Observation on Social Media Engagement and Content Consumption Patterns

Do you think these are legit folks in your audience, or bots? I could see this in the next stage of Meta AI, since they put those horrible AI-generated questions under posts now.

That said, people not reading more than 2 words in is nothing new 🙃

Also, it feels harder and harder now to know who our audience really is with a shift away from the social graph to the “For You” type algorithm. 

I wish I had some concrete steps for you, but those don’t seem to exist anymore in the Wild Wild West. 

Interested to hear others’ thoughts!

I was going to chime in and say the same thing as ​@jessie.brown, I’m guessing its bots. We post ‘how to fundraise’ videos and get questions like “how can I fundraise” and they always appear to be fake accounts. A couple thoughts of things to try (in case it really just is people who aren’t reading):

1. Look at their accounts to see if they look legit
2. Try responding and see what happens next

I know it’s probably fake, but in the end a comment is a comment and that helps with amplifying it…  

We’ve found that Facebook sometimes prompts them to ask the exact question as our video or post, so they post it as a comment. We’ve used these type of comments to utilize a discussion and create more engagement. Yes, we’d rather them watch the video we worked on, but I’ll at least take the engagement. I know some people don’t have the time to watch the video, and I’m okay with them searching the comments for the quick answers. Shows us as an authority on the subject if we can put it in layman’s terms. 

I went down the rabbit hole because I have been tagging these and they are legit accounts. Because I am a team of one, as I prepare my report for this month, this will be something in my executive summary. Our content is wonderful, but I’m also looking at bounce rights and time on site and have to explain all of that In a way that makes sense to them. When all I really want to do is take a nap after looking at everything 😂

Yea, I think it’s a trend that points to something that’s been happening since clickbait was invented. Yes there are bots that ask those questions, but I’ve seen a fair enough of real comments that show that someone didn't actually consumer anything. I just got solidarity with you cause Petty Me wants to copy paste the caption/transcript into the reply.

It’s a downer for sure. We get similar on some of our stuff, both video and links, asking questions clearly answered in the content. I’m not sure it’s bots, it’s just people with an interest peaked by the copy/visual but too “short on time” to actually do the work and watch the video or read the article.

As mentioned above, the content has at least hooked them in and you can add more with a conversation in the comments. What would be nice is to assume all the people that didn’t ask a question had had their questions answered by watching the full video. But then you’d have to hope retention on the video views as a good chunk of the duration.

Petty me wants to post the entire article in the comments.