Ghost Town: The Truth Behind Your Silent Social Media Feed

Don't stress about low social media engagement—it's a widespread trend reflecting changing user behavior rather than poor content quality. Looking at impressions instead of likes gives you a more accurate picture of your content's reach and effectiveness.

• Most people have become passive scrollers who rarely like, comment, or share content
• The habit of enthusiastic engagement from early social media days has dramatically changed
• Focus on impression analytics rather than engagement metrics
• Create engaging content through behind-the-scenes videos, blooper reels, and time-lapses
• Utilize Stories, which often get more views than regular posts
• Be more engaging with others' content—you reap what you sow

Transcript

Welcome to Marketing Happy Hour

Speaker 1 0:01

Welcome to the Marketing Happy Hour podcast . I'm your host , shelby McFarlane , founder of the Marketing Broker . Join us as we dive into marketing tips , business insights and creative strategies to help your brand stand out , whether you're an entrepreneur or a marketing pro . Grab your drink and let's make marketing fun and effective . This is the Marketing Happy Hour podcast . Let's get started . Hey guys , what's up ? It's Shelby here with the Marketing Broker .

Speaker 1 0:30

I'm so excited that you decided to tune in again with the Marketing Happy Hour podcast . This is a platform that I get to share all of my information that I've learned , the skills that I've learned over the last 10 years in digital marketing , and maybe you can apply it to yourself or even your clients , if that's something you do as well . Today , we are going to talk about why you're not getting engagement on social media . This is the number one question that I get from my clients . Actually , I take that back . This is the second question I get from my clients . The first one is why didn't I get five clients off of one post that you did , but that's for another podcast episode . So why are we not getting engagement on social media ? We're staying consistent , right ? We've got

Why Engagement Is Declining

Speaker 1 1:13

our three posts a week . We've got our engaging supposedly engaging of photos and videos . We're out here trying to create captions . We're using AI , we're using chat , gpt . Our photos are real people , not just clip art . We have educational stuff . We're doing all the things we need to do that we've been told we need to do over the last 10 years and now we've seen our engagement really drop .

Speaker 1 1:40

If you've seen this and you are worried about it , please do not be worried . I see this amongst all of my clients and all the pages that I manage , even my own page . So think about your clientele . Who are you trying to reach and who are the people that follow you ? Are those people normally engaging on social media ? I can tell you that my clientele are usually not on social media . So if they're going to hire me for digital marketing , they may go and Google me and look at me on social media , but they're not just going to find me as they're scrolling through their feed because they aren't interested in social media . So let's flip the script . Let's say that you are a plumber or an electrician and you're looking for the everyday person that has a toilet , that has a freaking outlet . Hello , we all have those two things right . So those are everybody that's scrolling on social media . Are your future clients or potential clients in your area ? So why are those people not engaging with your stuff ?

Speaker 1 2:38

Let's go back to 10 years ago , whenever social media came around , when fan pages were starting all of that . It was all about posting once a week , or posting once a day or , honestly , if you just posted at all , you were already way ahead of your competition . Back then it was so easy because we were new to social media . We were new to seeing businesses and we were always like , like , like , like , share . We're gonna comment , we're gonna um , show this to our friends , we're gonna tag our uh , our people that we want to send people to , we're gonna tag our favorite businesses . So that's really what we did back in social media to the beginning of social media days . So I want you to think back to what you did 10 years ago on social media .

Speaker 1 3:24

Now let's think about what you do as a person that's consuming social media content . What are your habits on social media ? I'm just going to tell you what my habits are . I scroll , scroll , scroll , scroll . Never hit the like button . I never hit the share button . I usually never comment , unless it's just something that I am extremely passionate about , or it's somebody that I know , or maybe somebody's birthday , maybe some of my girlfriends that look good . I'm like , hey , queen , how you doing ? You know something like that , but I am not one to engage on social media , so I am seeing this as a habit being formed by most people on social media . So when my clients come up with , well , we're not getting engagement , we're not getting shares or likes or comments , and I'm like , well , what are your habits on social media ? And they usually say the same thing , like , well , I guess you're right , I don't actually share or comment or like anything on social media as well .

Speaker 1 4:28

So what analytic do we need to look at ? So , since the engagement's down and we're kind of curious of like , do people see our stuff ? Do they not see our stuff ? What analytic do we need to look at to make sure what we're posting is actually working ? Do we need to look at to make sure what we're posting is actually working ? So when I am sending over analytics to my clients , I want to make sure that I have the impressions on there .

Speaker 1 4:53

The impressions analytics on

Focus on Impressions, Not Likes

Speaker 1 4:55

Meta is all about how many people have actually seen your content post . So if you have one post and you see that there's 400 impressions , there's two people that engaged with it and then you , if your views on your page are also increasing , then that means people are seeing your stuff . So let's take our eyes off of the engagement part and then let's put our eyes onto the impressions and how many people are actually seeing your stuff . Now , yes , sometimes one impression or , I'm sorry , two impressions can come from one person , but that means that person has seen your stuff twice and that counts as two touches for your marketing . So I think that's a win win . So when you're looking at your analytics , make sure you look at those impressions versus looking at the engagement . So let's talk about how can we make our stuff more engaging , right ? What are different strategies that we can use that maybe people would actually comment , like or share our stuff ?

Speaker 1 5:53

Now let's think if you're an insurance person so an insurance person you're putting out social media posts . People don't really care about you , no offense . So let's try to get creative with your stuff . Let's make some cute reels . Let's do some funny behind the scenes with the ladies and guys that work at your office . Let's do some blooper reels

Creating More Engaging Content

Speaker 1 6:13

from maybe some of the videos that you have put together for social media . If you are someone okay , like me with my sign shop , I always make sure to do behind the scenes photos , behind the scenes videos , time lapses of installs , befores and afters , because people like to see results in that way . So your company or your content or whatever you do may not be interesting to people . Okay , we're not all out here like selling the coolest product . We're not all out here selling the latest trendy outfit or shirt or accessory , so it may be a little bit harder to post engaging stuff . So let's think outside the box , let's really lean into the reels , let's lean into the videos , because people are swiping through reels or swiping through the videos .

Speaker 1 7:00

And I also want you to stay on your story . I have a really bad habit of going to Instagram story story , story , story story . I just keep tapping , tapping , tapping , tapping , tapping , never even scroll the actual feed . So anything that I post out there for my business or even my personal stuff , I make sure to put in a story , because that's gonna reach even more people and it's actually easier for them to engage with it . I get a lot of hearts . You'll get a lot of like swipe ups to DM . I've even gotten some business off of my personal .

Speaker 1 7:33

I was writing some content for a website , like at nine o'clock at night in my bed , and so I posted a picture like hey , working on a client content or website copy and because of that , somebody scrolled up and they said , hey , how much is this service ? And I sent them the link , they made an appointment with me and now I have them as a client . So it's all about how are we going to be able to reach those people and getting out of our normal stuff with social media to make it more engaging . All in all , I do not want you to feel like you are failing . If that engagement bar or number is so low . It's not you , it's them . You know , like , just like , if you break up with someone , right , it's not me , it's you , of course .

Speaker 1 8:19

And so just make sure that you are focusing on those impressions and going through your analytics to make sure like oh , okay , so this piece of content actually got engagement . So , if that's the case , okay , so this piece of content actually got engagement . So , if that's the case ,

Reaping What You Sow

Speaker 1 8:30

make more of those type of content posts . Or you know what , this one really didn't get a lot of impressions , or this time that I posted this actually worked . So let's do it at this time more and more and more again , because that's also important .

Speaker 1 8:44

So focus on your content . Focus on how you can get outside of your box when it comes to creating content and really helping with the engagement , and also , lastly , preaching to the choir right now . This is for me too . We have to start being more engaging with our people on social media , because that's what we want back right and I was raised conservative and my mama always said you reap what you sow , shelby . So let's start sowing those good seeds of engaging and liking and commenting and sharing , so maybe people will actually start doing that with our stuff . All right , I'll catch you on the next episode .