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- Your ATTN Please || Wednesday, 26 March
Your ATTN Please || Wednesday, 26 March
The algorithm doesn’t hate you. Your content just kinda sucks (sorry!).
I know it’s not what you want to hear. But if you aren’t getting engagement on your socials, the platform isn’t conspiring against you. You just need to make better content. So today, we’ve got 6 practical ways to help you do just that. (You also might wanna sign up for our Social Media Crash Course—it’s free for 6 more days!)
- Charlotte, Editor ♡
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WHAT’S HAPPENING IN MARKETING TODAY?
TikTok deal could be illegal, Meta gets rid of fact-checkers & Reddit goes downhill
Trump’s TikTok-Oracle deal could break the law.
“Get ready to license every action you take on TikTok now, Oracle’s like 99.9% set to own it. The company that requires you to buy a license for literally everything.” This is what The Social Juice wrote about the news, which apparently is almost certain to violate U.S. law. This deal would keep TikTok alive by tapping into American software giant Oracle while also preserving a role for ByteDance. The Beijing-based parent company is currently in discussion at the White House.
The only problem? The bipartisan 2024 law passed by Congress doesn’t allow a deal that lets ByteDance maintain any of control of the company (or insight into its underlying technology). But this deal seems like it will go through so…yeah…
Meta will roll out Community Notes on their platforms from next week.
In January, Zuck decided that Meta wasn’t filled with enough misinformation. So he announced he was getting rid of its third-party fact-checkers to “reduce censorship.” Instead community notes would take their place, using the same tech as those on X. This week, Meta began testing this feature, which mimics X’s community notes. In fact, it operates on the same open-source software developed by X. This allows Meta to “build and improve” on what X has created over time.
But Sophie, what about bias!? Yes, great question! What about it indeed. The tech titan has allegedly made efforts to mitigate bias. Platforms won't publish notes unless contributors with a variety of viewpoints generally agree with them. But prior research on this system shows “that most Community Notes on X never appear, due to the system’s requirement for bipartisan agreement. 74% of accurate notes—those aligning with independent fact-checks—were not shown to users, according to the study, even as misleading election-related posts amassed 2.9 billion views.” Well, ok then.
Reddit announces Private Messages will be replaced with Reddit Chat & inbox notification.
In an attempt to make messaging on Reddit “faster and more reliable” the forum is replacing Private Messages (PMs) with Reddit Chat and inbox notifications – according to an admin post on r/reddit 5 days ago. The post claims that Reddit aims to “make these changes with minimal disruption while improving the user experience.”
But users aren’t convinced. “It ‘ads’ to the experience," one commented. “Faster to deliver ads, simpler to deliver ads, easier to use for delivering ads,” another wrote. Reddit announced it was rolling out ad tools over two years ago, but I genuinely don’t think any of us got over it. Recently, users were shocked to learn that the platform was censoring political discussions, which is like, the opposite of its whole thing. It just ain't the same Reddit no more. Or as user "_Face" put it: “enshitification continues”.
Anyway, that’s all folks!
-Sophie, Writer
DEEP DIVE
Why no one is engaging with your content (and 6 ways to fix it)
So, you spent hours crafting a post.
The copy is sharp, the visuals are pristine, and you even threw in an emoji or two for personality. You hit publish, sit back, and wait for the likes, comments, and shares to roll in. Crickets. You refresh. You check your Wi-Fi. You consider calling your mom and asking if she saw it (she didn’t).
If this sounds painfully familiar, you’re not alone. It's harder to get engagement than it is to get your Gen Z colleague to respond to your email. But before you assume the algorithm just freaking hates you, let’s talk about why no one is engaging with your content—and, more importantly, how to fix it. (Don’t worry, I’m going to hold your hand while I say this.)
1. Your content is about you, not them.
Listen, I hate to be the one to tell you this, but no one cares about your brand as much as you do. If your content is a never-ending highlight reel of your latest product launch, company milestones, or generic "we’re so excited to announce" posts, people will scroll past faster than you can say "disruptive innovation."
How to fix it: Instead of talking at your audience, talk to them. Create content that solves their problems, entertains them, or makes them feel something. If your post doesn’t answer the question "why should they care?"—rewrite it.
2. It’s giving beige.
Safe content is boring content. If your posts feel like they were generated by a risk-averse committee of middle managers, they’re probably not sparking engagement. People don’t interact with things that feel sanitised and soulless.
How to fix it: Have an actual take. Be bold. Inject humour, personality, and perspective into your content. Nobody shares things that are "fine"—they share things that make them feel something.
3. You’re not hooking people fast enough.
Attention spans are shorter than ever (thank you, TikTok). If your opening line doesn’t grab people, they’re gone.
How to fix it: Open with a compelling question, a hot take, or something unexpected. If your first sentence sounds like a LinkedIn post from 2017 ("In today’s fast-paced digital world…"), delete it immediately.
4. You’re posting and ghosting.
You can’t just throw content into the void and expect engagement to magically appear. Social media is, well, social. If you’re not engaging with your audience, why would they engage with you?
How to fix it: Respond to comments, ask follow-up questions, and engage with other people’s content, too. The algorithm loves a two-way conversation.
5. You’re not encouraging interaction.
A post with no call to action is like a party with no music—awkward and uninviting. You gotta bait them, baby. If you’re not giving people a reason to engage, they simply won’t.
How to fix it: Ask questions. Create polls. Encourage comments. Make it stupidly easy for people to interact with your content.
6. Your content strategy = throwing spaghetti at the wall.
If your content approach is "posting and hoping," you’re playing yourself. Engagement comes from knowing your audience and what they actually want.
How to fix it: Look at your analytics. What’s performing well? What’s flopping? Adjust accordingly. Social media is one big experiment—pay attention to the results.
If no one is engaging with your content, it’s not a personal attack—it’s a fixable problem.
The good news? With a few tweaks, you can turn things around. The bad news? You have to be willing to get uncomfortable, take risks, and actually care about what your audience wants. But hey, if all else fails, at least your mom will always like your posts. Probably. Now go forth and create something worth engaging with.
-Sophie, Writer
TREND PLUG
You can wun but you can’t hide!
Second-hand embarrassment girlies, this one’s for you.
The sound comes from a TikTok of a guy lying on his bed, rocking a fedora and VR goggles (insane combo might i add). In the video, he whispers in a cringy voice, “Oh pwincess… Pwincess, where are you? You can wun, but you can’t hide.” My skin genuinely crawled just typing that out.
It’s unclear if this was meant to be satire, a thirst trap (or threat?), but the internet ran with it. Now people are using the sound to film themselves desperately (and dramatically) searching for someone—usually for reasons that are anything but romantic. Some hilarious examples:
How you can jump on this trend:
Lip-sync to the audio while you dramatically “search” for someone. Switch up the angles, play into the cringe, and fully commit to the bit.
A few ideas to get you started:
Me searching for the coworker who said "let's circle back" and never did
Me finding the only person in the office who knows how to use Meta Business Manager
Me looking for the one client who still hasn’t approved the campaign we pitched three weeks ago
-Abdel, Social Media Coordinator
FOR THE GROUP CHAT
😲WTF: 1000 YEAR OLD TEMPLE DESTROYED?!
✨Daily inspo: Go. All. In.
😊Soooo satisfying: Lit up marshmellow
🍝What you should make for dinner tonight: 4-ingredient S’mores Bars
TODAY ON THE YAP PODCAST
Want even more “YAP”ing? Check out the full podcast here.
ASK THE EDITOR
Is what goes viral random or is there a way you can predict whether a piece of content will perform well? -Rhea
Hey Rhea,
I totally get how it can seem like what goes viral and what doesn't is totally random. But, when you look closer, the platforms are actually pretty predictable. The reason what goes viral seems random is that most of us don't understand what makes a video go off. But if a piece of content has gone viral, there will be a deeper human truth that people are connecting with. This is what sparks the engagement.
Platforms are looking to push content that is getting a lot of commentary. So the ones that are getting a lot of engagement will continue to be shown to more people. This is why it's so important to scroll with intention. When you see something go viral, question why that is. Once you start figuring out what makes those pieces of content go viral, you will start to see patterns. And you can use what you learn to inform your own content!
- Charlotte, Editor ♡
Not going viral yet?
We get it. Creating content that does numbers is harder than it looks. But doing those big numbers is the fastest way to grow your brand. So if you’re tired of throwing sh*t at the wall and seeing what sticks, you’re in luck. Because making our clients go viral is kinda what we do every single day.
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