Social media marketing is vitally important for businesses in 2021. But if you're not tracking important social media metrics like reach and engagement you're not going to know if your social media efforts are paying off. Average social media post reach and engagement vary depending on the platform, but taking the time to understand what the analytics for your chosen social media networks is telling you about your content and your audience can help you increase brand awareness, get more leads, and increase sales.
In this article, we're going to share everything you need to understand average social media post reach and engagement, track them, and improve them to meet your marketing and sales goals.
Social Media Post Reach and Engagement:
What Is Social Media Post Reach?
Reach represents the number of people who see your content, either ads or posts. It's sometimes confused with impressions but the key difference is that reach is unique viewers and impressions is the total number of times your content was viewed, including by the same people.
What Is Social Media Engagement?
社交媒体参与计算dependin不同g on the social media platform you're using. Anything from likes, comments, shares, retweets, clicks, expanded images, and a number of other actions can go into calculatingsocial media engagement.Social media engagement rate is calculated by dividing the total number of engagements a post received (however engagements are defined for the platform) by the total number of impressions on that post (how many times it was seen).
Average Social Media Post Reach and How to Track It
Here are a few reasons why brands might want to track social media reach:
- Better understandbrand awareness
- Track audience growth
- More easily identify the content that's resonating with followers
- Track your authority
- Build and nurture strong relationships with your followers
OnFacebook, reach can be found by going to the page you want to check the reach for and choosingInsightsfrom the menu on the left side of the page. Next, click onPost Reach, choose your start and end dates, and scroll down to theTotal Reachsection:
From the Instagram app, go to your profile and tap theInsightsbutton. From there, you can choose either 7 days or 30 days of analytics and tap on any line item you want to learn more about.
To check your reach on the platform visit analytics.twitter.com while logged in. Choose theTweetsmenu at the top of the screen, choose the timeframe you want to look at, and you'll see a message that says "Your tweets earned ### impressions over this XX day period." Once you have the impressions, divide that number by your total number of followers to get your reach.
This calculation doesn't take into account any viral sharing or the effect of promoted tweets since impressions only include people who don't follow you.
To view yourLinkedInreach go to your company page and chooseUpdatesfrom the Analytics dropdown in the top left corner of the screen. This will show engagement metrics including impressions, comments, shares, clicks, and your overall engagement rate. As you did with Twitter reach, divide your impressions by the number of followers to get your reach rate for the platform.
Source:sproutsocial.com
How to Increase Social Media Reach
- Create high-quality content for the right audience
- Use more images in your posts
- Include hashtags
- Post at the best time for your chosen platform
- Optimize your social media profiles
- Post both promotional and useful content (err on the side of more useful content)
Average Social Media Engagement Rate by Platform
There are several reasons why engagement rates are important forsocial media marketing:
- Engagement improves audience quality
- Engagement increases your reach
- Engagement expands your advertising audience
- Engagement brings in social proof
- Engagement leads to increased revenue
But what kind of engagement rate should you be looking for? As you can imagine, average engagement rates vary from platform to platform. Let's take a look at a few of the more popularsocial media marketing platformsto explore average engagement rates and how you can improve yours on the platform.
Many marketing experts will warn against focusing on social media engagement when it comes to Facebook. As you've probably noticed, over the past few years, Facebook has consistently reduced the organic reach of posts outside of users' friends and family. This means that the audience for your content is being seen by a smaller albeit more targeted group of users thatFacebook's algorithmbelieves are more like to engage with your marketing content.
As you saw in the graph above, Facebook has seen a decline in engagement of 9% over the past couple of years (comScore, Activate). This, in large part, is due to Facebook's own policy (beginning in 2018) to prioritize posts from friends and family, making it much more difficult for brands to reach Facebook users organically, without the use ofFacebook advertising.
What Is a Good Engagement Rate for Facebook?
According to data from Rival IQ, the average Facebook engagement rate across industries was 0.1% in 2020, remaining flat from 2019 numbers. It's important to note, however, that many industries posted on Facebook less often in 2020, which a decrease in posting frequency across industries of about 14%. While a good engagement rate for your specific business might be different, you can use the engagement rate for your industry to find a good baseline from which to start tracking your performance.
How to Find Your Facebook Engagement Rate
On Facebook, engagement rate includes the total number of likes, comments, shares, and clicks your content receives. Facebook offers excellent analytics tools that make it delightfully easy to find your engagement rate on the platform. In Facebook, go to the page you want to check the engagement rate for and chooseInsightsfrom the menu on the left side of the page. Click onPost Engagementand scroll down to theAll Posts Publishedsection and change the far right dropdown toEngagement Rate:
How to Improve Your Social Media Engagement Rate on Facebook
- Post morevideo content
- Find thebest time to post on Facebook
- Post interesting, high-quality content
- Always add value
- Scope out your competitors
- Engage with your followers
- Share a mix of educational and entertaining content
For now, content from brands and content from individuals is treated the same on Instagram. That's probably why brands have seen an increase in engagement on the platform, with engagement increasing 8% between 2018–2020 (though it decreased slightly from 2019 to 2020).
What Is a Good Engagement Rate for Instagram?
Instagramengagement rates measure social authority, audience interest, and brand relevance, making tracking your engagement rate on the platform pretty important. While engagement rates vary depending on the industry, a good engagement rate for Instagram is between 1%–3%. Rival IQ reports that the average Instagram engagement rate across industries in 2020 was 1.22%, down from 1.6% in 2019. Posting frequency on the platform declined by about 5%. While the social media engagement rate that's right for your brand may be different, you can use the average engagement rate for your industry as a starting point to track yoursocial media metrics.
How to Find Your Instagram Engagement Rate
From the Instagram app, go to your profile and tap theInsightsbutton. From there, you can choose either 7 days or 30 days of analytics and tap on any line item you want to learn more about.
How to Improve Your Social Media Engagement Rate on Instagram
- UseInstagram Stories
- Post regularly
- Engage with and respond to your followers
- Write catchy captions
- Go Live
- UseInstagram Reels
- Share longer video content usingIGTV
- Use CTAs
Twitter has lower engagement rates, it's true. But it's also enjoyed the largest engagement rate growth over the past couple of years, increasing a whopping 78%. If you have the time to devote to developing a presence on Twitter, you'll be greatly rewarded. While Twitter's algorithm can take some time to start promoting your tweets, if you create content for Twitter and engage with your followers every day, it won't take long to see a positive result from your efforts.
What Is a Good Engagement Rate for Twitter?
As we mentioned, Twitter engagement rates tend to be lower than those for other social media platforms, with a good engagement rate between 0.5%–1%. Once again, a good engagement rate on Twitter for your brand might be higher or lower. It's best to look at your own Twitter analytics to find your average and measure your performance from there. According to Rival IQ, Twitter engagement was at 0.48% across industries in 2019.
如何找到你的接触率在Twitter上吗
Engagement on Twitter includes replies, follows, favorites, links, embedded media, hashtags, cards, tweet expansions, and username or profile clicks. To check your engagement rate on the platform visit analytics.twitter.com while logged in. Choose theTweetsmenu at the top of the screen and you'll seeEngagementson the right side of the page.
How to Improve Your Social Media Engagement Rate on Twitter
- Usehashtags and trending hashtags
- Respond quickly to customers
- Engage with other Twitter users
- Include links in your tweets
- Engage with Twitter influencers
LinkedIn is another social media platform that has seen great growth over the past couple of years with engagement increasing 38% on the platform. While brand engagement on the platform pales in comparison to engagement on posts shared by individuals, it's still a great place to share your brand's content—especially if you're a B2B business. Engagement on LinkedIn can increase traffic to your website andgenerate leadsin ways that platforms like Facebook and Twitter don't seem to.
What Is a Good Engagement Rate for LinkedIn?
A strong engagement rate on LinkedIn is around 2%. A number of factors can impact your engagement rate on the platform. Probably the factor with the biggest impact on your LinkedIn engagement rate is the time you post on the platform. According to CoSchedule, B2C businesses should post around 12 pm while B2B businesses should post at 8 am, 10 am to noon, and at 6 pm. The best day to post on LinkedIn is on Wednesday.
How to Find Your Engagement Rate on LinkedIn
Engagement on LinkedIn tends to favor images, videos, and GIFs, tracking things like clicks on updates, content, and links, as well as comments, shares, and reactions. To view your LinkedIn engagement rate go to your company pages and chooseUpdatesfrom the Analytics dropdown in the top left corner of the screen. This will show engagement metrics including impressions, comments, shares, clicks, and your overall engagement rate.
Source:sproutsocial.com
How to Improve Your Social Media Engagement Rate on LinkedIn
- Share company milestones and awards
- Reply to comments and engage with your followers
- Include narrative on the content you share (why should other users care?)
- Use sponsored content
- Don't forget to entertain
Understand Reach and Engagement for Social Media Marketing ROI
It's important to remember that social media marketing is about more than posting here and there to your favorite social networks. You have to be intentional about the content you create and continue to promote the right content to the right people in order to get the reach and engagement you need. Expanding your reach and engagement will help increase brand awareness, track audience growth, identify the content that's working, track your authority as a brand, build strong relationships, improve audience quality, bring insocial proof, and increase your revenue.
Pay attention to yoursocial media analyticsand use that data to inform the decisions you make about your social media content to earn the positive ROI you want from your social media marketing.
