What is Brand Heat?
Think of it like this. You own a surf shop. There are 30 other surf shops in town. Some are big chains. Some are small boutiques with a loyal crew. Brand Heat is your reputation score — but only compared to the other surf shops, not Woolworths.
Every month we look at three things: are people actually reacting when you post? Are they talking back, or just scrolling past? Are you showing up consistently? We score you against the other brands in your category. Not against Nike. Not against your mate's café. Just your competitors.
50 = you're average for your category. 75 = you're clearly outperforming most competitors. 100 = you're leading the category.
The bit that surprises people: follower count doesn't win this. A brand with 5,000 loyal followers who all talk back scores higher than a brand with 50,000 followers who scroll straight past. Passive audiences don't count. Active ones do.
What does the Brand Heat Score actually mean?
🔴 0–49
Below the category median. The audience is there, but engagement or reach is underperforming peers.
🟡 50
Right at the median. Exactly average for the category — nothing wrong, nothing exciting.
🟣 51–74
Above the median. Content is landing well and the algorithm is noticing.
🟢 75–89
Strong performer. Clearly outpacing most peers in the category.
🔥 90–100
Category-leading. Firing on all cylinders — reach, tier-adjusted engagement, community activity, and interaction quality all above median.
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Overall Score
Brand Heat Score
Your Brand Heat Score rolls four things into one number: how many people you're reaching, whether your engagement is strong for your size, how active and conversational your community is, and the overall quality of interactions.
The score is built so that 50 always means average for your category. If you scored 64, you're beating more than half the category. If you scored 38, your peers are outperforming you — and this tool will show you exactly where the gap is.
Heat = Reach(25%) + Tier-Adj Engagement(35%) + Activity/Community(25%) + IQ Score(15%)
Why does it matter? A brand with 500k followers and below-tier engagement can score lower than a brand with 30k followers that punches above its weight and has an audience that actually talks back. Size alone doesn't win.
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Metric 1
Tier-Adjusted Engagement
Raw engagement rate is biased — a brand with 5,000 followers will almost always have a higher ER than one with 500,000. That's just how Instagram works. So we don't compare raw ER directly.
Instead, we divide each brand's ER by the expected ER for their follower tier. A score of 1.0× means meeting tier expectation. 2.0× means double. This lets a large brand with great engagement compete fairly against a small brand with great engagement.
Tier-Adj ER = Raw ER ÷ Expected ER for follower tier
<5K: 6% · 5–20K: 4% · 20–100K: 2.5% · 100–250K: 1.75% · 250–500K: 1.25% · 500K+: 0.8%
Example: Brand A has 300K followers and 1.4% ER. Their tier expects 1.25%, so their tier-adjusted score is 1.12× — above expectation. Brand B has 15K followers and 3.5% ER. Their tier expects 4%, so they're only at 0.88× — actually underperforming for their size despite the higher raw number.
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Metric 2
Activity / Community Score
This metric rewards brands whose audiences genuinely talk back — not just scroll and like. It uses the comment-to-like ratio as a proxy for two-way community engagement, since saves and shares aren't publicly available.
Like engagement rate, comment-to-like ratios are naturally higher for smaller accounts. So we tier-adjust this too — comparing each brand's ratio against what's expected for their size. Consistent posting amplifies the score, but volume is capped so you can't game it by posting 30 times a month.
Activity = Tier-Adj Comment Depth (60%) × Frequency Boost (40%)
Frequency Boost = smooth reward curve, capped at 12 posts/month
Why comments? A brand that responds to comments, sparks conversation, and builds a real community will naturally attract more comments relative to likes — regardless of size. It's the best public signal we have for genuine community health.
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Metric 3
Interaction Quality Score
Interaction Quality measures how meaningfully an audience responds using only public, scrapeable signals. Saves and shares are excluded — Instagram doesn't make them publicly available.
The score weights comment rate most heavily (it takes the most effort), then engagement depth (likes + comments together), then view conversion on Reels where available.
Comment Rate×50% + Eng Depth×35% + Consistency×15%
(or with Reels: Comment×40% + Depth×30% + View Conv×20% + Consistency×10%)
Why comments matter most: Writing a comment takes real effort. A brand with a high comment rate has an audience that is genuinely invested — not just scrolling past.
Reach rate estimates what percentage of your followers actually see each post. Instagram doesn't show every post to every follower — the algorithm decides based on how engaging your recent content has been.
Bigger accounts typically have lower reach rates. A brand with 500k followers might only reach 12% of them per post, while a 25k-follower brand might reach 28%. This is normal — and it's why smaller brands can outperform on this metric.
Estimated Reach ÷ Followers × 100
What lifts reach rate: Posting consistently, getting saves early after publishing, using Reels over static images, and posting when your audience is most active all signal to Instagram that your content deserves wider distribution.
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Core Concept
Category Median
We don't compare a boutique surfboard shaper to Billabong's 1.8 million followers. That's not useful. Instead, every brand is compared to the middle performer in its own category.
We use the median (not the average) because one outlier — say, a brand that went viral once — can skew an average dramatically. The median is more honest: it's literally the brand sitting in the middle of the pack.
% vs Category = (Your Score ÷ Category Median − 1) × 100
Example: Surf category median engagement = 1.28%. Your brand = 1.82%. Category Index = 1.82 ÷ 1.28 = 1.42. You're +42% above the category median.
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Why we cap scores
The 2× Cap
We cap every individual index at 2.0× the category median before calculating the final Heat Score. This stops one exceptional metric from hiding weaknesses elsewhere.
Without the cap, a brand with insane reach but terrible engagement could still score 90+. The cap forces the score to reflect overall health, not a single spike.
Capped Index = min(Brand ÷ Median, 2.0)
In practice: If your save rate is 4× the category median, it still only counts as 2× in the calculation. The remaining "surplus" doesn't carry over. This makes scores comparable and fair across very different brand sizes.
Common questions
Why does my brand have a low score if it has lots of followers?
Follower count alone doesn't move the needle here. We care about what percentage of your followers are engaging, not the raw number. A large audience that scrolls past your posts will score worse than a small audience that saves and shares them. Growth without engagement is a liability — it dilutes your rate.
What's the difference between Engagement Depth and Interaction Quality Score?
Engagement Depth is simple: (likes + comments) / followers. It tells you the raw interaction rate. Interaction Quality digs deeper — it weights comment rate more heavily than likes, adds view conversion from Reels where available, and compares everything against the category median. IQ Score is the better measure of content quality because comments require real effort from the audience.
Why is reach rate important if I can just buy ads?
Organic reach rate tells you how well the algorithm thinks your content deserves to be seen. A high organic reach rate means Instagram is actively distributing your posts to new people for free. Low organic reach means you're increasingly dependent on paid spend to get the same eyeballs — which gets expensive fast.
My brand posts a lot but the score is still low. Why?
Posting frequency contributes to the Activity/Community Score, but it's a multiplier on your comment depth — not a score in itself. Volume only helps if your audience is actually talking. Posting 30 times a month with low comment-to-like ratios won't outperform a brand posting 8 times with a highly conversational community. Also, the frequency reward caps at around 12 posts/month, so there's no benefit to posting more than that.
How often is this data updated?
The dashboard runs on a rolling 30-day window (adjustable to 60 or 90 days). Data is refreshed monthly. The Brand Heat Score you see reflects the last full rolling period — it won't change mid-month. Month-over-month rank changes show whether a brand is trending up or down.
What does "Benchmark Confidence" mean?
Confidence is based on sample size. With only 5 brands in a category and 30–50 posts analysed, there's less statistical reliability than a category with 20+ brands and 200+ posts. Low confidence doesn't mean the scores are wrong — it means you should treat them as directional, not definitive.