We hear this quite a bit, especially when people are early on in their Social Media journey.
And the first thing we always do is reframe the question, because most people are looking at engagement through the wrong lens.
Here’s how we see it.
Far more people are seeing your content than liking or commenting on it. Your social media stats will back that up.
Whether this can be attributed to your audience ‘warming up’ to your content, or simply to the fact that not everyone enjoys liking or commenting on posts, it doesn’t really matter.
The point here is that there’s an iceberg effect with Social Media content. The visible part is small, but there’s an enormous amount of people under the surface who are enjoying what you’re doing.
So while you may not be getting as many likes and comments as you expect, you are probably getting:
- profile views
- silent video watches
- website clicks
- bookmarked posts
- people sending your
- content privately
- people returning to read your posts multiple times
In other words, you’re likely having more of an impact than you realise (this will become obvious to you in time), so one of the first skills to master with Social Media is patience.
Yes – perhaps you’re judging the results too early, and be careful not to “throw the baby out with the bathwater”.
That being said, there are some commonalities in what does and doesn’t work on Social Media. Feel free to use this as a checklist to help set yourself up for success on your socials.
Make sure your content is personal, and not ‘meh’
Especially with the advent of ChatGPT, a lot of content looks and feels the same.
Are you just adding to the noise, or are you speaking from the heart and showing up as a human?
People are starting to tune into the patterns of ChatGPT content, quickly tuning out. But more to the point, you may be missing an opportunity. Because your content is designed to help people get to know you… are they getting to know you, or are you just ticking the content box?
When it comes to marketing, you’ve got to put the love in to get the love out.
(This also applies to using stock images on your socials — but let’s save that for another day.)
Make sure your content is helpful and useful
As Zig Ziglar famously said:
“You can have everything in life you want, if you will just help enough other people get what they want.”
In terms of content, this speaks to being outward-facing, not inwardly focused. If you help enough people out via your socials, they’ll never forget it… and chances are they will be moved to work with you in a deeper capacity.
So prioritise content that offers:
- a fresh perspective
- a small tool or tip
- a personal lesson from real client work
- an explanation that makes something clearer
- a thought that shifts how they see the world
Usefulness is the fastest path to engagement. It’s okay to promote yourself and your business, but treat it like salt on a delicious crisp; a little is great, but too much ruins the packet.
Make your content easy to consume
Like it or not, we are the most distracted, attention-poor generation in human history. You might be posting gold through your socials, but if it’s too long, wordy or hard to read, your content will be like the best party in town, but no one can find the front door.
The stats show that people want:
- short blocks of text
- clear spacing
- a killer hook
- simple language
- video (even if shot on your phone)
- imagery
If your content looks like effort, people will keep scrolling.
Be consistent
Engagement isn’t built on occasional brilliance – most of it is built on rhythm.
When you disappear for six weeks and then return with a flurry of posts, your audience doesn’t have enough connection with you to respond.
On the other hand, consistency creates familiarity, trust, recognition, and memory.
In other words, you don’t need to post daily. But you do need to post reliably.
Once you’ve got people’s attention, make it easy for them to take the next step
Not everyone wants to like or comment on a post.
But they do want to solve their problems, understand your approach, and get to know you in a low-pressure way.
This is where your website resources, guides, tools, and downloads matter (in the world of marketing, we call these ‘lead magnets’).
Think of it like dating – people want to date you a little before making it official. In business terms, they want to get to know you better before committing to a meeting straight away.
So the real question is:
Are you giving people an easy next step off social media, or are you expecting them to jump too far, too fast?
If your only option is “like or comment on our post”, or “book a meeting,” you’re missing the type of engagement that a lot of your ideal clients are actually looking for.