What 100 social audits taught me about engagement

After auditing over a hundred brand social accounts, the patterns are clear — and most of them are not about format.

Brands obsess over format — video vs. carousel vs. text. In my audits, format rarely explains engagement variance. What explains it almost every time is voice: whether the account sounds like a person or a press release.

The accounts with the highest organic reach all have one thing in common: they reply. Not with generic acknowledgements — with actual opinions. They disagree, joke, add context. If you're not budgeting community management time into your social strategy, you're leaving reach on the table.