mashable/2013/05/01/engagement-buzzword/ You can’t get through a communications think tank, social presentation or even a press release without seeing the word “engagement.” And while the word has been firmly fixed in the communications lexicon since the mid-2000s, if you ask a professional in the industry what everyone means by “engagement,” you get quite a surprising answer. The definition of engagement is that ... there is no definition! The lack of definition behind the word doesnt have to do with a lack of attribution — in fact, it’s quite the opposite. Engagement can be used to define the behavior consumers have while online, but also to define the strategies brands use to foster relationships and the resulting analytics. Context is key when determining and discussing engagement. Is your head spinning? Well, Mashable spoke with some professionals and educators to get to the bottom of engagement. Engagement Means How You Mean It Yes, this sounds counterintuitive, but the definition of engagement actually changes depending on how you use it. Every company has a different audience comprised of many people with different characteristics, so it’s not possible to slap a one-size-fits-all definition on engagement and call it a day. “Engagement is a function of listening to the customer voice, how they’re behaving and how they actually want to engage with us,” says Deirdre Breakenridge, CEO of Pure Performance Communications and adjunct professor at NYU. “That’s probably the biggest piece right there. It’s so hard to define engagement if you’re not taking the time to truly understand how people want to interact with you.” In addition to meaning different things for different companies, engagement can also be broken down into smaller functions, which are also dependent on your audience and strategies. When it comes to engagement, striving for a handful of comments on a website can be the same as developing a massive hashtag campaign — it’s all about the scale and scope of the strategy. “Whether you’re a writer and looking for blog engagement or you’re an ecommerce site looking for shares, that will vary the actual definition of engagement that you’re looking for,” says Joey Strawn, professional social strategist at Industrial Strength Marketing (ISM) and adjunct professor at David Lipscomb University in Nashville. “If you want to get people to buy something, then it’s all about the first meeting and activity leading up to the sale. But if you’re a blogger, then engagement may be a comment or a share by an influencer.” Engagement Is a Practice, Not a Goal Another smart way to look at engagement is that it’s like a spectrum: there are many behaviors related to it that can help increase or decrease your company’s overall popularity and image. And, it’s those effects that actually determine whether engagement is actually working. “You can’t look at it as a mean output of a program, but the tactics that drive it,” says Ben Foster, SVP and digital strategist for Ketchum Digital, who also teaches in the graduate program at DePaul University. “You have to look less at the actions and more at the overall effects the business has after those reactions.” James Soto, CEO of ISM, adds that a majority of companies still view engagement as a “funnel,” in that a broad range of actions are directed towards the holy grail of company communications: the purchase point. That, however, is a very narrow way of looking at engagement because it belies all of the other important activities that don’t lead to sales — like building a community or maintaining customer service. “Engagement implies a lot of action, and as you go into different types of engagement, it’s for different reasons,” Soto explains. “Everything that happens in the building, distribution and the touchpoint, where you’re actually communicating, are all parts of that definition.” Engagement Can Actually Mean Nothing at All Just like the previous maxim that engagement is only what you make of it, some companies or firms can bandy about the word and mean absolutely nothing at all. In fact, engagement is one of the biggest of the so-called “vanity metrics” — eye-popping statistics that mean nothing substantial other than promoting the company’s image. “There is the ability to say, 200%! or, ‘We have 50,000 likes and that’s X percentage higher than last month because of our campaign! Breakenridge says. “Those are nice numbers, but you then have to think about what it led to, where did it go and what the company captured.” All in all, engagement is a short word for a complex set of emotions, and the strategies used to capture those emotions. It’s still the best word to describe this chuck wagon full of meanings, but it’s helpful to keep a healthy amount of skepticism when you see engagement pop up in the tech world. That said, engagement still has a little magic to it. Sometimes a marketer will see a consumer take the brands message and interact with it. It’s still one of the most powerful things I’ve seen in digital marketing.” Foster says. Mashable composite, images via iStockphoto, artvea
Posted on: Thu, 11 Sep 2014 11:06:19 +0000
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