Hello you,

We all want to be heard. We want people to take notice, respond, take action.

It’s hard getting traction on social media these days. 

Those old enough will remember the good old days of throwing up a post on your Facebook page and pretty much everyone who liked your page seeing it. 

The good old days — when sharing a link to your website in your LinkedIn posts didn’t make the algorithms shun you like Trump shuns a fact-checker.

The good old days when that guy Jack still owned Twitter. (X, whatever.)

So yeah. Easier before, harder now is the message.

In this post I’ll run through five things I've learned about social media, the algorithms and audience engagement to maximise your chances of people seeing and interacting with your content.

I believe the only way to build your own audience is to get people on your email list. Social media platforms can shift, change or fold, and your audience will go with them, not you. 

But! Social media has its uses, and despite it being harder than ever to get noticed, some people are doing it, and doing it well. How? What are they doing differently? 

Note: The below is mainly focused on LinkedIn and Twitter (OK, OK, it’s X!) because that’s where I spend the most time, but much of it also relates to other social media platforms.

To succeed on social media you need to:

1. Have a network of people who share, like and comment on your content

Notice how it’s always the same people getting engagement? The content bros of X, the famous faces of Insta. People are all up in their comments, liking their stuff, sharing it.

I’m sure these people worked hard, posting high-quality content consistently — see point 3 below — but why is everyone commenting on their stuff? Why are the algorithms rewarding them Every. Time. They. Post?

I’ll tell you why. They’re in a clique. A club. A collective. (Yas alliteration.)

They’ve agreed to share each other’s content. And then they do. It goes a little something like this:

Is it fair? I don’t know. But it’s working.

So find your people and share each other’s content.

2. Get engagement within the first hour of posting when possible

Social media algorithms are usually a well-kept secret. Until they aren’t. And then they change.

Right now, we know the initial engagement a post gets is crucial in terms of whether the algorithms expose that post to more people.

Why?

Engagement on a post within the first hour or so signals to the algorithms that your content is good, prompting the robots to show it to more people.

3. Post useful, authentic content consistently

Being consistent is hard. It helps to work out what that means for you/your org. It may not mean posting on social media every single day. It might be a few times a week. Do what you know you can stick to. But do it.

In terms of being useful and authentic, there are so many robotic (literally and otherwise) accounts churning out the same stuff across social media, particularly on X and LinkedIn.

At this stage, just being authentic will make you stand out. Share content that adds something to the conversation. Make people smile. Make ‘em think. Make their day. 

4. Tag relevant people

Here’s a post I wrote at the end of Jan:

It’s a good point I think, but it didn’t lend itself to tagging anyone. It didn’t involve anyone else. It’s just me on my own trying to sound smart. It got one like.

Compare that to a post I wrote recently in 10 seconds while I was between reps at the gym. (That sounds impressive but I’ve only been going for four weeks. I’ll probably forget I have a membership pretty soon.)

I’m not saying we should tag people in every social media post we put out — there’s a time and a place — I’m just saying it’s a good idea to think about who might amplify your message, and then tag those people where relevant.

5. Figure out the best time to post

Timing is everything on social media. To maximise engagement, you need to post when your audience is most active.

The best time to post will depend on your audience, sector and the platform you’re posting on. (It also depends on the time zone of your audience, which can be tricky if your peeps are all over the world.) 

The best thing you can do is test different times and monitor what works. Like with everything: do more of what works and less of what doesn’t.

I’ll go into exactly how to write engaging social media posts in a future issue. In the meantime, see you on X or LinkedIn.