One thing I’ve become oddly proud of with Eyes On EB is that some of the loudest and most outspoken voices in town rarely engage publicly on our posts, even in situations where I can safely assume they agree with what’s being said.
At first I used to wonder why that was.
Over the last year or so, I’ve had a lot of conversations with different people about it. Some were casual conversations, others were deeper discussions about social media, public perception, and why certain people interact publicly while others stay silent.
What’s interesting is that almost everybody had something valuable to add. Whether every theory is completely true or not, a lot of the feedback started lining up in a way that made sense, especially because much of it came from people who personally received comments, reactions, or feedback from the exact types of people I’m describing here.
Honestly, it’s been a really interesting rabbit hole to go down.
Staying In Your Lane
I’ve realized a lot of people are comfortable engaging with pages only when they fully understand what lane the page stays in. Once they know the angle, the tone, and what side a page predictably takes, interaction becomes easier.
The thing with Eyes On EB is that we’ve never really operated that way.
Sometimes we question decisions made by local leadership, and other times we give credit when we believe it’s deserved. We try to approach situations individually instead of forcing every topic into the same narrative.
I don’t think the unpredictability comes from the variety of things we cover. I think the unpredictability that bothers some people is that they never fully know what side we’re going to take because we approach issues case by case instead of automatically leaning one way, always being negative, or always being positive.
In today’s environment, that approach sometimes feels rarer than it should be. A lot of people seem more comfortable when coverage stays predictable and consistently leans in one direction. But real life, especially at the local level, usually isn’t that simple.
I think part of what makes Eyes On EB different is the willingness to criticize something one week, then acknowledge progress or a fair point the next without feeling the need to stay locked into a permanent position.
That unpredictability makes some people uncomfortable because they can’t immediately place the page into a familiar lane.
And when people can’t easily label something, many choose to observe quietly instead of publicly engaging with it.
The Quiet Readers
What makes this especially interesting is that I know many of these people are still watching.
I don’t know if they’re actually reading every post. All I know for sure is that they are viewing the stories. (Yes, I can tell…don’t worry I won’t tell anyone.)
Some of the most outspoken people in town are, but they won’t follow or publicly engage with the page.
From what I’ve learned through conversations and observations, I genuinely believe a big reason for that is because Eyes On EB doesn’t cleanly fit into a box they’re comfortable defining.
Ironically, I think not fitting neatly into a box may actually be one of the reasons the page continues to grow.
People may not agree with every post, but they also know the page isn’t completely predictable either. And in a strange way, I think that keeps people curious.
I think part of what makes Eyes On EB different is the willingness to criticize something one week, then acknowledge progress or a fair point the next without feeling the need to stay locked into a permanent position.
And the analytics prove that.
Some engage publicly. Others never will.
But I’ve learned that public engagement is only one small part of attention.
There are a lot more quiet readers than people realize.
