What is an engagement rate?

An engagement rate refers to how your audience interacts with your content. Interactions include  likes, saves, comments, shares, and views. There are multiple ways to calculate your engagement rate but typically you would take the total number of interactions on your page divided by follower count, then multiplied by 100. If that seems like a lot of work, there are luckily dozens of calculators online that can give you your rate for free. Our favorite is the chrome plug-in Influencer Searcher.

What does it measure?

In generic terms engagement rate measures the amount your followers that interact with your content, more broadly it measures how connected your audience is to you. A high engagement rate means that you’ve cultivated a community where your audience wants to reach out to you and feels seen by you. It’s also a sign you’re continuing to deliver quality content your followers value.

Why is it important?

Though a brand may have a large amount of followers, they often lack the personal relationships with their audience that a creator may have with their community. The more engaged your community is, the more valuable you will be to potential brand partners. Even with a smaller following, a high engagement rate makes you a more in-demand creator.

Return on Investment

Once you’ve secured a collaboration with a brand you can use the engagement rate of that partnership to clearly see how your audience interacted with the product. A high engagement rate indicates that the partnership was a good fit for both the creator and the brand. A brand is more likely to work with a creator again if they know the collaboration will yield a high return on investment.