“Yay! I just hit the publish button” you say to yourself. After going back to the platform after a few hours (whatever the platform is), you discover that there is absolutely no engagement at all. There are zero views. Zero likes. Zero comments. Not even an emoji.

That sucks.

Well, it happens. It is quite common for you to have content that gets absolutely no attention from anyone in the first few hours or days after publishing it. And you have to be okay with it. I read somewhere on the internet that publishing content is very much like talking to yourself. There are chances that you will have a full discussion with yourself without having anybody chipping in.

Gardening

I once tried gardening, very very many moons ago. I had watched a very nice video about how to create a tiny garden for yourself. I wanted to have my own garden so I followed the seemingly simple steps. I then realized that the process isn’t as simple as it looks. First you have to till the land and remove all the weeds. After that you have to look for the right seeds to plant in your garden. After that you have to constantly tend to your garden. It is only after paying meticulous attention to the plants in your garden that you are able to reap the fruits of your hard labour. The same process applies to making digital content.

During the first few days, just like the gardener, you will be alone. You will be creating strategies, tips and tricks to help your digital platform grow and produce good results (fruit). Just like the gardener, you will have times in which you go to the garden and you see that your seeds haven’t grown at all. There won’t be any seedlings at all! Don’t panick. This just means that the seeds need a bit more time to grow than you expected. Just like the gardener, if you decide to throw in the towel and say “This doesn’t work!” it will become a self-fulfilling prophecy. You need to just hang on tight and trust the process (this sounds so cliché, but it’s cliché for a reason. It’s true).

What to do?

Well, when I faced such problems (low user engagement), I would sit down, and get data. That’s where I learnt the word “analytics.” Most, if not all digital platforms have analytics of some sort – twitter has twitter analytics, Instagram has Instagram analytics if you have a creator account, YouTube has YouTube analytics, and for blogs you use Google Analytics. Get data and observe trends. Do research on your findings. You could discover through your analytics that the time you post your digital content heavily affects the user engagement. You could also discover other factors that affect the performance of your digital content e.g. content length (in words, or minutes), seo, picture or video quality, date, holidays, the list goes on. After that, it’s time to work on the next piece of content and integrate the tips, tricks and tactics you learnt from your data analysis.

Conclusion

Low engagement is common. Just like a farmer, you need to investigate what’s up with your crop and take measures e.g. add fertilizer, add water, increase lighting and/or insulation, etc.

Well, that’s it for the week! See you next week Wednesday!

Psst! Still here? Well, go through my other articles and have fun. Don’t feel like doing that? Well then, head over to twitter @maputiatota and follow me : )

Have a fantastic week!