If You Want People to Engage With Your Posts, Piss Them Off
How to create a better online experience with positive engagement
Opinions are like assholes: Everyone has one.
I love a good social media debate. Sometimes, I’ll do a controversial or political post and let it ride; grab some SkinnyPop Popcorn, sit back, and watch everyone go cray cray.
It’s quite entertaining, and it drives up my engagement numbers, which kicks in the algorithms which push my posts to the top of everyone’s feed.
Mission accomplished. And no, I am not a sadist.
Negative bias creates greater engagement.
According to AdWeek, Negative information is 63% more likely to be clicked on than positive information.
I noticed that when I do inspirational or personal growth posts, they don’t get nearly the level of engagement. They get a smattering of thumbs-up, care, and heart responses and maybe a few comments, but they don’t really spark an actual conversation between people on my page like the more controversial ones do.
People tend to focus more on the negative as they try to make sense of the world. Bad things grab our attention. This explains why some friends and connections only hop on my threads to jump down my throat with…
