Why Nobody Is Engaging with Your Social Media Content
If you’re secretly (or maybe not so secretly) wondering how to get more likes on LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, or any of the other seemingly endless social media platforms, you’re not alone. There are countless blogs and guides devoted to the goal of garnering likes, but there’s a real reason you’re not feeling the love on your posts, and it’s quite a simple one.
The reason that nobody is commenting, engaging, or even acknowledging your posts is because the content likely wasn’t written for engagement.
Too often, social media posts are written last minute in a quickened pace without much effort or thoughtfulness. How many times have you realized last minute that there’s a holiday, significant event, or promotion that your business needs to acknowledge on social media, and how many times have you breezed through the writing process in a race to hit post? Social media may be fast-paced, but your audience can tell when your words are authentic and meaningful or if they reek of afterthought.
How to Write Better Social Media Content
Instead of writing posts for the sake of writing posts, try to write posts that are truly useful and meaningful. You might be thinking to yourself, “easier said than done,” but I use a very simple three-step process to determine whether or not my post is valuable enough to share, and you can, too.
Ask yourself the following questions:
- Does this post spark curiosity and/or prompt positive action while building my authority with my target audience?
- Does this post break down a concept that confuses my target audience in a simple and practical way?
- Does this post visualize a complex concept into a bite sized digestible graphic?
If the answer to all of these questions is no, your post is likely to be left out in the cold.
The Key Ingredient to Engaging Social Media Content
Nobody engages with you to read a one-liner quote you’ve pulled from someone else’s article. That’s just re-sharing someone else’s hard work without explaining to your audience why they should take note.
Your audience engages with you and your business because of your expertise, and you should take full advantage of that by explaining why your content (or even shared content) is useful to them. What do they stand to gain from reading your post? Why should they tell others to do the same?
Taking the time to break down a complicated concept or express the importance of your audience reading and sharing your insight is not only rewarding to them, but it also allows you to flex your acuity.
The next time you’re racking your brain for novel ideas to get more likes on Instagram and social media, look no further than your own expertise, and take the time to show what ya know!
