Engagement reflects the activity of the audience in the community. Engagement affects the algorithms of social networks – the more reactions and useful actions the posts and community gather, the higher the chances of getting into recommendations and the newsfeed. Consequently, the higher the chances of gaining audience reach. And this rule works for both modern businesses, like Hellspin or Netflix, and old-fashioned vintage stores. Let’s find out how to measure engagement and how to raise it.
What Is the ER Score
ER is an engagement metric that shows the average number of reactions to a post divided by the number of followers on the page. Reactions are manifestations of audience activity:
- Likes.
- Comments.
- Reposts.
- Submitting the post to a conversation.
- Saving the publication to bookmarks.
Which reactions to consider is up to you to decide, based on what is relevant to you.
What Is the ERR Score
The metric reflects the ratio of the average number of reactions to a post to the number of users reached. This formula is relevant for:
- Social networks with an algorithmic feed, where only a fraction of subscribers see each post. For example, in the Instagram feed of subscriptions.
- Sites with a recommendation feed where the channel audience can be several times larger than the number of subscribers. For example, YouTube, TikTok, and Instagram Reels.
- Publications that were promoted with the help of targeted advertising.
That is, almost always. The formula helps measure how engaging the publication was to those who saw the post, stories, or video.
What Should ER Be?
You can find estimates that bad ER is below 1%, while a figure above 3.5% is considered high. However, it’s best to compare yourself with yourself: the figures for the previous period – with the current data.
Some analytics services suggest comparing ER with the indicators of communities similar in topic and audience volume. This will give a rough idea of the level of engagement in the industry.
If you have a growing reach or number of subscribers, the ER or ERR may go down. This is a natural phenomenon. The wider the audience, the harder it is to please everyone at once.
How Important Is ER and ERR to a Business?
It’s an individual thing. If you want to build a community around the company and strengthen the emotional connection with the audience, every like, repost, and comment will contribute to the brand equity.
Usually engagement metrics are important for popular FMCG products but also for products with a large emotional component in consumption, like fashion brands or leisure and entertainment venues.
If the goal is to gather leads, it cannot be achieved with publications aimed at likes. Often on the web, you’ll find posts that aim to gather reactions. Thanks to feed algorithms, they increase the organic reach, but they do not always solve the communication objectives.
Calculating the ERR for individual posts will help track how much the audience liked a particular topic and format. This data will tell the SMM specialist and marketer the direction to go.
How to Increase ER and ERR
The best way is to make interesting content and promote it to your target audience. Even if your goal is sales, well-packaged, exclusive, first-hand content can help earn more views, improve engagement and gain more organic reach. Here are some tools to help boost engagement:
- Ad campaigns and contests.
- UGC – User Generated Content publications. People trust real consumers who have already bought a product.
- Posts that are relevant to the audience’s interests. Quality advice, interviews with customers, or company employees. Even the traditional builder dynamic will be exciting for those who are waiting for their new apartment.
What Other Indicators Should Be Monitored?
Analyze not only which posts have the highest engagement rates but also why it happened. Don’t be too quick to dismiss product posts because they get fewer reactions-they’re solving business problems, too.
Keep an eye on how your campaign goals are being met:
- Are you getting new subscribers and customers?
- Are the ads working to collect leads?
- Are the ads gaining traction or is the audience for the ad already exhausted?
A key measure of your social media performance is whether you’re achieving the goals you set, whether it’s engagement, leads, or building a strong brand community.
