What do you do to gain engagement?

For those who write online, engagement is as important as the content itself

Editorial Credit Elisa Ventur | Unsplash

First, let me explain that I am not discrediting the content. On the contrary, engagement is paramount for your content to have visibility.

That said, the question in the title is not intended to be clickbait, but a question I have and would like to hear from you. Also, I'm writing this text without worrying about SEO rules or their divisions so that Google can show them to more people. Anyway, I'm just trying to understand how to do it to get more engagement.

Related article: Empowering Yourself: A Guide to Achieving Self-Love and Fulfillment

Engagement, where are you?

The idea is not to go on too long either, I'll try to explain in a succinct way what I've been doing, in addition to generating content, of course. I know things don't happen overnight, because I don't believe in miracles promised by internet gurus. Just like, I know I won't become a millionaire overnight. In other words, it is a journey to be made. Where I publish:

• My personal blog;

• Medium;

• Fernando’s Substack: with a newsletter sent to those who subscribe;

• Twitter;

• Instagram;

• WhatsApp.

When I'm not producing, whether for clients as a ghostwriter or content for the above platforms, I'm promoting. At the moment, engagement is only being carried out with organic traffic and there are no plans to change that. But based on the results, I would say, without fear of being wrong, that they are not giving results.

Related article: The Power of Perseverance: Harnessing the Power of Consistency

Editorial Credit Markus Spiske | Unsplash

My personal blog

Fer Nunes came about through the encouragement of two great friends, to whom I started sending my texts in the first half of 2021. And the two, who don't know each other, were unanimous in saying that I should share this with the world. In other words, “you need to publish your texts because it can help many people”. They convinced me.

In August 2021 I decided to create the blog without too many pretensions, some very close people left their feedback, all positive, which encouraged me to write more and more. I told a lot of things, including intimate ones, so that people who had access could see that they too could change.

“Pretentious of you, Fernando”, maybe that's what you're thinking. A little, I would say, but I did things that weren't easy to do, much less under the conditions I had. But don't worry, I won't go into more detail as it's all on the blog.

Some of the responses were extremely gratifying, including reports of people saying they decided to take action to take the helm of their lives. This was because of the text they had just read. Yeah, my friends were right.

Retention that is good, nothing!

Some texts were granted access but not retained. In addition, in the last 28 days, the text with the lowest retention rate is 62%, as there are others with 100% rejection.

Engagement on Medium is slightly higher

I have already published some texts in Portuguese on the Medium platform, in the hope that there could be more views and engagement than on my personal blog. But I'm wrong! The result was even worse.

However, it was on August 16, 2022, that I woke up and thought: why not? The worst that can happen is that nobody reads it, nobody wants me, and nobody loves me. In other words, I had absolutely nothing to lose and I published my first text in English. The result was nothing different than expected.

Lie! I expected better results by publishing in the universal language. However, hope and faith are the last to fade and history began to change on August 22nd, when I published the text “Challenge accepted”.

Calm your heart and your emotion, I wasn't invited to any literary club. Still.

After this text, the flame of hope grew stronger, as I had some answers and contact with my friend Wambui, who made herself available to help me with English. She made me believe that she was on the right path. Since then I've been posting there, and I've gained some followers (we're almost at 100). However, the engagement is good, nothing.

Substack

Substack is a platform that I have been using to send newsletters, only in English. That is, if we are to speak in terms of engagement, it is the one that is returning the most, proportionally, but there are few subscribers.

Also, I've been using Fernando's Substack for 30 days. You, too, will be very welcome to be part of the people who receive my newsletter, totally free and free of spam. Can I wait for you there?

The Three Musketeers: Twitter, Instagram, and WhatsApp

With the exception of Twitter, on the other two platforms I only share the texts. Since on WhatsApp, I am aware that it is the application that would give me the least or no engagement.

On Instagram, I put a caption in the feed and then share it in the story with the link to my personal blog. Some calls to the Medium platform are maintained, but very sporadically.

Now, Uncle Elon Musk's app is where I work more “insistently” on disclosure. Last December, I simply cleared all my Twitter contacts and started focusing on two things: interacting 90% in English and with people in the writing community.

Currently, there are 680 followers. Absolutely nothing, I know, compared to other bloggers, writers, and authors reaching 100,000 followers.

All texts are published on Twitter, using hashtags to find like-minded people. There are also frequent links that are promoted by other users, and at first, it worked fine. However, for the last few days, the impression I have is that I am speaking in an empty, echo-proof room.

Some small conclusions and a request

Regarding the texts published in Portuguese, my mother tongue, what I can find and I was already told in a writing forum that I participated, that Brazilians do not like to read. Also, I got some advice from one of the users on this forum:

“When writing, do not exceed 400 words, because here (Brazil) nobody reads long text, what they prefer is videos.”

The reality is sad, but in this case, it is very true. It's no wonder that apps like Tik Tok and the like have thousands and thousands of Brazilian users who spend up to two hours a day playing video after video. Also, I already received messages saying that my texts were too long.

Writer Ernest Hemingway once said, “I aim to put down on paper what I see and what I feel in the simplest and best way.” So we share more or less the same goal. In other words, I'm not going to write just for the sake of writing and maybe that's why today I'm giving up on generating content in Portuguese. When I say generate content, in this case, I am referring to the texts used on my Fer Nunes website.

Work for customers will continue without a doubt.

And finally, you who have read me this far, write more than I do, first correct me if I'm wrong. Or am I going crazy? However, I believe that it is possible to gain engagement with the content I am generating. Including even money. Am I very wrong in my thinking?

And last but not least, not without first making available the comments section for your consideration, feedback, and even criticism. Tell me what you are doing to generate engagement in your texts and, sometimes, financial return. I will be immensely flattered by your return. Can I count on him?

***

If you think coffee can improve my mood, I’ll take a Ko-Fi. Maybe it helps, it’s true.

Connect with me on Twitter! It will be a pleasure!

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