By now, we're familiar with clickbait and why it's bad for content creators, unless of course that's what you want to be known for.
But what about engagement bait? A recent episode of
Today in Digital Marketing highlighted Facebook's ongoing quest to rid its platform of it, including its new ability to detect engagement and clickbait embedded into video content.
Let's break down what exactly constitutes engagement bait so you know how to avoid it in your posts.
What is Engagement Bait?
Engagement bait is when you put some pressure on users to engage with your posts. It seems harmless enough, but some
social media giants, like Meta, have a big problem with it.
Social media giant
Facebook
defines engagement bait as a practice that prods people into engaging with your posts, either through liking, commenting, or sharing.
Why Engagement Bait is Bad
Although you want people to engage with your posts, it's wise to not resort to engagement bait to
boost your Facebook engagement. Facebook's algorithm has been updated to catch engagement bait, and when your post receives this flag, your content will actually be pushed further down the algorithm.
That means fewer people will see your post to begin with, and even fewer will engage with it.
Since
Instagram is owned by the same company, it's likely only a matter of time before engagement bait on the platform also starts to get flagged and pushed further down in the algorithm.
Conclusion
It's going to be hard breaking the cycle of writing "Let us know in the comments" or "Save this for later" at the end of your captions. We're so used to it, but as Meta changes its rules of what's allowed on its platforms, we have to change to keep up with it. That means no more engagement bait for us.
Not all hope is lost for wrapping up your captions though. There are lots of resources out there that can give your CTAs that aren't engagement bait, including the options we outlined in the carousel above!