Engagement is not a digital marketing term, nor was it created as a result. Interestingly, the concept of engagement goes back to at least 1898. An American advertising and sales pioneer E. St. Elmo Lewis authored a book, Financial Advertising, in which he introduced what is now the classic sales tool based on the four mechanisms of personal selling: attention, interest, desire, and action.
Social media is first and foremost an engagement opportunity. How many times would you like to dialog with readers or get deeper feedback from an ad campaign? Social media is the one media that is designed to do that.
Consider these stats:
91% – Visit the brand’s website or application
89% – Buy from the brand
85% – Recommend that brand to a family or friend
84% – Choose that brand over a competitor
84% – Visit the brand’s physical retail store75% – Increase their spending with that brand
74% – Reach out for customer service or support
74% – Read that brand’s blog or site content
source: Influencer Marketing Hub
Engagement measures didn’t start with social media, but its added capabilities significantly increase the ability for marketers and their agencies to build brands.
While marketers and agencies are still tasked with creating compelling content and context, the consumer now plays a more active role. It’s the viewer, however, that chooses to watch, to, spend time on, interact with and perhaps share the content with their friends. Accordingly, smart marketers are creating content specific to social media based on understanding, modeling and measuring this opportunity.
Consider engagement with your followers and prospects as the number one objective of social media. The rest follows.