What really drives social media engagement? Key lessons from Westco’s latest Lunch and Learn

At Westco’s latest Lunch and Learn, Digital Communications Associate Hannah Lomax shared practical advice on how comms teams can improve social media performance by better understanding algorithms, sharpening content, and creating posts people actually want to engage with. 

If social media can sometimes feel unpredictable, you are not alone. One minute, a post flies, the next, it barely leaves the ground. That is exactly why we recently hosted a Westco Lunch and Learn focused on a question many communications teams are asking: how do you actually boost engagement and reach?

Led by Hannah Lomax, our Digital Communications Associate, the session explored how social media algorithms work and, more importantly, what that means in practice for busy comms teams.

One of the clearest takeaways was that successful social media is not just about posting more. Platforms are constantly testing content and looking for signals that people find interesting, useful, or worth spending time on. That includes things like watch time, comments, shares, saves, and meaningful reactions. In other words, the algorithm is often responding to the same thing real people respond to: content that catches attention and feels relevant.

That is why strong social performance starts with stronger content choices. The posts most likely to cut through are usually those that feel more human, more visual, and more purposeful. They tell a story. They feature real people. They open with something that makes someone stop scrolling. They sound like social media, not a committee note pasted into a caption box.

For public sector and organisational teams, that is an important challenge. Too often, posts are written to broadcast information rather than create a connection. But better engagement comes when content is shaped around the audience first: what matters to them, what format suits the platform and what will make them pause, react, or share.

The session was full of practical reminders that good social media is rarely about tricks. It is about understanding the platform, knowing your audience and making smarter creative decisions more consistently.

 Want to develop your social media skills? Chat to us about bespoke training for your team. Email: simon@westcocommunications.com