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Engagements, Reach Engagement Rate, and Impressions Engagement Rate

Engagements, reach engagement rate, and impressions engagement rate are common insight metrics. However, there’s no standard way to measure them. This article provides transparency in how these insight metrics are calculated in Emplifi.

Important notes

  • Post-level
    All metrics mentioned in this article are post-level metrics. For more information, see Post Level vs Profile Level Widgets.

  • Insights metrics
    All metrics mentioned in this article are Insights metrics. For this reason, Insights need to be connected to those owned pages to process and display the data correctly. This factor has special relevance for Facebook and LinkedIn, as they have two versions of reactions and comments metrics.

    • Facebook Insights reactions, Insights comments, and Reach and impressions also collect data from posts that were shared by other profiles.

    • LinkedIn Insights reactions and Insights comments do not count reactions or comments made by companies and are not immediately removed when a reaction or comment is deleted.

    • Shared Insights posts for Instagram influencers are also counted as owned content and are therefore included in the metric

  • Important restrictions for Instagram data – Metric using Instagram Story replies, Engagements, Reach engagement rate, and Impressions engagement rate may be equal to zero for pages based in Europe or Japan. Click here to access the source. 

  • Organic and boosted data – Regarding the metrics mentioned in this article:

  • Facebook, Twitter, and TikTok return both organic and boosted data for their posts

    • Instagram, YouTube and LinkedIn return organic data only for their posts

  • Content weight (for average calculation) - Each content piece counts as 1 regardless of the platform, content type, etc. So, for instance, if we want to calculate the Reach engagement rate of 2 posts (one from Facebook and another from Instagram), we need to then divide by 2, counting with the average. In this case, Reach engagement rate will be calculated as RER = (FB RER + IG RER)/2. The same is applied for Engagements and Impressions engagement rate

Due to an ongoing issue with how Facebook’s API returns insights values for reach/impression and engagements for some posts, you may see unusually high numbers when using the formulas to calculate Reach/Impressions engagement rate. This affects Dashboard, Content Hub, and Emplifi API.

At the moment, there is no known workaround as we are waiting for Facebook to address the issue.

Engagements Metrics

Engagements

Engagements inform about how many times users engaged with a post during their lifetime. The Engagements metric shows both organic and boosted data for Facebook, Twitter and TikTok, and only organic data for Instagram, YouTube and LinkedIn.

Engagements =
FB Engagements + TW Engagements + IG Engagements + YT Engagements + LI Engagements + TT Engagements

Facebook engagements

The sum of reactions, comments, shares, and post clicks for a single post, including organic and boosted data.

Facebook Engagements = Reactions + Comments + Shares + Post Clicks

Instagram engagements

For Instagram content definition of engagements differs per posts and include organic data only.

Instagram Engagements for posts = Likes + Comments + Saves + Shares 

Instagram Engagements for reels = Likes + Comments + Saves + Shares

Instagram Engagements for stories = Story Replies

LinkedIn engagements

The sum of Insights reactions, Insights comments, Insights shares and Insights post clicks for a single post, including organic data only.

LinkedIn Engagements = Insights Reactions + Insights Comments + Shares + Post Clicks

Pinterest engagements

The following formula is used to calculate Pinterest engagements.

Pinterest Engagements =
Pin_click + Outbound_click + Save + Total_reactions + Total_comments

Snapchat engagements

The total number of times that users engaged with a snap during its lifetime. This includes swiping up, shares, comments and screenshots.

Snapchat Engagements = Swipes Ups + Shares + Comments + Screenshots

TikTok engagements

The total number of times a user interacted with a single video, including organic and boosted data.

TikTok Engagements = Likes + Comments + Shares

Twitter engagements

The total number of times a user interacted with a single tweet, including clicking anywhere on the tweet (hashtags, embedded media, username, profile photo, tweet expansion, cards, links, likes, retweets, follows) or replies, including organic and boosted data.

YouTube engagements

The total number of times a user interacted with a single video, including organic data only. 

YouTube Engagements = Likes + Dislikes + Comments + Shares

Reach Engagement Rate Metrics

Reach engagement rate

Reach engagement rate refers to the percentage of users who engaged with a single post during its lifetime, given its reach. This metric includes both organic and boosted data (Instagram metrics gather organic data only).

Screenshot_2022-05-26_at_15.25.48.png

The above formula sums up the Reach engagement rate across multiple posts and divides it by the number of posts. Ultimately, the value is transformed into a percentage.

Facebook reach engagement rate

The sum of engagements divided by the reach of a single Facebook post, including both organic and boosted data.

Instagram reach engagement rate

The sum of engagements divided by the reach of a single Instagram post or story, including organic data only. 

Snapchat reach engagement rate

The percentage of users who engaged with a snap during its lifetime, given its reach.

TikTok reach engagement rate

The sum of engagements divided by the reach of a single TikTok video, including organic and boosted data.

Impressions Engagement Rate Metrics

Impressions engagement rate

Impressions engagement rate refers to the percentage of users who engaged with a single post during its lifetime, divided by its number of impressions. The Impressions engagement rate metric includes both organic and boosted data (note that Instagram and LinkedIn metrics gather organic data only).

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The above formula sums up the Impressions engagement rate across multiple posts, divided by the number of posts. Ultimately, the value is transformed in percentage. 

Facebook impressions engagement rate

The sum of engagements divided by impressions for a single Facebook post. The Facebook reach engagement rate metric includes both organic and boosted data.

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Instagram impressions engagement rate

The sum of engagements divided by impressions for a single Instagram post or story, including organic data only.

mceclip2.png

LinkedIn impressions engagement rate

The sum of engagements divided by impressions for a single LinkedIn post, including organic data only.

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Pinterest impression engagement rate

The percentage of users who engaged with a pin during its lifetime, given its impressions.

Snapchat impressions engagement rate

The percentage of users who engaged with a snap during its lifetime, given its impressions.

Twitter impressions engagement rate

The sum of engagements divided by impressions for a single tweet, including both organic and boosted data.

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Finding these metrics in Emplifi

You can find these metrics in the following Emplifi modules:

  • Dashboard

  • Content Feed

  • Public API

Finding these metrics in our public API

Integrate the Public Emplifi API into Your Application will show you how to get access to Emplifi’s public API. Below is a list of where to find the metrics in the latest version of our public API:

Data API → Posts → Facebook Posts

  • insights_engagements

  • insights_impressions_engagement_rate

  • insights_reach_engagement_rate

Data API → Posts → Instagram Posts

  • insights_engagements

  • insights_impressions_engagement_rate

  • insights_reach_engagement_rate

Data API → Posts → YouTube Videos

  • Insights_engagements

Data API → Aggregated Posts Metrics

  • insights_engagements (supporting FB, IG, TW, YT)

  • insights_impressions_engagement_rate (supporting FB, IG, TW)

  • insights_reach_engagement_rate (supporting FB, IG)

FAQ

Q: Do Engagements metrics return data also for Facebook Unpublished posts?

A: Yes, they do. Engagements metrics return Facebook Unpublished posts data in the content feed, dashboard, and public API.

Q: Are we able to filter out Facebook Published and Unpublished post data?

A: Currently, Facebook Published/Unpublished filters are available in the Content Feed and Dashboard, but not yet available in public API.

Q: What’s the difference between Interactions-based metrics and Engagements-based metrics?

A: ​​Interactions-based metrics belong to our historical offering of metrics. These metrics use primarily public data that favors the benchmarking of Owned and Competitive profile performances.

Also, Interactions-based metrics are limited in terms of metrics used. Since they include to primarily public metrics, we can only get a limited amount of metrics from public profiles (e.g. Instagram likes and comments; Facebook reactions, comments and shares; YouTube likes, dislikes and comments).

The same reasoning can be extended to Interactions per 1k and Engagement rate metrics. Both these metrics use a combination of public metrics (Interactions and Profile followers) to calculate the respective rates (see here for more details about Interactions per 1k and Engagement rate metrics).

On the other hand, Engagements, Reach engagement rate, and Impressions engagement rate are Insights-only metrics, providing a more in-depth view of the data for owned content. In concrete terms, using Insights metrics means:

  • Facebook Insights reactions and Insights comments also return engagements from shared posts (owned posts shared by another profile) while their public counterparts do not have this extended data.

  • LinkedIn Insights reactions and Insights comments do not count reactions or comments made by companies are not immediately removed when a reaction or comment is deleted.  

  • More metrics are available to calculate engagements such as Post clicks for Facebook, Engagements for Twitter, Saves and Story replies for Instagram, and Shares for YouTube. Reach and Impressions are available for calculating Reach engagement rate and Impressions engagement rate, giving a narrower view on the rates depending on the unique audience (Reach) or Impressions of the specific posts or group of posts. These metrics are not available for Public content.

Additional information

Discover how metrics are used in the Dashboard module in Widgets Dictionary.

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