Conversation

On Monday, I wrote an essay about climate and biodiversity for Scientific American. I tracked proportional engagement, calculated as (likes + shares + comments)/followers, over six social media platforms.

The winner? MASTODON, by a landslide.

Second place? INSTAGRAM. It's harder to share posts on IG, but lot of people like things there!

The loser? FACEBOOK, also by a landslide.*

* On Facebook, I've been shadow-banned since August 2018 when they listed clean energy and climate as "socially sensitive topics" so my page there stopped growing 6 years ago and now only about 1% of my followers there ever see my posts if the mention climate. It's actually too bad, because that's the platform where I reach the most conservative audiences through their connections to friends and family. So even though it's dead last, I still persist.

** For example, I had a post on FB a few weeks ago that didn't mention climate or clean energy. Its engagement levels were 3.7% which would put it just below Instagram.