Does Engagement Still Matter?

Image courtesy of http://socialengagement.co.uk/

With businesses and brands now being told to focus more on getting their content to as many eyeballs as possible on Facebook, the question a lot of people, especially community managers are asking themselves: does engagement still matter? Well in short, yes, but why?

Well according to a recent report by SocialBakers, engagements with brand pages and content are actually up. Why does this matter? It shows that when more people are engaging, brands need to staff accordingly to listen and interact back with these consumers. Whether that is with customer service reps or community managers, people interact because they want someone to be listening, and recognize that people are listening to them.

So while organic reach may be dying down on Facebook, brands should not have a knee jerk reaction, and think that engagement isn’t important anymore. As a social media/community manager, it is still important to seek out consumers who advocate for your product/business/brand, and engage those people.

So what can you do to convince the higher-ups that engagement is still important? I am going to use the improv trick of showing vs. telling, show them what consumers are saying when they are engaging with your content. You can show the higher-ups that when you engage with people who are talking to you on social, you are building a brand affinity with them, and they will advocate for you among their friends and networks. People still trust advice from their friends and colleagues above direct messages from brands, so if the person you’ve cultivated a relationship with online has the choice to recommend your brand or a competitor brand who never engaged with them, chances are, they’ll recommend you over a competitor. And while it may not lead to a huge increase in sales, it’s one more sale that you didn’t have.

So organic reach may be dead, but when you get your posts in front of eyeballs, and those eyeballs are engaging with your content, engage back, or else, why are you even on social?