Your guide to knowing and growing your social media engagement

Engagement is a go-to metric for measuring success on social. It helps social media managers post relevant content, build a more connected community, and grow brand awareness.

In this blog, we'll tackle all things social media engagement, including why it's important for brands, how to calculate engagement rate, and 5 ways social media managers can improve engagement.

What is social media engagement?

Social media engagement is the level of interaction and attention a user shows towards a brand, creator, or content on social media. It’s a key metric to determine the effectiveness of your content. 

Engagement looks different depending on what social platform you’re using. For example:

• On TikTok, engagement can include likes, comments, shares, saves, video views, and downloads
• On Instagram, engagement can include likes, comments, shares, saves, video views, and story replies
• On Facebook, engagement can include likes, comments, shares, saves, video views, and link clicks
• On LinkedIn, engagement can include clicks, reactions, comments, and shares

Why is social media engagement important?

There are tons of reasons why every social media manager should have an eye on engagement. Here are just a few:

Increased reach: Engagement tells the algorithms to show your content to more users. Or as TikTok puts it, "Authentic engagement is central to the integrity of our platform and informs how we recommend content that others may find interesting." More engagement = more visibility.

Stronger communities: Social media should promote two-way communication. Engagement helps you build authentic connections with your audience – and ensures your audiences' voices are heard. As a bonus, engaged community members attract even more members. According to Harvard Business Review, "Enthusiastic members help acquire new members, resulting in lower customer acquisition costs and a tight viral loop." 

Brand loyalty: Engagement improves brand recall, drives website traffic, and repeat business. Perhaps even better, 71% of consumers who had a positive interaction with a brand on social will recommend that brand to their network. 

How to calculate your social media engagement rate

Engagement rate is calculated by measuring the level of interaction or engagement your content receives relative to the size of your audience.

Here’s the formula for calculating your engagement rate:

Engagement rate = (total engagements / total followers, reach, or impressions) x 100

5 tips that will improve your social media engagement

Now that we’ve covered what engagement is and how to measure it, let’s explore how to generate more engagement on social media. Here are 5 things brands should do to boost engagement.

1. Create content that resonates with your audience

Before you whip up content, take the time to create and understand your brand persona. Know your target audiences' interests, pain points, and core desires. Then, follow the 80/20 rule to increase social media engagement. Keep 80% of your posts educational or entertaining (think: quizzes, polls, memes, and thought-leadership). The remaining 20% of your posts can be promotional. Here's an example of a non-promotional LinkedIn post:

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2. Post consistently

Boost social media engagement (and stay on the algorithm's good side) by posting consistently. Your post frequency will change across platforms. LinkedIn reports that companies who post once per week experience 2X the engagement. On the other hand, TikTok recommends posting 1–4 times per day. On Facebook, you can generate engagement with a single daily post. And on Instagram, we suggest posting at least 3 times weekly (with more frequent daily stories).

If these numbers don’t seem attainable for your or your team’s current bandwidth, don’t worry. Instead of posting for the sake of hitting a quota, it’s better to post high-quality content less frequently.

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This creator and small business owner posts 1–2 times a day, mixing in a variety of posts including product images, engaging quotes, reels about her process as an artist, and more.

3. Interact and respond promptly

Communities are built in the comments section. Respond to comments and DMs to build authentic connections and brand loyalty. Although you don't need to be glued to your screen all day and night, speedy response times will benefit your brand. 48% of consumers on social media expect a response to questions and concerns within a day. 

Find yourself with lots of comments, DMs, and mentions to manage? HeyOrca’s Social Inbox can help with that. 

4. Share collaborative content

Sharing original branded content should be part of your social media strategy. But don't forget to also share external content. Partner with influencers or content creators to reach new audiences. And harness the power of user-generated content (UGC) to build trust with your community through authentic, unscripted social proof. Brands that use UGC can expect a 50% boost in engagement. Here's an example of UGC on Instagram:

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5. Measure and repeat

There's no one-size-fits-all social media strategy. So track your posts' analytics to learn what content works best for your brand and audience. And realize that this will change over time as you and your audience evolve.

Pro tip: if you're not a big fan of messy spreadsheets, check out HeyOrca's powerful (and client-friendly) reports. 

Summary

Engagement rate is a powerful metric for social media managers. There are many ways to increase your engagement, including posting consistently, interacting promptly, and collaborating with other users. No matter your engagement strategy, measure and track your engagement rate to better understand how your audience is receiving your content.