What's the 'engagement battery' concept and how do I charge it?

Think of engagement as a battery: entertaining posts charge the battery by generating shares, comments, and watch time. Art posts and sales posts spend the battery’s energy. If you only post art, your battery is always dead, which is why you feel like you’re shouting into the void. To charge the battery, post content about what you do individually—your dirty studio, your cat walking through paint, behind-the-scenes disasters, relatable artist struggles. These entertaining posts build up engagement credit that helps your art posts get seen when you do share them.

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Asked by an artist getting poor reach on posts · Answered by Patrick Shanahan · art-marketing-podcast · 2026-03-30