The Engagement Ladder

Welcome back to Viral Examples.

Today (in 2 mins or less) we're breaking down how to move your audience up the engagement ladder.

Most creators focus on growing a follower base.

Smart creators focus on moving lurkers into promoters.

Here's exactly how to level up each type of follower (no matter what stage of engagement they’re at):

1/ Stranger → Lurker

Find the top 3 people in your niche who share your target audience.

Look at their most engaging posts from the last month. Write down the exact questions their audience asks in the comments.

These are your next 10 posts.

Create content that directly answers these questions, but make it shorter and clearer than the original poster did.

2/ Lurker → Commenter

Go to your analytics.

Find your posts with the most impressions but lowest engagement. These are your lurker magnets.

Take these exact topics and rewrite them with a specific prompt:

"Tell me about a time when [common painful situation in your niche]"

Example: Instead of "Leadership is hard" write "Tell me about a time a teammate completely dropped the ball. How did you handle it?"

3/ Commenter → DMer

Pick your most active commenters. Look at their last 20 posts.

Reply to one with a specific observation about their work. Not praise — an observation.

"I noticed you [specific thing they do differently]. That's fascinating because most people [common approach]. Mind sharing why you chose that path?"

4/ DMer → Advocate

Stop treating DMers like leads. Use them as editors.

Message your frequent DMers: "Writing about [topic they know well] tomorrow. Can I run a quick idea by you?"

Then actually use their feedback and tag them when you post it.

Here's why this works: ✓ Strangers need proof you understand their problems ✓ Lurkers need permission to be vulnerable ✓ Commenters need to feel seen ✓ DMers need to feel valuable

Each step up the ladder requires a bit more recognition, insider access, and ownership.

Let’s Go Viral

There’s two parts to getting results from posting content:

1. High quality content

2. Relevant distribution

Megaphone, the team behind Viral Examples, helps with both.

1. Our writing team works learns your voice and delivers weekly batches of content for you to post.

2. Our creator network helps get your posts in front of the right audience.

Grab time here or just reply to this email to learn more.