Engagement rate is the share of people who interacted with a post. The usual formula is engagements divided by followers, times 100, so 50 likes and comments on an account with 2,000 followers is a 2.5% engagement rate. You can also divide by reach or impressions, which measures how the people who actually saw the post responded.
What counts as an engagement
An engagement is any action someone takes on a post. Which actions count depends on the network and on the tool doing the counting:
- Likes or reactions are counted everywhere.
- Comments are counted everywhere.
- Shares, reposts and retweets are counted by most tools.
- Saves, link clicks and profile visits are counted by some tools and not others.
There is no single standard, so the first rule is to write down what you count and keep it the same. A rate that includes saves will look higher than one that does not, and comparing the two tells you nothing.
The three formulas
1. Engagement rate by followers
Engagement rate = (engagements ÷ followers) × 100
This is the most common version and the easiest to calculate, because follower counts are public. It works for comparing your own posts over time and for a rough look at another account.
Example: a post gets 120 likes, 18 comments and 6 shares. The account has 8,000 followers. (120 + 18 + 6) ÷ 8,000 × 100 = 1.8%.
Its weakness is that most followers never see a given post. A larger account usually has a lower rate by followers simply because a smaller share of its audience is shown each post.
2. Engagement rate by reach
Engagement rate = (engagements ÷ reach) × 100
Reach is the number of unique people who saw the post. Dividing by reach tells you how persuasive the post was to the people who saw it, which makes it the better measure of content quality. You need access to the account's analytics to get reach, so you can only calculate it for your own accounts.
Example: the same post reached 3,200 people. 144 ÷ 3,200 × 100 = 4.5%.
3. Engagement rate by impressions
Engagement rate = (engagements ÷ impressions) × 100
Impressions count every time the post was shown, including repeat views by the same person, so impressions are always at least as high as reach. Use this version when a network reports impressions but not reach. It will usually come out a little lower than the rate by reach.
Example: the same post had 4,100 impressions. 144 ÷ 4,100 × 100 = 3.5%.
Which formula should you use?
| Question you want to answer | Use |
|---|---|
| Is this account's audience active? (including accounts you do not own) | By followers |
| Which of my posts did people respond to best? | By reach |
| The network does not report reach | By impressions |
| How does my account compare with last quarter? | Whichever you used last quarter |
The last row matters most. Pick one formula for your reporting and keep it, because switching formulas changes the number more than any change in your content would.
Per post or per account
You can calculate the rate for a single post, or for an account over a period:
- Per post: use that post's engagements and reach (or the follower count on the day).
- Per account: add up the engagements across all posts in the period and divide by the total reach, or by the average follower count, then multiply by 100.
Do not average the per-post percentages to get an account rate. A post seen by 200 people and a post seen by 20,000 would count equally, which skews the result toward small posts.
Is my engagement rate good?
Published "average engagement rate" figures vary widely because each report counts different actions, divides by different numbers and samples different kinds of accounts. A benchmark is only useful if it was calculated the same way as your number, for similar accounts on the same network.
A more reliable test is your own baseline:
- Calculate the rate for your last 20 to 30 posts on one network, using one formula.
- Note the median, which is less thrown off by one viral post than the average.
- Judge each new post against that median. A post well above it is worth repeating; a post well below it is worth learning from.
- Recalculate the baseline every quarter.
Compare networks separately. People behave differently on each one, so a rate on one network says little about another.
How to raise it
Engagement rate is a result, not a lever. The things that move it are the content and the timing:
- Look at your top posts. Sort by engagement rate rather than likes, and look for what the best ones share: format, topic, length, or the question they asked.
- Ask for a specific response. A post that asks a clear question gets more comments than one that does not ask for anything.
- Reply to comments. Conversations in the comments are engagements too, and people are more likely to comment when they see replies.
- Post when your audience is active. Check which days and hours your own posts did best, rather than relying on general advice.
- Test one change at a time. If you change format, topic and time together, you will not know which one worked.
Calculating it automatically
The free engagement rate calculator does the by-followers calculation for a single post or account. In Orbin, the analytics dashboard calculates engagement rate by reach for every post, falls back to impressions where a network does not report reach, and compares the period with the one before. Engagement prediction estimates how a draft is likely to do before you publish it, so you can compare two versions of a post.