Last month a founder I know hit 10,000 likes on a single LinkedIn post. He screenshotted it, sent it to his team, and framed it as proof the content strategy was working.
This month he has zero new leads, zero new conversations, and zero new pipeline from that post. The 10,000 likes produced exactly nothing.
Meanwhile, another post from the same month — one that got 47 likes and 12 comments — generated three discovery calls, one signed client, and a partnership intro that turned into a six-month retainer.
He almost ignored that post because the like count looked unimpressive.
This is the engagement mirage. And if you are optimizing for it, you are building on sand.