In an influence strategy, the engagement rate is highly important. It represents the propensity of the followers to interact with your brand or an influencer on Instagram. In this way, picking an influencer with a high number of followers is not relevant for a band if its engagement rate is low.
We analyzed more than 282 000 accounts, it allowed us to note that there is a causal link between the number of followers and the engagement rate, but not necessarily the one we thought. In fact, the engagement rate decreases as the number of followers increases. We can understand that the followers would rather interact with smaller influencers and they generate more engagement (more reactions such as likes and comments) on their post and interact more with their audience. Probably because the size of the community is smaller.
We understand that the audience feels closer from the influencers with less followers because they can more easily identify with them, they are most likely more friendly. On the other hand, Top Tail Influencer are considered as celebrities and are therefore inaccessible.
Another hypothesis, the trust giving to the influencers. Even though influence marketing is a new concept, it becomes more and more recognizable by the Internet user (informed or not). Thus, the more an influencer is followed, the more its audience will be wary of the credibility of his message toward a product or a service. The followers assume if an influencer has less subscribers, he doesn’t get many collaborations and delivers a more authentic message. This awareness gave us the idea to create the platform AdMingle. It allows to maximize the total reach of a campaign by complementing it with micro-influence. We are always more receptive to a message delivered by someone we know than a traditional commercial. We are all the influencer of someone.
The analyze of this chart allows us to conclude one thing: the engagement rate is a determining factor when choosing an influencer. However, a low engagement rate does not mean that a profile is not interesting, it depends on the objectives of the campaign (notoriety or image).
For example, if you have 2 influencers, one with 100 000 followers and 2% as engagement rate and the second one is 50 000 followers with a 4% engagement rate. Which one is the most powerful to perform in an influence operation?
Both! Because they both engage the same amount of people.
More generally, why should we focus on the engagement rate?
Over the years the channels of communication have changed. Over the past 10 years, there has been a steady decline to client attention to television advertising and mistrust of traditional advertising. Consumers have always been more trusting to people they know and to opinion leaders than to advertising. Moreover, influencers have a special link with their audience. These evolutions are pushing brands to change the way they touch their targets.
Today, the consumption of social media has also changed since one in two Instagram users search for a product when browsing on Instagram, Facebook or Twitter. Those platforms are a godsend for brands. Moreover, integrate influencers in a communication strategy allows to benefice the relation between the influencer and its community and it allows the brand to reconnect with their targets. For influence marketing agencies and brands, the engagement rate became an important indicator when it comes to choosing the right influencers.
Here a list of important information to know about the engagement:
- To calculate the engagement rate, it is mandatory to use criteria like: the number of likes, the number of shares or the number of comments and divide this criteria with the number of followers. The engagement rate is not calculated in the same way from one brand to another.
- If the engagement rate is higher than 4% ou 5%, it is a good rate or excellent rate depending on the sector.
- The engagement is more important depending on the hour and the day the content is published
*Monday and Thursday are the best days to publish on Instagram.
*The best time to post is: between 8am to 9am or from 2pm to 5pm.
- Using an emoji boost the interaction with the content. The most popular one is the red heart with more than 120 000 uses in 2016.
- Posts with the localisation increase the engagement by 29%
- The engagement rate is higher for accounts with few subscribers. There is more proximity, the audience feels closer to the influencers with 10 000 or less followers and therefore they interact more easily.
Calculate your engagement rate!
You have two possibilities thanks to Tanke tools :
- You can simply use our Instagram Engagement rate Calculator. It also analyzes the average number of likes and comments on the 12 lasts posts of the profile you choose to analyze. It works as well on mobiles!
- We created a plugin for Chrome that allows you to calculate the engagement rate for every profile you visited on Instagram. If you would like to get the plugin and enjoy a free 14 days trial, register now here
Fabien Bertoux – 10 Statistiques à connaître absolument
https://www.codeur.com/blog/5-statistiques-instagram/
Célia Poncelin – Petit guide sur le taux d’engagement
https://siecledigital.fr/2015/05/18/petit-guide-taux-dengagement/
