Why Engagement Rate is a Key Metric for Brands to Track Spending?

You may have stumbled across the quote, ‘All that shines is not gold’, well it certainly holds when talking about a high follower count. While a sky-high following might add a star to an influencer’s badge, it doesn’t necessarily affect the way their content is consumed. Yep! You heard that right. It doesn’t matter if you are an insanely popular public figure if your followers are not engaging with the content you are posting.

The perks of influencer marketing are no stranger to businesses, as it is the perfect strategy to run performance-driven campaigns while building a long-term relationship with your consumers. Brands and other new-age businesses are employing influencers not based on follower count but on their engagement rates, as by doing so, they are creating a brand connection with their audience.

According to a survey conducted by the Influencer Marketing Hub, 90% of the people believed Influencer Marketing to be an effective and efficient form of Marketing.

What is Engagement Rate?

It works as a feedback mechanism that tells how viewers respond to one’s content. It showcases the level of interaction of followers on the content created by the creator.

While some might argue that a high follower count results in a higher engagement rate because more people follow that person, it is an inaccurate method to determine how the content created by a creator is being consumed. It all boils down to how many people are invested and interested in the content, which is calculated by the number of likes, shares, and comments that the content receives.

While having a high follower count might be good, getting more shares and likes is better. It ensures a focused audience reach, thus creating more impact.

How is the engagement rate calculated?

The number of likes and shares calculates the engagement rate and comments a post receives divided by the total number of followers an influencer has. Hence, as the name suggests, it refers to the interaction and engagement of the followers to the content created by the creator.

Influencer Marketing depends on social media. While we innocently downloaded social media apps to share photos and videos with our friends and family, this phenomenon has now turned into a marketer’s dream as it not only offers an opportunity to connect with a wider range of audience from just sitting in one place, it has also introduced to us the new concept of Influencer Marketing.

Instagram is growing to be the most popular app for Influencer Marketing.

A higher engagement rate indicates that more and more people are viewing the creator’s content, ensuring a wide audience reach. This makes it easier for brands to promote their products/services to an engaged audience more likely to buy a product or service.

How does a high engagement rate affect brand advertisement?

With a higher engagement rate comes a greater chance of the content being shown on more people’s feeds, eventually resulting in a wider audience reach. It therefore aligns with the needs of the brand and what they ultimately wish to achieve, that is brand awareness and recall.

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It also proves to be an essential metric while assessing the influencer’s online presence, as it gives one the perfect criteria to evaluate the content of the creator and their performance.

According to the reports published by the Influencer Marketing Hub in 2020, micro-influencers are the most preferred influencers to promote or endorse a product/service for a brand with a selection rate as high as 57.8%.

The Engagement rate also ensures that no unethical practices are being conducted by the influencer. Often, many influencers recourse to unethical ways of obtaining followers. It might enhance their image by giving them a high follower count, but more is needed to ensure a wider audience reach. Since those followers are not ethically obtained, they are not interested or invested in the content that is created by the influencers, resulting in a low engagement rate.

Collaborating with such influencers can prove to be extremely disadvantageous to brands. Hence, keeping track of data and insights into the influencer’s engagement is of key significance.

Influencers that have a high engagement rate, regardless of their follower count provide brands with a tight-knit community of people who would trust them and become potential customers thus ensuring a high ROI.

Why are micro-influencers the perfect choice for brands?

Micro-influencers are the leaders of their niche, making them reliable and trustworthy in the eyes of their followers. Recommendations and reviews posted by them are based on their own experience with the product/service, thus making it reliable. It adds to the element of relatability with the followers.

According to the latest Influencer Marketing Hub reports, Micro-influencers enjoy a higher engagement rate (between 2–6%), as compared to the engagement rate of Mega Influencers (less than 1%), making micro-influencers the perfect choice for brands to collaborate with.

Micro-influencers have a more substantial connection with their followers because of their interaction and engagement within their follower base making them a preferred choice of a brand media mix. Thus, the engagement rate is a quintessential method in determining how content created by a creator is being perceived by the audience.

Micro-influencers are very promising and have an array of benefits to offer to brands. Because they have a close-knit community of followers, they are reaching out to a more focused audience group, resulting in an increased number of potential customers.

These micro-influencers enjoy a better engagement rate than Mega-Influencers or Celebrities, as more and more people are interested and invested in the content that they create.

Brands that wish to connect with the audience and make them trust their product. What better way to promote their products/services than through these micro-influencers whose entire community is based upon the foundation of credibility and reliability?

People are more likely to try out a product if they hear about it from a reliable source. It enables them to try something new or even unconventional, marking this new-age advertising as the rise of micro-influencers.

Thank you for reading this post; We hope it has been informative and enjoyable. We look forward to seeing you in our next one!

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