If you are managing a brand and looking for ways to kick-start your marketing through influencers, Instagram is the perfect place to get started. As the digital marketing ecosystem is evolving, from skincare to software, influencers have become new-age brand ambassadors. They are utilizing their power to sway opinions and drive purchases in just a few taps.
Brands should understand that not all influencers can be their ideal brand ambassadors and create an equal impact. Finding the right influencer is the main catch here. Brands should find the right influencer who can create value and one whose audience listens and converts into your customers.
But, how brands can identify the right influencer? Instagram engagement calculator is the best tool that can help brands find the best fit for their influencer marketing. This smart tool is just beyond the number game as it acts as a magnifier and dwells into the influencer accounts beyond follower count to measure the real impact.
There are still some black-hat people who are just inflating their follower count with bots and ghost followers, which are considered junk. To avoid such junky accounts, this calculator can help and guide you to understand the actual count.
In this blog post, we help brands understand how engagement calculators work and how your brand can utilize the tools for authentic influencer partnerships that can drive better ROI. Let’s dive in.
What is the Instagram Engagement Calculator?
Instagram engagement calculator acts like a brand’s detective and it crunches the numbers behind an influencer’s engagement on the Instagram platform. Be it their comments, likes, and follower base, it calculates the actual audience.
The basic formula it follows – Likes + Comments/ Followers x 100
The final number is the actual influencer engagement rate. Say, if an influencer has 5000 followers and 250 comments or likes per post. They may have an engagement rate of around 5%. That’s good, isn’t it?
But in the same way, if someone with 100,000 followers has a 0.5% engagement rate isn’t a realistic one for sure.
The best Instagram calculators don’t stop there. They have the capability of swelling deeper into the views obtained by the influencer stories, saving, reaching, and even understanding the fake followers.
So, as a result of its unique capabilities, brands can easily identify who is real and fake. Especially, in influencer marketing, it’s all about authenticity equal to the priceless conversion rate.
Why engagement rate is important for influencer success?
Always trust quality over quantity, especially when comes to influencer marketing. As a brand, you may find influencers with flashy photos, and huge followers, which may look very impressive and attractive. But, what if their engagement is too low compared to their total follower count? That means they can’t move the needle for your brand. Because, your brand needs an influencer who has good engagement rates like likes, shares, comments, etc. It indicates their potential, authentic, and real audience who trust them as they engage.
Micro-influencers with less than 50k followers often have better engagement rates compared to influencers with just a massive following.
Most importantly, brands should focus on such influencers who have good engagement rates as people trust them and can even make a purchase if their influencer recommends them specifically. The engagement rate always cuts the fluff and exactly shows you what matters to your brand.
Instagram Engagement Calculator – Types
We all know that one size doesn’t fit all. The same applies to the engagement metrics. Here is an interesting breakdown of the most commonly used tools:
Free tools online:
- Brands can try some free genuine online tools like Phlanx, influencer Marketing Hub, etc to check if the influencers have real engagement.
- All they need to do is plug in an influencer handle and get a quick engagement estimate with real numbers.
Self-reporting via Instagram insights
- Request the influencers to submit their data directly from their won dashboards.
- It should include the story taps, link clicks, reach, etc.
- This data is very helpful for brands to cross-check with Instagram engagement calculators to check the accuracy.
Premium Analytics Platforms
- Upfluence, HypeAuditor, and Modash platforms are a few of them that are helpful to your brand in analyzing fake followers and demographics.
- This is ideal for brands who are planning for serious campaigns or multiple collaborations with influencers.
Whether you are having a full marketing team or you are just going with a lean team, there is a tool that fits with your goals and budget.
What are the key metrics that brands should evaluate on Instagram?
Do not make a mistake by choosing the influencer just based on their follower count and flashy videos. Brands have to understand and be mindful of the performance-driven metric which reflects the real influence. It’s not about the total follower count or reach.
Here is a quick evaluation guide for the brands with the key metrics in detail:
- Engagement Rate (ER) – Engagement rate is considered the most reliable metric for the brands. Say, if an influencer had a high engagement rate, that means their audience isn’t just scrolling their feeds but engaging them through comments, likes, and clicks. Always use an Instagram engagement calculator to get the actual numbers.
- Average post likes and comments: The volume of the engagement always matters the most. But also consistency is the key. So, brands have to look into how people are interacting regularly with their influencers or just engaging with viral posts.
- Quality and relevancy: It is a clear fact that dumping the emojis won’t drive any conversions. So, it is super important to search for thoughtful and relevant interactions such as an inquiry or recommendations among the followers.
- Demographics: Audience demographics like gender, region, age, and language should align with the brand’s persona. So, brands have to dig deeper into that scope before engaging with an influencer for marketing.
- Engagement on stories: Always check for engagement through replies, shares, taps, interactions through polls or sliders, etc. These metrics can help brands to understand engagement much better.
- Affinity and alignment with the brand: Check if the influencers have worked with similar brands or do they align with the brand tone, aesthetics, and values.
- Growth trends: The follower growth trends generally refer to a healthy community. A sudden drop or spikes signal fake followers or algorithm penalties.
Always combine the above insights and create a clear roadmap that ensures the effectiveness of your influencer marketing.
Step-by-step guide – How brands can use tools
So, finally, you have all the data and want to put that data into action? Here is a step-by-step game plan that your brand can follow to pick the right influencer by using an Instagram engagement calculator for influencers.
- Shortlist all the influencers – Make sure you have a list of influencers that you identify using the industry hashtags, competitive research, or influencer discovery tools.
- Analyze – Just plug into the trusted Instagram engagement calculator to analyze the engagement rates. Just aim for the influencer who has engagement rates over 5% to achieve a maximum impact.
- Dive deeper – Always go deep into the quality of engagement they have, check the comments and their relevance to the content of your brand services or product.
- Cross-check- Once you receive the data from influencers from their dashboards, make sure you cross-check everything against the calculator estimates. This helps brands to pick the genuine influencer.
- Check and verify authenticity: Utilize tools like Modash, and HypeAuditor to identify the fake followers, growth spikes, and suspicious behavior in influencer accounts.
- Make sure they fit into your brand: Always review the aesthetics, tone, and past collaboration data of the influencers. Understand their voice and their messaging and whether it aligns with what your brand expects.
- Finalize and prioritize the list: As a brand, you have to make sure that you rank the list based on the combination of audience match, authenticity, and engagement rate. Just select the top performers and start reaching them.
Brands must follow the above checklist to ensure the best influencer marketing decisions that are strongly rooted in real data and not just with a gut feeling.
Case study – Brand success using Engagement calculators
Organic skincare brands achieved double ROI with the right influencer marketing for their brand. Here is how they achieved:
A mid-sized DTC skincare brand geared up for its product launch. They mainly depended on macro influencers with huge followers but didn’t get satisfactory results.
Later they considered the data-first approach as follows:
- The brand used a combination of Instagram engagement calculators to shortlist the 30 micro-influencers with an above 5% engagement rate.
- They filtered the demographics to match their ideal buyers in urban areas
- Focused on the real data and reviewed past collaborations and the quality of the comments they have on their page.
Results:
- After following the above steps, the organic brand has achieved double ROI compared to their previous campaign.
- They noticed 50% more conversions through influencer swipe-up links.
- 47% increase in the profile visits on Instagram during the campaign.
Brands should remember that though the numbers matter the most, it’s the real numbers that play the game for your brand and help you win the best ROI possible. So, this case study demonstrates the ability of the Instagram engagement calculator for influencers for better influencer marketing.
Top Influencer marketing tools list for brands
As a brand you may be in dilemma on what are all tools available to check the real data of the influencers, here is the brand tool kit for you. We have curated the list based on the overall performance, insights, and credibility.
1. HyperAuditor – Ideal for marketing agencies and enterprises.
- Detects AI-driven frauds
- Checks audience credibility
- Tracks growth spikes.
2. Phlanx – Ideal for startups and small businesses
- Check quick engagement rates
- Simple interface
3. Upfluence – Best for in-house teams and global brands
- Comes with full influencer CRM
- Provides detailed analytics
- Interesting outreach features
4. Modash – Ideal for tech-forward businesses and dev teams
- Offers API access
- Comes with customized filters
- Deep dive into the audience and their interactions.
5. Heepsy – Suitable for Ecommerce and lifestyle brands
- Provides location and category filters
- Checks on fake followers
Brands can pair up a free engagement calculator like Phlanx with a premium audit tool for end-to-end reports.
Common mistakes
Though your brand has the right tools in place, mistakes always happen. Make sure your brand doesn’t fall into these traps:
- Don’t chase follower counts: As we discussed above this is the most important metric you should give low priority. It is important to understand that high follower counts don’t offer high returns. Make sure your brand prioritizes the engagement rates and quality of the audience.
- Don’t ignore demographic relevance checks: It is important to understand the brand’s target audience. Make sure the influencer’s audience matches your audience demographics and profiles.
- Don’t skip content alignment: Make sure your brand’s tone and visuals match your partnership. It should feel like a forced advertisement that ultimately flops.
- Don’t ignore self-reported data verification: Don’t think every influencer is genuine. Once you receive the Instagram dashboard data, it is important to cross-verify with your tools to ensure accuracy and authenticity.
- Don’t overlook long-term partnerships: Brands should look for creators who can grow with their brands over time.
Finally, avoid the above pitfalls and set your campaign in the right direction with real influence.
Conclusion with CTA
In today’s digital world, attention is a pivotal factor and influencers are the promoters. Before brands invest in influencers, they should make sure that they are buying real influence not inflated ones.
With an Instagram engagement calculator for influencers, brands can power up their marketing skills and filter the noise, identify authenticity, and finally able to maximize the ROI through fruitful partnerships with influencers.
So next time, when you consider an influencer for your brand, make sure you don’t ask about how many followers they have, instead ask them how many engaged followers they have. Start smartly and let data guide your influence marketing through the Instagram engagement calculator.
