We have a metaphysical question for you: what is the purpose of your communication? To those who answer "to communicate": we see you, we love you. But the answer should be a little more nuanced!
The main purpose of your communication, apart from conveying information, is to create engagement. In other words, to make your audience want to interact with your content. To measure this engagement, but also to adapt your communication accordingly, there is a useful metric called the engagement rate.
Today, we'll explain what this data represents, why it's a valuable ally in designing effective communication, and how to calculate it across different platforms.
As a matter of courtesy, let's start with the usual introductions.
Blog articles, newsletters, emails, videos, and social media posts—this indicator is everywhere, telling you which communications really interest your audience. It also informs you about their preferences, whether in terms of content type, format, topics covered, or the best posting times.
In other words, the engagement rate is a bit like a translator-interpreter that helps you understand the subtle, wordless language of users. It allows you to better understand who you are addressing and to adapt your communication based on feedback.
If your communication were a ship, the engagement rate would be both its barometer and its compass. A barometer, because it tells you how effective your posts are based on user behavior. A compass, because it allows you to determine whether you are sailing in the right direction or whether you need to correct your course, aka change your strategy.
Whatever your channel, the higher your engagement rate, the more effective your communication is. It tells you that your posts, emails, and videos are resonating with your audience. And an engaged audience means increased popularity, target audience loyalty, and better conversion rates—giving your brand better visibility in a competitive landscape.
Understanding total engagements and how much engagement your content generates helps you optimize your ad spend and resources more effectively.
When asked, "What makes a good ratatouille?", it's a safe bet that the answer from, say, your grandmother will differ from that of the chef at your favorite restaurant. Well, it's the same with engagement rates: there is no single benchmark engagement rate to aim for across all your communications. Quite simply, because the ideal value depends on the platform, industry, and type of content.
That said, certain values can serve as a benchmark depending on the platform:
These benchmarks help you understand where you stand compared to competitors in your industry, but remember that your specific goals and audience size also play important roles.
The calculation of the engagement rate takes into account various parameters, which vary depending on the platform and the type of post. To calculate engagement rate correctly, the following factors are taken into account:
Note that the engagement rate does not include the notion of tone. For example, it counts all comments under a piece of content, both positive and negative. This is something to keep in mind when developing your social media strategy!
The correct formula for calculating the engagement rate depends on the type of content and the platform. In general, to determine it, you need to divide the total number of interactions (shares, clicks, likes, etc.) by the number of users exposed to the post or by your follower count.
It's also worth noting that there are various tools and features available to help you calculate the engagement rate on a given platform. For a website, for example, tools such as Google Analytics allow you to see how much time users spend on a page. Social media platforms like LinkedIn, Instagram, TikTok, and Facebook have their own tools for statistics and user behavior analysis. There are also free engagement rate calculator tools available online for quick calculations.
Here are the different methods for calculating the engagement rate depending on the platform. No calculator needed, and almost no manual work! Follow these steps for each platform.
To calculate the engagement rate of your employees on an email as part of internal communication, you will need to take three pieces of data into account: the click-through rate, the open rate, and the response rate.
These data points are calculated as follows:
Once you have gathered these three data points, calculate the average by adding the three values together and then dividing by 3. This will give you the average engagement rate for your corporate communications.
By the way, need some inspiration to motivate your teams? Here are some campaign ideas to boost employee engagement.
Calculating the engagement rate on an email signature containing a link is simple: just take into account the number of clicks on the signature and the number of emails sent.
Use this data by applying the following formula:
(Number of clicks ÷ Number of emails sent) × 100 = Engagement rate
This is one of the few ways to track how effective your email signature campaigns are at driving user action.
To calculate the Facebook engagement rate on a specific post or page, use the following engagement rate formula:
(Total engagements (likes, clicks, shares, comments, etc.) ÷ Nb. of people reached) × 100 = Engagement rate
You will find the necessary data in the platform's statistics. To calculate the engagement rate for your entire Facebook account, use the average number of interactions and the average reach of your posts. This helps you understand how well your brand is performing on the platform and compare against competitors.
The engagement rate for a TikTok account or post is calculated using the following formula:
(Total engagements (comments, likes, shares, post saved, etc.) ÷ Average number of views) × 100 = Engagement rate
To calculate the engagement rate for an entire TikTok account, you will need to take into account the average number of interactions and the average number of views across multiple posts.
TikTok's algorithm prioritizes reach over follower count, making this a particularly useful metric for understanding how well your content resonates with both followers and new viewers. There are a few ways to track this, including using TikTok's native analytics or third-party engagement tracker tools.
Want to calculate the engagement rate for content posted on LinkedIn? Use the following formula:
(Number of interactions (likes, shares, etc.) ÷ People reached) × 100 = Engagement rate
Again, visit the "statistics" page of your LinkedIn account to access the number of interactions and people who have viewed your content.
LinkedIn tends to have higher engagement rates compared to other platforms, especially for B2B brands and professional content. Tracking your LinkedIn engagement rate helps you understand what resonates with your professional audience and can inform your content strategy. For reasons related to LinkedIn's algorithm, posting at optimal times and engaging with your network can significantly boost your engagement metrics.
Many users find LinkedIn particularly effective for building brand authority and connecting with people in their industry. By monitoring your LinkedIn engagement rate regularly, you can identify which types of posts—whether articles, videos, or polls—generate the most interaction from your audience.
The calculation of engagement rate on Instagram depends on your intention. If you want to know the average engagement rate on your Instagram account, you will need to apply this engagement rate formula:
(Average number of interactions (likes, saves, shares, etc.) ÷ Followers count) × 100 = Overall engagement rate
To obtain the engagement rate for a specific post, the method varies slightly. You need to divide the number of interactions by the number of impressions, i.e. the number of views on your post, then multiply by 100. This gives us the following formula:
(Total engagements on specific post ÷ Impressions) × 100 = Post engagement rate
Not really into math, but want to know the impact of your Instagram posts? There are many online engagement rate calculator free tools available. For example, you can use HypeAuditor or Click Analytic, two free tools that are very popular with influencers and businesses. These Instagram engagement tools function as an IG calculator or influencer engagement calculator, helping you analyze your Instagram account and track your Instagram interaction rate.
You can also use these tools to increase engagement on Instagram by identifying what works best for your audience. They help you understand accounts engaged with your content, monitor total Instagram engagement trends, and even function as an Instagram money calculator for influencers looking to understand their earning potential based on their engagement metrics.
Instagram account analysis through these tools provides insights into optimal posting times, content types that drive higher engagement, and how you compare to competitors in your industry.
Now that you know how to calculate engagement rate across different platforms, here are a few ways to improve your metrics:
Remember, the goal isn't just to achieve a good number—it's to build meaningful connections with your audience that translate into loyalty and conversions for your brand.
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Now you understand the importance of engagement rate, an essential indicator for communication that really resonates with your audience, and how to calculate it! Keep up the momentum and discover other SaaS solutions to measure your marketing performance.
Yes, with the 'Campaigns' offer, it is possible to track the number of clicks on the email signatures of all your employees in the 'Statistics' area of the platform.
You can then access a detailed or global view of the number of clicks on the email signatures of each employee. You can use the search option to target a specific signature or a given period. Finally, you have the possibility to export all statistics to an Excel document.
If you launch campaigns with banners inserted in your email signatures, you can also access their performance via this same space.
With Letsignit, you can easily add social network icons in your collaborators' email signatures and link to your company pages. Also, our "attributes" feature allows you to manage personalized URLs for each of your collaborators such as their individual LinkedIn profile.
And that's not all: you can add links to an appointment-setting application, allow your customers to leave reviews easily, and integrate our 'Chat on Teams' widget to let anyone start a discussion via Microsoft Teams chat.
It’s up to you! As an administrator of the Letsignit platform, you choose whether or not to grant modification rights to your employees. These permissions are managed on an attribute-by-attribute basis, which means that you can decide to allow the employee to change their phone number, but not the address of your premises, for example.
This feature applies to all attributes in your directory, including custom attributes created on Letsignit. When your employees change one or more attributes, your directory is obviously not affected.
It often happens that employees make their email signature their own: custom format, bad fonts, colors inconsistent with the brand standards... all of this has an impact on your brand!
A consistent visual identity is considered authentic and outperforms a perceived weak one by 20%. And, your customers are 2.4 times more likely to buy your products.
With Letsignit, take back control over your brand identity by standardizing all your email signatures. Our tool has many features that allow you to customize your signatures by department, by audience or by subsidiary. Not to mention the possibility of carrying out campaigns within your email signatures thanks to our Campaign offer.
What is the user experience like for our employees?
In both cases:
In short, they have autonomy in their email signature, but you keep control on the field, signatures, and banners they can edit or use.
With our "multi-signature" feature, your employees can benefit from multiple email signatures. No technical manipulation is required. Thanks to our Add-in for Outlook or the desktop app, they can change their email signatures as they wish with just a few clicks.
Regarding the creation of email signatures, you can make several variations such as:
Everything has been thought of to go further in the personalization process based on the recipient of your emails.
If sending emails has an impact, non-optimized email signatures also have an impact. An unsuitable format or an image that is too heavy considerably increases the size of your signatures... and therefore, your emails.
As a responsible economic actor, we contribute to reducing our CO2 emissions and those of our customers in several ways:
As we are increasingly involved in sustainability initiatives, our priority in 2023 is to develop even more green IT functionality.
If sending emails has an impact, non-optimized email signatures also have an impact. An unsuitable format or an image that is too heavy considerably increases the size of your signatures... and therefore, your emails.
As a responsible economic actor, we contribute to reducing our CO2 emissions and those of our customers in several ways:
As we are increasingly involved in sustainability initiatives, our priority in 2023 is to develop even more green IT functionality.
