Hey Gabriela Alvarado! Thank you! Yep, you have to multiply by 100 but all of the same reasoning still applies.
It is correct because by comparing all data in the same way you are able to compare how engaged the audience is. For example, there are 2 accounts with 10K followers who’s content is is being served to 30–60% of their audience and one has 3% engagement and the other has 10% engagement. This tells us that the account with 10% engagement is creating content which it’s audience “likes” and “comments” more than the one with 3%. Given that we only have the data to measure how much someone feels connected to a piece of content, measuring engagement is the best way to get close to understanding how content connects with an audience. It is of course, not perfect but one of the least subjective ways to measure how much people look at and interact with a photo or video, which is what you want to measure when evaluating how much to pay an influencer. The more their audience engages, the more likely it is that a paid piece of content will drive traffic.
These engagement metric evaluations are even more relevant taking into account that the algorithm surfaces content unequally. If Instagram deems a piece of content “delightful” enough to be surfaced more on people’s home feeds, more people see it and more engagement it gets, increasing an account’s average engagement. If you’re evaluating how much to pay for a post, you want to find accounts that are favored by the algorithm because more people see their content and, in turn, you receive a potentially higher return for your investment. Comparing engagement rates across accounts can also likely indicate which accounts Instagram’s algorithm is deeming less surface-able, which means less people see their content, which means they are not as valuable in terms of $$ (because less eyes see them and engage with them).
Accounts can technically raise their engagement averages by doing promoted posts but this technique would be incredibly expensive for someone to raise it enough to reach to a high level (15% engagement or above in accounts over 10K)because they’d have to put money into every post. I’m sure that some people do but they are the exception not the rule.
Either way, this technique of measuring doesn’t insure results always, but it’s the most objective and simple way for anyone to compare how influential an account is compared to another given they have similar types of content.
Hope this helps?
