Similar to in-person interactions, you’re going to remember the last few people you had conversations with and interacted with the most instead of that random passing interaction.

You want to be in people’s last 50 interactions, whether that’s with your content or theirs. The more you engage with them, the more likely they are to see your posts and engage with you.

Don’t overthink trying to work the algorithm. Focus on being in someone’s Last 50 meaningful interactions.

 

Ask Questions

 

As a wise man once said, and that man is the great Phil M. Jones, “Questions create conversations, conversations create relationships, relationships create opportunities, and opportunities create sales.”

On social, ask lots of questions. The key to people thinking you’re interesting and wanting to talk with you more is to get them to spend as much time as possible talking about themselves. If someone posts their dinner at a restaurant, ask them what they thought of that dish or that specific restaurant.

If they’re posting vacation photos, ask them what their favourite place is in that location so far. Get them talking. If you ask questions, it elicits replies, signalling to the algorithm there’s a relationship there. This makes the algorithm more likely to recommend your content to them later.

The more questions you ask, the more conversations you end up in. As you talk to more people, you’ll be more likely to find opportunities for sales. It’s a pretty straightforward approach. If you just drop a fire emoji, that’s not leading to anything deeper.

 

The stupidly simple strategy to accomplish this

 

If you follow Gary Vaynerchuck (and let’s be honest, a lot of other speakers and advice givers over the years), you’ve probably heard of the 5-5-5 rule. We took that with a slight modifier, what we call the 5-5-5+1 rule.

It’s a daily task list of things to do on social media. So every day, it will break down like this:

• Five likes on someone’s post.
• Five significant comments on someone’s post (should NOT be from the same posts you liked): these should be comments that elicit a reply, like a question. Emojis do not count as a comment.
• Five direct messages or story replies, again, emojis don’t count. You send an actual comment that should elicit a reply from the person you’re sending it to.

Simple, right?

Now the +1 modifier I mentioned. Next week you turn the 5-5-5 into 6-6-6. Then 7-7-7, 8-8-8, etc., until you find the reasonable limit. 

Some people might get as high as 20-20-20 or more, and others may go back to 5-5-5.

Do this consistently, and you’ll watch your engagement increase and your followers, too.