If you’re into content marketing (and who isn’t these days?) you’re thinking about engagement.
‘Fess up. You know it’s true.
But have you given much thought to what it actually is… how to measure it… how to improve it?
I’m curious: How’s that going for you?
As content marketers, engagement is critical to the success of what we do. Yet it’s one of the most elusive concepts on the planet.
Is it futile to try to nail down this idea that drives everything we do? Maybe. But let’s give it a shot.
Engagement defined
I generally start a topical study by looking for a formal definition. But when I searched “engagement” in Google, I didn’t see anything related to marketing until page 2 in the SERPs.
Apparently, we’re all talking about engagement, but no one is defining it.
The best I found was the 4th entry by Merriam-Webster: “the state of being in gear.”
Abstract, isn’t it? I had to think about it for a moment. But the more I thought about it, the more I liked it.
Applied to content, this definition suggests that there’s some connection between a brand and its audience, and that they’re moving in the same direction at the same pace.
The page-2 article, by Mashable (which, by the way, also pointed out there’s no formal definition of engagement), says the problem is that “engagement” means different things in different situations. Basically, it depends on who you’re interacting with.
Engagement is a function of listening to the customer voice, how they’re behaving and how they actually want to engage with us. 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.
As I read that, the image of “being in gear” came to mind again.
As the first gear turns, the second turns with it. The cogs fit seamlessly, and their movement is perfectly synced.
I think of the brands I follow and of the people who follow my brands, and I’m amazed at how well this image works.
The cogs are the connecting points—usually, an emotional connection.
When your audience is emotionally connected to you, they follow you, just as the second gear follows the movement of the first. You can start a conversation, and they’ll pick it up, adding their perspective, and enlarging the viewpoint.
The reverse is true too. You may get a customer email or phone call that gets you thinking. Maybe it reveals a problem they’re having or some training that would help them.
You then create the content to help, and your audience responds. They’re perfectly in sync—reading, sharing and responding—because it’s clear that you understand who they are and what they need.
So here’s my attempt at defining this elusive concept.
Defining engagement
The key is to consistently deliver something your audience perceives as valuable or delightful.
When we talk about engagement, we’re usually thinking along these lines: People care so much about your content that when they see your email in their inbox or a link in social media, they click through, read, and respond.
In most cases, we’re looking for numbers, so we usually look for a response such as liking, sharing, or commenting.
But the truth is, not everyone responds with a click. You may have written such a thought-provoking piece of content that your audience doesn’t do anything yet. Instead, they think about it on their break and talk about it with their friends. That’s engagement too.
And the best form of engagement? Inspiring change or getting someone to actually take action.
The truth is, true engagement can take place online or off.
That’s what makes measurement so hard
If defining engagement was hard, measuring it is even worse.
In my editorial calendar, I track subscriber clickthrough rates, page views, and time on page, as well as social shares and comments. That gives me an idea of how well people are responding to the content I produce.
But it’s not a perfect science. I can’t track private conversations or changes that my content inspired. So analytics are only part of the picture.
Engagement may also go up and down based on factors completely unrelated to the content.
As an example, the Friday before Easter and the Monday after, all my engagement metrics were low. Were those posts less engaging? More likely, fewer people were reading business blogs on those days.
What about a new blog or a blog that caters to a small audience? They could have the best, most engaging content in the world, but because they don’t have much traffic, they have low engagement numbers.
That’s why you should never try to make comparisons when looking at your metrics.
For instance, let’s look at 3 articles: the Mashable article I quoted above, and 2 of mine, published on Digital Marketer and Crazy Egg:
Simply by looking at the numbers, could you say one is better than another?
Of course not. They’re all different lengths and different formats. And their engagement metrics are vastly different. Comparison is impossible.
You can’t even say that one out-performed another. All were incredibly engaging; their different audiences just engage differently.
Here’s the take-away:
Engagement depends on your audience. It also depends on your brand personality and what your readers expect from you.
So how do you measure engagement?
You have to create a baseline for your own brand. Figure out which engagement metrics are important for your brand, and track them over time. The number itself is less important than variations in your norm.
When the numbers indicate that one piece of content is significantly more engaging, you begin to know what works. Then you can define success and failure for your own brand.
There’s no rule book for engagement
Just intuition and deep insight into what your audience cares about. Bottom line, you have to know your audience, and pay attention to what they want and need.
On the social web, you’d think that would be easy. Ironically, there’s so much going on, it’s hard to focus. So with all the data available, you may still feel as if you don’t *know* your audience. Is it any wonder we struggle with engagement?
How would you rate your own engagement? Do you feel you know your audience, or is there an aspect of guesswork still going on?
