Part I of this topic covered Absolute Engagement, the actual numbers – how many likes, comments, shares etc your Page is getting. Now we take into account the number of Page Likes, as comparing the Absolute Engagement between pages of vastly different Like numbers has little meaning. This is what we call Engagement Rate and is calculated by simply dividing the Total Engagement (from your Absolute Engagement equation) by how many Page Likes you have. I sense some readers have switched off already.
Here’s an example: say you want to figure out the Engagement Rate for your most recent post. Easy, count the likes, shares, comments and if there was a link to click, video to watch or image to view, count those too. Let’s say the total is 50.
Divide this number by the number of page likes you have, let’s say 1,000, so 50/1000 = an engagement rate of 5%.
What’s a good rate? A rough rule of thumb is 1% or greater = good.
Anything less than 0.5% and you should look at changing something, such as the makeup of your content (are you using images, video, engaging copy) and posting time (peak usage is 7:00pm – 9:30pm). In saying this we generally see a decline in Engagement Rate as Page Likes go up. For example, Air NZ have 677,000 page likes but are only getting a 0.02 – 0.1% ER. They can get close to 1% on some posts but these are few and far between.
Can ER be further analysed – absolutely!
50% of readers have now probably moved on. Good on you for sticking with it.
Without diving too deep into it, Facebook don’t show your posts to all of your fans. Maybe not even half of your fans. In fact, we have seen average figures quoted at around 16%. That means on average, a Facebook Page post is seen by 16% of the Page’s fans. This has to do with lots of things and can be addressed in another blog post.
Due to this, our poor ER is at a real disadvantage right from the get go. Introducing Gross Engagement Rate (GER) and Net Engagement Rate (NER):
Gross Engagement Rate = Total Engagement/No. of Page Likes
Net Engagement Rate = Total Engagement/People Reached
You can find your People Reached figure in the bottom left of each post (assuming you’re an admin of the Page), which is the number of people that have seen the post and therefore have an opportunity to engage with your post. As users do not always get an opportunity to see every post, the real success of a post (and a good indication of what works and what doesn’t) can be gauged more accurately by NER, rather the GER.
Things can get really funky when we split these into Active and Passive (see Part I) using the same denominator, but now that I’ve lost 90% of readers, I’ll quit while I’m behind and save it for another time.
Jeremy
I am the 10%! Very good post.
Thanks Mike, good work on making it to the finish line!
Very useful. Don’t be afraid to use the stats. Iwould have liked to have seen more analysis tools as equations to help me calculate effectiveness. I loom forward to your next article.
Hi Jeremy.
It is very tough to present content in simple yet effective manner. I felt, you were successful in doing so. I can’t tell you how happy I felt, to know and learn about things that were always so confusing and clueless. Thank you so much. I practically done the ER math on the campaigns I have done. Thanks ya. I find very great to found your thoughts. Please continue sharing your thoughts.
Thank you for the insight. I’m afraid of this advertising dance with Google and Facebook. Yet, I’m gonna go for it. Maybe fear will make me wise. Or then it’s just gonna make me afraid.
Hi Jeremy,
I am running a fb campaign for my client. It is a luxury salon. I got 8k engagement and people reached 18 k. So its NET ER is low. How can I improve it. I want to improve ROI too. Please guide me.
I know this article is a little old…but the information was sooooo very helpful even today. Thank you so much for sharing!
Thanks for the feedback Juanita!
Great article, short and well written. I like your style to simplify complicated matters.
Thank you for illuminating us, now thanks to you we know better how to measure these engagment instead of walking blindfolded and relying on mear luck.
Thank you! Keep it up !
Thank you for this! I was just looking for a definition of engagement, and didn’t know this is what I was really looking for! Now, to go and do the math….
Good luck!
Thanks for the article it was really helpful.
I finally get it. Thanks!
Awesome!
I fumble my way around using my FB page as I really don’t understand some of the data FB regularly presents me with but your explanations are starting to put it into perspective – my 5% is pretty good but it is in a relatively small catchment and therefore relies on likes and shares to spread. I am getting more engagement that likes and shares but I do find that if I post something interesting or quirky that reflects what I am about it can have a huge impact.
Glad I found this site and will browse it more often
Thanks for the comment Erik. You’ve hit the nail on the head there too – interesting or quirky, plus brand alignment, equals success in our experience too.
Very useful article!
Thanks for the feedback Nigel!
Thanks for the great explanation, i am new at all this, but i found some clarity from what you have shared.
It does make you wonder what’s the point of using facebook or any of the start ups they buy that are not demanding advertising, yet…… The ideology that internet is free and accessible is being destroyed by the very company’s who made their money on the fact it was free and accessible. How much money does one company need? Yes they keep buying the latest company that offers the freedom their page used to offer before they limited the accessibility through demands of paying advertising to get the freedom….but come on… its an endless loop of capitalist bull shit that ends the ideology of free transfer of thought…the pure basis of internet?
I am so very lost. Help me out please. I run a small page of 1,710, We Heal the World. At We Heal every post reaction, comment and share generates 1 penny to charity. So, I do get a higher than average participation. These were my numbers this week. Post reach 2.4 K but had 8.4k engagements????? And a swear the 2.4 k is the reach in a day as I post a lot and each reaches lets say 3 to 7 or 8 hundred people. I counted yesterdays people reached for a total of 2.5 K????? What am I to make of this????
Hi Patrice. Thanks for getting in touch. That is a little unusual, technically Engagement can’t be higher than Reach! Maybe what you are seeing is Reach for your post, and the Engagements number you’re seeing is including Engagements on Shares (i.e. on other peoples’ newsfeeds where they’ve shared your post. Is that possible?
Go on…we can take more.
This is very helpful. I hadn’t figured out how to use the data and what “good” results are. So this gives me a lot to work on.
Thank you.