When tracking any social media metric, it’s best to think in terms of rates and percentages rather than raw numbers.
Rather than tracking the raw number of social media followers you’ve gained or lost, tracking your follower growth rate is much better. Before we jump into follower growth rate calculators, let’s look at exactly what this metric is.
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What is follower growth rate?
Follower growth rate, expressed as a percentage growth, measures the speed at which your social media account is gaining (or losing) followers relative to your previous follower count.
For example, your monthly Instagram follower growth rate would be the percentage growth your follower count has seen since last month. A higher growth rate means your marketing team is on the right track, launching intuitive and engaging campaigns. At the same time, a dip might need some optimization tweaks.
Why should I track follower growth rate?
Tracking a raw increase in follower count doesn’t tell you as much about how quickly you’re gaining followers as your growth rate does.
The follower growth rate serves as a better health check on the performance of your campaigns. Tracking this rate can help you monitor your performance against your competitors. For example, you could have fewer followers due to having a newer account, but you could be gaining traction much faster than they are.
How to calculate follower growth rate?
The follower growth rate is calculated as the number of followers you gained divided by the number of followers you started, times 100% (over a specific time period).
The follower growth rate calculation is:
Follower Growth Rate = New Followers / Starting Follower Count x 100%
For example, if Company A starts with 1000 followers and gains 100 followers in a month, they’ve achieved a growth rate of 10%.
Contrast this with Company B which starts the month with 10,000 followers and gains 100. That’s a growth rate of only 1%.
Although both accounts gained the same raw number of followers, Company A is doing a much better job at attracting new followers—their growth rate was 10 times faster relative to their original size.
5 Tips to increase follower growth rate
There are several quick ways to increase your follower growth:
1. Create high-quality content: Your content should be visually appealing, informative, and engaging. When you post quality content, people are more likely to follow you and share your content with others.
2. Use relevant hashtags: Hashtags help more audiences discover your content, so use relevant hashtags in your posts. This will help your content reach a wider audience and increase your chances of gaining new followers.
3. Engage with your followers: Respond to comments and direct messages, and ask your followers questions to encourage engagement. Building a relationship with your audience will push them to continue following you and sharing your content with a broader segment.
4. Collaborate with other accounts: Collaborating with peers from your niche can help you reach a new audience segment and gain new followers. You can collaborate by creating joint content, running a giveaway, or sharing each other’s content.
5. Consistency is key: Post regularly and at the right times to keep your followers engaged. This will keep you on their minds and increase your chances of gaining new followers.
Bonus: Add your competitors’ profiles to Keyhole dashboard and see what content drives them more engagement, and eventually followers.
Remember, building a following takes time and effort. Consistency, quality content, engagement, and collaboration are key to increasing follower growth.
Start calculating your follower growth rate
Now you can feed in the formula given above in spreadsheets and create your own follower growth rate calculator. But even that might add to your work pile! That’s why we suggest you try out Keyhole, a complete social media analytics platform.
Right from brand monitoring and profile analytics to hashtag tracking and sentiment analysis, Keyhole has everything you need under one roof. To easily track and report on your growth rate—and that of your competitors—start your free Keyhole trial today.
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Frequently Asked Questions
What is the follower growth rate?
Follower growth rate, expressed as a percentage growth, measures the speed at which your social media account is gaining (or losing) followers relative to your previous follower count.
How do you calculate follower growth?
Follower growth rate is calculated as the number of followers you gained divided by the number of followers you started, times 100% (over a specific time period). For example, if Company A starts with 1000 followers and gains 100 followers in a month, they've achieved a growth rate of 10%.
Keyhole is a good social media analytics tool. Add trackers and profiles to its dashboard, and Keyhole will pull in detailed metric analysis in no time. You can even download and share them as reports for marketing ROI overview.