4 Engagement Tactics To Avoid on Social Media

Engagement rate matters, especially if you are looking to partner with companies or you are trying to grow your brand. BUT you don’t want to trade the quality and integrity of your account for vanity numbers thanks to smarmy engagement tactics!

Here are 4 Engagement Tactics To Avoid:

Buying likes or comments:

This offers the quickest, easiest solution to low engagement numbers. Just pay to increase them! 

But, even for the companies that promise ‘real’ accounts will provide the likes and comments, that just isn’t the case. While they are ‘real’ accounts in the strictest sense, they are not your target audience or the people you want to be connecting and engaging with.

And let’s be honest if in-authentic. These people aren’t really obsessed with your product/service (despite the comment they might leave saying they are). They don’t follow you. They aren’t invested in you.

Comment for comment or like for like pods

The concept is simpler, you share your latest post to a group message and then everyone in the group will like and/or comment on it. You, in turn, do the same to their posts. 

I think this can - rarely - be done well in an authentic way! If there is a group of businesses or influencers that all follow each other, truly like the content and want to support one another, this can be a great way to build community and get a little love. 

Full disclosure: I had a group like this for a while with Chicago influencers, which I adored being a part of. I loved seeing what they were creating and supporting them in the process - connecting over shared passions and our love for the Windy City. 

But usually these groups are a set of random accounts - you may like, you may not - and you still need to go through to like and comment on everything they post. While these are real accounts and real comments - which is better than the bots which come from buying the engagement - these aren’t your people. That means it may hurt your posts chances of being seen by the people you want to see it. 

Remember the algorithm is taking in all the information and making decisions automatically about your account and what’s happening. 

Spree comment/liking the same account

I see this almost daily on my old influencer account. Someone will like 15-20 of my posts, and leave a couple comments including one on a post from years ago. They do this in order to show up multiple times in my notifications and therefore make their account standout. 

The thinking is: this will make you check out their account, follow them and engage. 

But here’s the thing - this is hella inauthentic. 9 times out of 10 these accounts don’t follow me. So are they really loving my content and what I posted? No. They just want me to follow them or similarly engage with their account to boost their numbers. 

Mass commenting

Some social media gurus will tell you to go through and just comment on every post under a particular hashtag related to your niche. I’m telling you - don’t do it! 

When people are doing this, they will often copy and paste the same comment over and over again on post after post. All of this is done with the hopes that the other account will engage and follow. 

While I think doing this with intentionality and purpose can be a good way to reach more people, I don’t think you should just blanket comment on every image that appears. 

Go ahead and leave a thoughtful comment on the posts that really resonate - those are the people and the accounts you want to connect with anyway. THOSE are your people. 

Head over to Instagram and DM me! Which of these tactics have you tried, or been tempted to try? Anything I didn’t mention that you’re curious about?