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
Ads/paids are not covered by the scope of this article.
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).
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.
If a TikTok post has no interactions for more than seven days, the reach metric will return zero (0) value. This is because TikTok’s API ignores any previous reach data. You can retrieve the data by interacting with the post from any account that is not yours. Recovered data should be available within 48-72 hours.
This TikTok API limitation, however, makes it rather difficult to conduct time-over-time analyses unless you start the recovery process.
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).
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.
Instagram impressions engagement rate
The sum of engagements divided by impressions for a single Instagram post or story, including organic data only.
LinkedIn impressions engagement rate
The sum of engagements divided by impressions for a single LinkedIn post, including organic data only.
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.
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.