I read an article today that learned me something that I thought I already knew – I just wasn’t really aware of it. Funny feeling. It was an article on Facebook by the Danish Social Media Expert Jacob Holst Mouritzen. The article’s key point was that there is a problem with the way we measure the engagement rate on Facebook. Jacob Mouritzen made several good points, such as:

• Today, we measure it by taking engagement (likes, shares, comments) and divide it by the total fans on a given day, but that doesn’t work very well with Facebook’s current algorithm. It doesn’t work because the algorithm decreases the reach to our fans and therefore businesses usually pay to increase reach – but the paid reach is not included in the calculation of the engagement rate. That makes the engagment rate misleading.
• The engagement rate can also be misleading because it doesn’t include the other possible interactions: Click on the link, click on the video/picture or likes on other users comments.

However, the point that really caught on to me was that, even if you calculated the engagement rate in a more accurate way (use reach on post instead of total fans on a given day), it still shouldn’t be the metric which guides your social media strategy. At least not on its own.

There are many ways of achieving a higher engagement and most of them will probably boost your engagement in the beginning, but hurt your brand in the long run. If you let the engagement rate control your strategy, you may end up  only posting give-aways and photos of funny animals.

When you think about, it’s quite simple. And I feel certain that I already knew this in some way, but sometimes it’s necessary to be reminded about the simple things.