How to Spot and Counteract Engagement Farming on Social Media

Key Takeaways

• Engagement farming involves users trying to draw attention to their posts on social media through disingenuous or misleading means.
• Common engagement farming tactics include sharing inflammatory content and copying popular posts.
• Counteract engagement farming by ignoring, blocking, or reporting content and users.

Considering the benefits of gaining attention on social media, it’s unsurprising that some users resort to engagement farming. But in many cases, this practice is disingenuous and should be discouraged. Today, you’ll learn how to spot and counteract social media engagement farming.

Engagement farming is when users try to draw more attention to their posts by encouraging others to interact with their content. Compared to generally trying to get engagement, the main difference is that engagement farming is disingenuous and often manipulative.

You’ll spot engagement farming on several social media platforms. It’s especially prominent on X (Twitter) because users can receive payouts through X Premium. These payouts depend on the number of verified users that engage with their posts. Because of users trying to unfairly take advantage of these incentives, X owner Elon Musk threatened to suspend any accounts suspected of engagement farming in an April 2024 post.

Although engagement farming is common on X, you’ll also find it on Instagram, Facebook, Threads, and LinkedIn.

You can spot engagement farming in several ways, and we’ll cover some of the most common examples below.

1. Deliberately Outrageous Posts

Deliberately posting content that you know others will disagree with for the sake of being contrarian or controversial is another common form of engagement farming. Sports and politics are two topics where this is particularly common. Admittedly, I used to partake in this form of engagement farming, and I’m not proud of it.

You can often tell if someone’s trolling or not by looking through their recent content or how they react to the comments they receive. If you do risky or negative things like this to boost engagement, it could be a warning sign of a toxic social media addiction.

2. Copying and Pasting Popular Tweets

I say “tweets”, but copying and pasting popular posts is also common on LinkedIn. This form of engagement farming often involves taking another person’s post that has performed well and either not changing it at all or making very basic tweaks. In 2022, Twitter rolled out a new policy in an attempt to stop duplicate content from spreading.

The hope is that by taking these posts, they’ll perform as well as (or even better than) the original. But besides not giving the original person credit, they also lead to a lack of authenticity online. If you see a post you like, I recommend resharing it and using it for inspiration rather than outright copying. Consider also using these hacks to create engaging social media content for your own accounts.

While engagement farming is prevalent on most social platforms, you can counteract it in a variety of ways.

1. Ignore the Post

Attention often fuels fires on social media, and by commenting, you’re giving the user exactly what they want. If I see someone seeking attention, I now scroll past their posts without engaging. I recommend that you do the same; there are a million and one better things you could be doing with your time than getting into virtual arguments.

If you consistently see someone you follow participate in engagement farming, and it’s starting to bother you, mute or unfollow them. If they’re a close friend, you can have a private conversation and share your thoughts. It’s vital that you curate your feeds for better mental wellness.

2. Block the User

If you notice engagement farming that particularly irritates you, the block button is your best friend. Every social media app has some variation of this, and it’s normally as easy as going to the person’s profile.

Soft blocking and hard blocking are two different things, but both are effective. A soft block is when you block someone you follow temporarily so that you automatically unfollow each other. A hard block is as it suggests; it’s when you block their account. You can’t see their posts, and they can’t see yours.

3. Report the Content

If you see persistent engagement farming, reporting content is a good idea. Despite the fact that social media websites are almost impossible to moderate, you’ve done your bit by alerting the platform of this kind of content.

You’ll find report options on almost every social media platform, and they’re normally available from the post itself.

Engagement farming is common on social media, but you don’t have to deal with it if you don’t want to. Ignoring posts is the best way to stop the practice from affecting you, but you can also block and report users. Curate your followers and think carefully about the content you consume to ensure that it appears on your feed less.