Auto-engagement

Auto-engagement rules boost a post right after it goes live: minutes after a variant publishes, your other connected accounts — or the publishing account itself — like it, comment on it, or repost it automatically. Rules are set per variant, before or after publishing.

Where to set it up

Open the post, select the variant's tab, and scroll to the auto-engagement section below the editor.

• X and LinkedIn get the full composer (Twitter Auto-Engagements / LinkedIn Auto-Engagements): Auto Likes, Auto Comment, and Auto Repost buttons add rule cards with inline account and delay pickers.

Rules need at least one connected account on the variant's platform — see connect social accounts.

Actions per platform

Action	LinkedIn	X (Twitter)
Like	✓	✓
Comment	✓	✓
Reply	✓	✓
Repost	✓ (reshare, optional commentary)	✓ (quote post with optional caption, plain retweet without)

A Follow author action exists in the data model but no platform currently supports it with the API scopes WriteMars requests — the API rejects it with a 400.

On X, a comment and a reply are the same thing (a reply tweet); on LinkedIn, a reply falls back to a top-level comment.

Rule settings

• Account — a connected account on the variant's platform that you can act as: your own, one you're trusted on, or — for admins — company accounts and accounts shared for team engagement. Anything else is rejected with a 403: "You're not trusted to act as @handle." Engaging from the publishing account itself (self-comments, self-reposts) is a common boost.
• Delay — for comment and repost rules, the minutes to wait after publish; 0 means immediately. The X/LinkedIn card offers presets: immediately, 5, 10, 30 minutes, 1 hour, 3 hours, 1 day.
• Spread window (Auto Likes) — likes are added through a dialog rather than a single delay. You pick a window (10 minutes — the default — 30 minutes, 1 hour, 3 hours, or 1 day) and WriteMars staggers each account's like across it so they trickle in rather than all landing at once. See the cap below for why some likes can land past the window.
• Comment/reply text — required before the rule will run; it supports two placeholders, replaced at execution time:
  • {{author}} — the publishing account's display name (or username)
  • {{platform}} — the platform, e.g. linkedin, twitter
• Active — toggle a rule off (Pause/Resume on X/LinkedIn cards) to keep it without running it.

The same account can't have two rules with the same action and the same delay on one variant.

How execution works

A background job sweeps every 60 seconds and runs every rule that is active, not yet executed, and whose variant has published and delay has elapsed. Comment/reply rules with empty text simply wait — they're not failed — until you write the text. The engaging account's token is refreshed automatically before each run, and the executor re-checks that the rule's creator can still act as the account — if trust or sharing was revoked after the rule was set up, the rule fails with an authorization error.

Retries: a failed rule is retried on later sweeps up to 3 attempts. While retries remain, the card shows "Hit a snag — retrying automatically." After the third failure it stays failed and shows its last error. A permission/scope denial (a 403 from the platform) is treated as permanent and burns all attempts at once, so it logs one clear failure instead of three. Successes and failures are also logged in the post's activity feed.

The 3-accounts-per-hour cap

To keep automated engagement looking organic, at most 3 workspace accounts may engage one post per rolling hour. This anti-"engagement pod" cap is enforced at execution time and, for Auto Likes, also when the spread window is planned. When you add more accounts than the window can hold under the cap, the extra likes are slid past the window rather than dropped — the dialog warns "some likes will land past this window," and the section shows the honest projected times instead of silently pretending they fit. The cap overrides your chosen window by design.

Live status

After the variant publishes, the section polls every 30 seconds, so you watch rules complete without reloading:

• Each executed rule card shows a green Done badge (hover for the exact execution time); Auto Likes show a check per account, and the group shows Done when all have fired.
• The section header shows a green check once every rule has executed.
• Executed rules are locked — account, delay, and text can no longer change; you can still delete the rule record.