Shopify blog
You don’t need a massive audience to reach a high engagement rate. High engagement is a result of creating content that resonates so much with your audience that they like, comment, and share it with others.
More eyes on your brand’s social media can be helpful for sales. Statista estimates 15% of total online sales worldwide in 2026 will be made through social networks, with revenues forecast to reach nearly $586 billion.
In this article, learn different methods for calculating engagement rate and get tips from business owners on how they increase engagement.
Table of contents
- What is engagement rate?
- How to calculate engagement rate
- What is a good engagement rate?
- 3 tips to improve engagement
- How to calculate engagement rate FAQ
What is engagement rate?
Engagement rate measures how much an audience interacts with your content. It shows what percentage of followers or viewers liked, commented, shared, or saved your content.
The metrics used to calculate engagement vary by social and analytics platform. For example, Instagram defines engagement interactions as likes, comments, saves, and shares, while social media management platform Buffer omits saves in its Instagram engagement calculations.
Calculating engagement rate can help you evaluate your social media performance and make data-driven marketing decisions.
A high engagement rate can indicate your content resonates with your target audience. Conversely, a low engagement rate may signal the need for content adjustments or a shift in your marketing strategy to align with audience preferences.
How to calculate engagement rate
You can calculate your social media engagement rate based on follower count, impressions, or average performance of a campaign or series of posts. Here’s how:
By follower count
The follower-count engagement rate formula measures how many people react to a specific social media post in relation to your follower count. This can be useful for tracking performance against competitors with a similar follower size since the information is publicly available.
The formula is as follows:
Engagement rate = (Number of engagements / Number of followers) x 100
Here’s an example of how you can apply this engagement rate calculation: Let’s say you have 10,000 followers on Instagram. You post a photo of a new product on your page.
The specific post receives 350 likes, 75 comments, and 25 shares. That adds up to 450 total engagements. Plugging this into the formula looks like this:
(450 / 10,000) x 100 = 4.5%
The calculation reveals that you have a 4.5% engagement rate on your one post on the Instagram platform.
By impressions
This formula is used to calculate engagement of paid ads or boosted posts, where reach can extend beyond existing followers. It measures how much engagement a piece of content received compared to the number of impressions, or how many times it was displayed.
The formula is:
Engagement rate = (Number of engagements / Number of impressions) x 100
Here’s how to apply this formula: Let’s say you run a LinkedIn ad that generates 25,000 impressions. It elicits 600 likes, 120 comments, and 80 shares, which comes to 800 total engagements. Plugging those numbers into the formula looks like this:
(800 / 25,000) x 100 = 3.2%
The calculation reveals that 3.2% of people who saw the ad engaged with it.
Average engagement rates
If you want a better understanding of your overall engagement during a campaign or over a specific period of time instead of the engagement rate of a single post, you can use this average engagement rate formula:
Average engagement rate = Total engagement rate / Total number of posts published
Let’s say you post three different posts on your social media page for one campaign. The first post has a 4.5% engagement rate, the second 3.2%, and the third 5.8%. Add these together and divide by three, the number of posts in the campaign.
(4.5 + 3.2 + 5.8) / 3 = 4.5
The average engagement rate for your campaign is 4.5%.
You can use a variation of this formula to find the average engagement rate for a single post across multiple days. Add up the engagement rate for each day you want to track, then divide by the total number of days instead of the number of posts.
What is a good engagement rate?
Typical engagement rates can vary widely by platform, follower count, and content type. Here’s a breakdown:
Note: Social media management software Buffer’s engagement rates are based on reach—the number of unique accounts that saw the post—where available. Otherwise, the closest equivalent is used (e.g. impressions, views).
In an analysis of content published through its own platform, Buffer found that Instagram’s median engagement rate was 5.4% in 2025. To get this number, Buffer added up likes, comments, and shares and divided that by reach—the number of unique accounts that saw the post. Buffer found that median engagement rates differed between content types: 6.9% for carousels, 4.44% for single-image posts, and 3.31% for Reels.
Social media analytics platform Socialinsider used a different method to calculate engagement rate for brands, relying only on publicly available information. They added up likes and comments per post and divided that number by follower count to get an average Instagram engagement rate of 0.48% in 2025.
According to influencer marketing platform Social Cat, follower count can have a major impact on Instagram influencer engagement rates. In March 2025, influencers with 1,000 to 5,000 followers had the highest average engagement rates, at 3.38% to 4.42%, compared to 1.25% to 1.62% for influencers with 5,000 to 10,000 followers. Social Cat used the same engagement rate formula as Socialinsider, adding likes and comments and dividing by follower count.
TikTok
In Buffer’s analysis, TikTok had a median engagement rate of 4.5% in 2025, with median engagement on videos (3.39%) outperforming image posts (1.92%). Buffer didn’t specify the engagement actions it tracked to find these numbers.
Socialinsider added up likes, comments, shares, and saves, and divided by number of followers to get an average TikTok engagement rate of 3.7% in 2025.
Social Cat data from July 2025 found that follower count doesn’t impact engagement rates on TikTok the same way as it does on Instagram. Social Cat added up likes, comments, and shares for each influencer’s last 12 posts, and divided that number by follower count. Influencers with 1,000 to 5,000 followers had an average engagement rate of 1.88% to 2.25%, compared to 1.08% to 1.37% for influencers with 5,000 to 10,000 followers. Even macro-influencers with 500,000 to 1 million followers hovered around the 1% mark.
X
Microblogging platform X had a median engagement rate of 2.8% in 2025, according to Buffer. Engagements included likes, reposts, and comments. Buffer found that standard text posts had the highest median engagement on X at 3.56%, followed by images (3.4%), then video (2.96%) and links (2.25%). Buffer notes Premium accounts get more visibility than regular accounts.
Socialinsider calculated average engagement on X by adding likes and reposts and dividing that number by total followers. They found that X had an average engagement rate of 0.12% in 2025.
Buffer found LinkedIn had a median engagement rate of 6.1% in 2025. Carousels had a much higher median engagement rate than other content formats on the professional networking site at 21.77%. Video came in second at 7.35%, followed by images at 6.52%, link posts at 3.81%, and text-only posts at 3.18%. Buffer didn’t specify the engagement actions it tracked, but LinkedIn itself calculates engagement rate based on the ratio of interactions to impressions, per post. Interactions include clicks, reactions, comments, and shares.
Facebook has a similar median engagement rate to sibling platform Instagram, according to Buffer: 5.6% in 2025 (compared to 5.4% for Instagram). But unlike Instagram, content type doesn’t seem to have much influence on engagement rate. Image posts had a median engagement rate of 5.2% on Facebook, videos had 4.84%, text posts had 4.76%, and link posts were at 4.43%. Buffer took into account reactions, comments, and shares.
Socialinsider added up reactions, comments, and shares, dividing that number by total followers to get an average Facebook engagement rate of 0.15% in 2025.
3 tips to improve engagement
Here are some tactics real business owners have used to boost engagement:
Offer educational content
If there’s a learning curve when it comes to your products, consider focusing on educational content. Nail care brand Nailboo posts TikTok videos to show their audience how to use their products.
“Those educational videos you see have high engagement because the customers that have bought [our products] want to learn these lessons so they can have a better experience with the product,” says Razvan Romanescu, founder of Underlining, the holding company that launched Nailboo, on an episode of Shopify Masters.
For example, in one video, Nailboo showed how to create an ocean wave design using gel nail polish, string, and Nailboo’s Pro Cure LED Lamp. The video, posted May 17, 2026, had 9,659 likes, 70 comments, 5,316 saves, and 1,019 shares as of Aug. 5, totaling 16,064 interactions. Nailboo had approximately 463,800 followers on that date. Using Social Cat’s formula, that’s an engagement rate of 3.46%—well above the average for an influencer with a similar follower count (0.71–1.03%).
Make your content interactive
One way to get your audience to engage with you is to include a participatory component to your content.
“Any little interactive or immersive elements you can add, like playing into the carousel’s swipes or having a story poll or tappable shopping cards, really increases engagement,” says Jaclyn VanSloten, founder of growth marketing firm Femra Consulting.
This TikTok carousel from beauty brand Tower 28 is a good example of how you can encourage viewers to swipe through the entire carousel. The brand uses ellipses to create a sense of anticipation in this post about how the company has grown over time.
Posted on March 16, 2026, it received 5,911 likes, 218 comments, 122 saves, and 40 shares for a total of 6,291 interactions as of Aug. 5. Divided by Tower 28’s 409,700 followers, that’s a TikTok engagement rate of roughly 1.53%, which is above average for influencers with the same number of followers, per Social Cat.
Share the real moments
When you run a business, you may run into unexpected challenges. The founders of Good Girl Snacks believe in being transparent about the ups and downs of running a pickle brand.
“Whenever something bad happens … we twist it into a marketing or community-building piece of content,” Cofounder Leah Marcus says on an episode of Shopify Masters.
For example, when influencer Alix Earle posted a video about buying a jar about the company’s pickles, Leah made a TikTok about the chaos that ensued. The video, posted June 1, 2026, received around 30,100 likes, 280 comments, 471 saves, and 315 shares as of Aug. 5, for about 31,166 interactions—that’s more interactions on a single post than the company has followers at 28,500.
How to calculate engagement rate FAQ
What is the formula for average engagement?
The formula for average engagement is: Average average engagement = Total average engagement / Total number of posts published.
Is a 7% engagement rate good?
Yes, 7% is a high engagement rate. It exceeds average industry benchmarks for every major social media platform, according to data from Buffer, Socialinsider, and Social Cat.
How do I find my Instagram engagement rate?
To measure engagement rate on Instagram, navigate to Insights, the platform’s built-in analytics tool. You can see the number of interactions, such as likes, comments, saves, and shares, for your posts. Add up the interactions and then divide that number by the number of times your content was displayed or your follower count, and multiply it by 100.
