Definition: Follower growth rate is the percentage change in an account’s follower count over a set period, usually a month, measured against the count at the start of that period.
Also called: audience growth rate, follower growth
Updated October 11, 2026
Follower growth rate = (followers at end − followers at start) ÷ followers at start × 100Gaining 500 followers means a lot to an account with 2,000 and very little to one with 200,000. Expressing growth as a percentage lets you compare months, platforms and accounts of different sizes on the same scale.
Net growth subtracts unfollows; gross growth counts only new follows. The formula above gives net growth, which is what most teams report. If gross growth is high but net growth is flat, people are following and then leaving, which usually points to a mismatch between what attracts them and what you post.
A LinkedIn Company Page starts October with 4,800 followers and ends it with 5,160. Follower growth rate = (5,160 − 4,800) ÷ 4,800 × 100 = 7.5% for the month.
Vanity metrics are numbers that are easy to grow and look impressive, such as total followers, likes or views, but that do not show whether social media is meeting a business goal or tell you what to do next.
Reach is the number of unique people who saw a post or account at least once in a given period.
Engagement rate is the percentage of people who interacted with a post (liked, commented, shared, saved or clicked) out of the people who saw it or follow the account.
A social media KPI (key performance indicator) is a metric you have chosen to track against a specific business goal, with a target and a time frame, to show whether your social media work is succeeding.
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