“engagement farming” is just clickbait in business casual.

👋 Welcome back to Content to Commas, your trusted playbook for turning content into authority, opportunities, and growth.

Last week I spared your inbox while the Black Friday/Cyber Monday “10% off” emails flooded in.

This week I’m back with a heavy hitter 😏

I scrolled LinkedIn this week and saw (& was tagged in) the same patterns on repeat:

This is called engagement farming.

A few weeks ago we walked through the 6 Levels of Building in Public and what it looks like to share the actual work.

Today is the opposite … how to dodge the content habits that weaken your online presence, especially if you want to still be here five years from now.

📌 In this issue:

Let’s go build,

Brandon Smithwrick 🧠

_{P.S. The last two months I’ve been bouncing from Amsterdam to Utah, Atlanta, Vegas, and all over NYC. If you ever see me out in the wild, please keep stopping me to say hi and tell me you read the newsletter. I appreciate it more than you know.} 😁

Most of us don’t realize how much we’re holding ourselves back.

We wait until we’re exhausted, behind, or stretched thin before we finally ask for help.

When I launched this newsletter, I hired a Beehiiv specialist on Fiverr for $116.

They built the entire backend while I focused on my 9-5 job. That single decision bought me time and mental peace but it reminded me what actually moves the business forward. Me writing … not tinkering with templates.

Since then, I’ve delegated more than 20 projects on Fiverr.

Carousels. Logos. eBooks. Workflow setups. Brand assets.

Every one of those decisions saved me time I could reinvest into something that generated revenue & that’s the mindset shift I want you to bring into 2026.

If you’re trying to 5X your business next year, ask yourself one thing.

Why are you still doing everything solo?

Spending $100 today on a task someone can finish in a week may unlock $10,000 in the next 90 days.

That’s not an expense. That’s strategy IMO.

“engagement farming” is intentionally creating bait so other people inflate your numbers.

It feels like growth in your notifications, but it does nothing for you.

& you do not need to be a hater to admit this … a lot of feeds feel the same right now.

Here is what I mean when I say “engagement farming.

Someone tags 10 to 30 accounts in their post.

It looks like appreciation. It is actually a reach strategy.

[ … someone had to say it. ]

The goal is for a few big names to reply. Let their comments push the post into more feeds & repeat until everyone is tired.

Collaboration is when both people gain something. Tag farming is when one person uses another person’s name as a growth hack.

These posts exist for one reason: to make the comments explode.

Is there some truth in there? Sure.

But if the creator is not actually working on solutions, has never led a team, or is not close to the problem in real life, it is not a perspective.

It is bait.

This one is touchy, but it is real.

Nice photo. Light caption. Huge reach.

When your content strategy quietly shifts from “share value” to “show face and vibe,” you have moved from building a brand to vibe posting.

There is nothing wrong with sharing a selfie.

The problem is when your image becomes the main product, unless that’s your brand. To each their own.

These are posts designed to make one group feel “so seen” that they rush to comment and repost.

Not because the poster deeply believes it.

Because they know exactly which audience will react on cue.

That is emotional clickbait.

Short term, it works.

You will get likes, comments, maybe a spike in follows each post.

Longterm, it erodes the thing you actually need most in this AI slop social feed world … credibility.

Here is the content stack to overcome it.

Say what you actually believe, even if it is less viral and more specific. You are not chasing 300 comments. You are naming what you see every day in your lane.

If anyone could have written it, it is not strong enough yet.

Teach from the level you are actually at.

People trust “Here is what I learned in my first 18 months” more than “Here is how to build an eight-figure brand.”

The goal is not to look perfect. The goal is to be useful and believable.

This is what separates “person who posts” from “person I study.”

Share the frameworks, questions, and routines that guide how you work.

You do not need a clever acronym. You need a repeatable way you do things and a clear way to explain it.

Each week, I share simple tips on branding, making money, growth strategies, and useful tools that you might have missed. You can catch up in just a few minutes.

The most saved, shared, and replied-to issues from this year.

The stack I keep coming back to in my own business.

These posts did numbers for a reason. Worth a reread.