!

What is a good engagement rate for social media platforms in 2024?

Once you know how to calculate the engagement rate for the social media platform of your choice, the next logical step is to want to evaluate it. What’s a good engagement rate? And what’s a bad one?

The answer, of course, depends on the platform. These numbers are accurate as of 2024:

Instagram: According to SocialInsider, Instagram's average engagement rate hovers around 0.7%. A good engagement rate is anything above 1%.

Tiktok: According to SocialInsider (again!), the average TikTok engagement rate is 4.07%. So, anything above 4.5% is considered good.

Facebook: SocialInsider clocks Facebook’s average engagement rate at 0.15%. So, anything above 1% is good. But it does vary by niche, and for ads, Meta will calculate this for you based on the performance of similar ads from other companies.

LinkedIn: SocialInsider reports that LinkedIn's average engagement rate is 3.85%. Based on that, anything above 4.5% is good.

And finally, YouTube: Statista reports that, while it varies based on the number of followers, the average engagement rate was between 1.9-3.4%. So anything above 4% is good–but if your channel is smaller, anything above 2.5% is, too.

Why you need to know ER

Understanding engagement rates and how to calculate them will help you make better marketing decisions, whether you’re picking influencers or running your own social media campaigns.

Ideally, you don’t want to calculate this manually when assessing influencers: the platform you’re using *should* do this for you. But it always helps to know if the numbers are accurate, right? That’s why we wrote this article–so you can double-check if needed.

In the future, we’ll share more tips on metrics you can monitor to maximize your influencer marketing campaigns!

If you want to know the engagement rates of our influencers at Social Cat, you can start a free trial! Our platform integrates with Meta and TikTok, so you’ll always have the most up-to-date engagement rates.