There’s a ratio that’s usually helpful to work out in order to determine whether it’s time to revisit or revamp your social media strategy.
It’s a super simple math formula that tells you how well or how poorly your social content is being received by viewers.
Let’s Call It ‘The IG Appeal’ Ratio
FOLLOWERS (÷) POSTS = (Your Instagram Appeal Ratio)
The # of Followers you have, Divided By the # of Posts you have, equals the ratio of how effective or appealing your Instagram feed is, over time.
You can replace “appeal” with “effectiveness” or “ROI,” or some other similar term that measures profitability or productivity, or a fulfillment of the very reason you are posting to Instagram to begin with.
(If you bought a majority of your followers, your ratio is going to be shot almost forever, and it’s time to create a new account and start over—or delete your daily max of fake users for the next year plus. P.S., Yes they can tell.)
Home Service Niche Example
An Instagram account I’m looking at right now is in the home services industry.
It has:
- 348 followers.
- 114 posts.
- = an average appeal rate of 3.05.
Marketing Agency Example
An Instagram account for a Marketing Agency is what first caught my attention.
It has:
- 493 followers.
- 658 posts.
- = an average appeal rate of 0.749
There are more Posts on this account than there are Followers.
A ratio of roughly 0.75.
It says the company should revise their social media strategy.
Why? Because its current Instagram posts are appealing to less than 1 person per post.
It costs time and money to run a social strategy.
Yet right now, every post the company dreams up, designs, creates, captions, and publishes appeals to fewer than 1 person.
Never mind how many potential leads or clients it’s going to get—which we can guess is also very low, based on the above ratio alone.
This one is particularly eye-catching because the agency…. sells social media management services.
If Ratio is Poor, Revise, Revisit, or Rebrand
If your Ratio is under about 10 or 20—depending on the industry you’re in—it may be time to rethink your strategy, or the style and type of content you are posting.
People want to be entertained or educated, or be given some sort of value through social media.
The lower the Ratio, the more likely it is that your social content and strategy is worth revising to be more remunerative to your company.
People want to be:
- Educated
- Informed
- Entertained
Make them laugh or learn, and they’ll follow you over time.
10 Real Examples of the Ratio in Various Verticals
This table shows the above Ratio for 10 real but unnamed Instagram accounts in various verticals:
| Company | Followers | Posts | Ratio | Rating |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Marketing agency | 493 | 658 | 0.75 | Sour |
| Restoration company | 2,808 | 1,273 | 2.68 | Sour |
| Home service company | 348 | 114 | 3.05 | Sour |
| Mold removal company | 1,484 | 461 | 3.21 | Sour |
| Medical clinic | 58,400 | 5,309 | 11.00 | Sweet |
| Personal care brand | 100,000 | 3,075 | 32.52 | Sweet |
| Mold testing company | 75.9K | 645 | 117.67 | Spot-On |
| Pet care brand (national) | 917K | 4,805 | 190 | Spot-On |
| The New York Times | 18.1M | 17,288 | 1,046 | Spot-On |
| Artist (Tay Tay) | 283M | 650 | 435,384 | OMG |
Raise Your Ratio By….
You can do this and more to raise your ratio:
- Use related hashtags, and write more relevant and appealing captions.
- Post more videos and reels.
- Post fewer single images.
- Run a contest or giveaway.
- Post when you have something great to share, rather than for the sake of posting alone.
- Ask yourself if viewers would have any reason to comment on, bookmark, share, or like your post, and revise your posts if you don’t think so.
- Ask viewers to like, comment, or bookmark your posts for reference (either in images or caption text.)
Single Images a Bad Social Strategy
“Single images” are one of least effective things you can post on Instagram.
That means a lone image, rather than a carousel or a series of several images—Instagram lets you add up to 10 images to a single post, which you should always do.
As viewers scroll through those 8-10 images, they’re increasing dwell time, and thus telling the Instagram algorithm your post is valuable or worth showing more broadly.
This doesn’t mean you’ll never see a single image go viral or get traction, but it does mean that treating your social feed like an ad roll or series of billboards is the least productive way to grow an Instagram account.
Of course, there are also media types where single images can be very effective—fine art, photography, and memes—but these cases are rare or unique.
There are also account types this ratio doesn’t quite apply to, but they’re outliers—like Taylor Swift and other Celebrities, whose followers learned of them mostly off-platform.