What is engagement and how do I increase it?

Engagement is social media's way of gauging the ‘interaction’ on your page and posts. People can interact with your posts in a variety of ways:

1. Like: a person has shown interest in your post and clicks the ‘like’ button.

2. Comment: a person has interacted enough to make them stop and write a comment on your post.

3. Save: a person wants to save your post to look at on a later date.

4. Share: a person wants to share your post with others.

Receiving a combination of all or any of these interactions shows the algorithm within social media platforms that your post is interesting. Essentially, the more interactions you receive, the more exposure your post will be given by the algorithm.

Think of it as a snowball effect; if your snowball (post) starts off and doesn’t get much traction (likes, comments, saves, shares), it won’t roll down the hill very far and won’t get much bigger. However if your snowball picks up a lot of traction, it will continue to do so and keep getting bigger and bigger!

So, how do you increase your engagement? Here’s some tips:

1. Engagement = engagement: The more you engage with other accounts and users, the more you’ll receive. Social media platforms are designed to keep us on it, so they reward accounts with frequent and active users.

2. Reply to comments on your posts: The more comments on your posts, the better, even if they are from you! So always reply.

3. Post content that your audience will be interested in: Use the Educational, Entertaining or Inspirational rule.