New Social Media Metric: Engagement Rate Compared to Industry Benchmark

Many in PR and marketing post frequently on social media, attempting to gain more followers, shares and likes. Many measurement experts criticize those metrics as vanity metrics. Engagement rate, or interactions divided by total follower count, offers a better gauge of social media marketing success.

Engagement rates vary substantially between industries and social media platforms. What’s excellent in one industry may be below average in another sector. To truly accurately measure social media marketing, it’s essential to compare results to industry peers.

To determine those industry benchmarks, RivalIQ analyzed posting frequency and engagement rates of 12 industries on major social media platforms last year by randomly selecting 150 companies from each industry.

One major takeaway: Posting frequently does not necessarily produce more engagement. Companies in some industries post frequently and see paltry engagement; others post less and enjoy robust engagement. On Facebook, industries that post infrequently (alcohol, food & beverage, and hotels and resorts) had the best engagement rates. Media firms posted an average 8.18 posts a day compared to the median of 0.97 across all sectors and had one of the lowest engagement rates.

These are some other key findings.

Instagram: a New Home for Brands?

All industries saw a dramatic decline in Facebook engagement rate last year due to the network’s algorithm change that favored friends over brands. In response to falling reach, many brands reduced Facebook posting. Brands that want to earn reach on Facebook will either reexamine strategies and double their efforts or spend adverting money to acquire reach.

Instagram offers abundant marketing opportunities. Average engagement rates remained high, at 1.6%, and declined less than 10% over the previous year, likely driven by strong organic reach. With the average brand posting only five times a week, ample room for growth remains. Alcohol brands win engagement on Instagram as they have on Facebook and Twitter by posting photos and videos.

Higher education dramatically outperformed other industries on Instagram, with a 3.965 engagement rate compared to 1.16% average across all sectors.

Sports teams are most active on the network. With the exception of sports teams, the industries with the highest per-post engagement rates post less often.

Twitter: A Platform for Customer Service

Twitter offered a seemingly low engagement rate of 0.048% per post. Still, Twitter provides a superb opportunity for brands to engage one-to-one with users through social media listening. A small but engaged Twitter following can still provide meaningful results for business, and Twitter-based customer service can create a positive experience for customers, says Blair Feehan at RivalIQ.

Twitter engagement remained consistent, with Higher Ed and Alcohol leading the pack and media lagging far behind. The average brand posted about 25% less than the previous year, although media and sports teams continue fervent activity.

In general, images and video can help brands achieve higher engagement on Twitter.

Tools to Benchmark Social Media Performance

To comprehensively analyze their performance and compare themselves against competitors, organizations and brands need an advanced social media analytics tool.

Although most social networks provide basic metrics, their native analytics have significant limitations compared to a subscription social media monitoring and measurement service.

A sophisticated measurement tool can also determine industry benchmarks for share of voice, messages, sentiment and other campaign metrics. Some services can also create custom metrics for clients.

Bottom Line: Comparing social media engagement rates against industry benchmarks provides a deeper understanding of social media success than more superficial metrics. Success is relative: Some industries enjoy much higher engagement rates than others.