Who ever said “Engagement” is the biggest factor in Social Media, lied !
Honestly, I’m tired of hearing this thing time and again that every time it pops up, I’m almost certain that this conversation is just a meaningless blabber. Every conference, every meetup people just love using that magical term – “Social Media Engagement” ! In my honest opinion, they’re lying and here’s why !
Nobody knows how to measure engagement !
Disagree ? Ask the dude, what he does to find out how much his brand/product/profile is engaged with the target audience. Its probably a long pause you’re going to get unless he knows his thing. But in case he knew, he wouldn’t have used the term “engagement” in the first place.
Engagement is such a vague term, its an escape act !
Believe me, those who used this term first had no clue what it meant. I mean, isn’t this the vaguest term you can get in analytics . It isn’t anything close to referrals or signups or organic traffic or even brand recognition – nothing you could count. Engagement – like how the clouds are engaged with the sky !
There is no engagement, there are only relations !
That’s my theory. I don’t know how to measure engagement but I can surely tell you how many new friends I made, how many people hate my product, and how many people like my tweets ! I might be engaging with them, but that’s no effing metric to me – but relationships are, relationships count.
Sorry about the harsh language, but I seriously have no clue what engagement means. I just know that its a fancy word you can use time and again to amuse people who’re trying to find out what the hell this whole thing is about. And I think its unfair. its high time we used meaningful phrases and metrics in social media. Engagement ? Hell no. Relationships, makes sense.
Agree ?
Excellent post Mani. I think why Engagement is stressed upon in Social Media is because it’s a dramatic shift from traditional media (both digital and offline) where the message was transmitted one way. Under these new platforms, there is a 2 way conversation happening with the audience. Can you measure levels (depth / width / quality) of engagement? No, and you’re right about it not being a metric.
But I think engagement is more than just a buzzword though.
As for building relationships, is every new connection a relationship? Probably not. You need some sort of communication. How frequent should the communication be to go from, say, acquaintance to relationship?
Something to think about maybe?
There are some surveys which shows that people are more likely to buy and recommend products and services from the brands they follow in social media! And this term is used to say how and what people interact with your brands! And of course its not a thing to measure effectiveness of your business/brand on social media! Though in your aspect it may not be a biggest factor, the inward meaning has!
If you had finished this post with “how do you measure relationships ” – then we are talking
What difference does it make ? Engagement is a good thing, but I don’t like the idea of giving it unnecessary attention. If you want to measure something, measure what you can count, not something you wish you could.
Hi Mani, Nice post. Your post provoked me to write on engagement. http://incorrigibleoptimistvenky.blogspot.com/2010/05/what-does-engagement-really-mean.html
Would love to hear your views on this..
What an Analysis! Kudos!
There is a definition of engagement and metrics in “Media Engagement and Advertising Effectiveness” in Kellogg on Advertising & Media book. In fragmented media space, you need a counter-insurgency war metaphor, which involves cheap engagements as opposed to expensive carpet bombing.
Hey!
Great and useful compilation.
How relationship will be build ?