Rates and percentages are more useful than absolute numbers when analysing data from social media platforms.
You should focus more on your follower growth rate than the absolute number of followers you have on social media. Let’s define “follower growth rate” before we start looking for tools to calculate it.
How fast do you gain new fans?
The rate of increase (or decrease) in your social media following as a percentage indicates how quickly your profile is gaining (or losing) new subscribers.
Your Instagram monthly growth rate, for instance, would be the percentage increase in your follower count compared to the previous month. A higher growth rate indicates that your marketing team is doing a good job of creating campaigns that are both engaging and intuitive. Simultaneously, there may be room for improvement in the optimization of a dip.
To what end should I monitor the rate at which my number of followers is increasing?
If you want to know how fast you’re gaining followers, the growth rate is more useful than just looking at the raw increase in your follower count.
A more accurate indicator of your campaigns’ success is the rate at which your followers are increasing in number. You can gauge how well you’re doing in comparison to the competition by keeping an eye on this rate. It’s possible that you’re gaining traction at a much faster rate than they are, even if you have fewer followers because your account is newer.
The Formula for Figuring Out Your Social Media’s Spread
Gained followers are divided by the initial number of followers multiplied by 100% to get the growth rate of your following (over a specific time period).
How to figure out your followers’ growth rate:
Increase in Number of Followers = (New Followers / Existing Followers) x 100%
With a base of 1000 followers, a monthly increase of 100 represents a 10% growth rate for Company A.
Company B, by comparison, has 10,000 followers at the beginning of the month and gains 100 throughout the month. Even at that low rate, growth is still positive.
Although both accounts increased their follower count, Company A’s growth rate was ten times that of Company B’s, suggesting that Company A is more effectively engaging its target audience.
Figure out how fast your number of followers is increasing.
The above formula can be used as input in spreadsheets to generate one’s own follower growth rate calculator. However, that could still add to your workload. Hence, we advise you to check out Keyhole, a comprehensive social media analytics system.