The term ‘engagement’ is one of the most over-used buzz terms of the social media era, to the point where it will soon loose all meaning whatsoever.
Brands talk about generating engagement in for form of comments, likes, tweets, subscriptions, conversations, emails, competition entries, and countless others activities.
Over the last few years we have decided that these actions fall under the ever-expanding umbrella of Engagement.
But let’s take a step back a bit. Isn’t engagement all brands have ever wanted from their audience?
Didn’t the guy selling his tractor in the classified section of the New York Times in the 1930s want to generate engagement from his audience? Enough engagement from the guy reading the paper that he would pick up the phone and make an enquiry?
It’s just that the form of action was different back then.
Really, the goal of generating engagement is to inspire, motivate, capture, distract or disrupt someone enough to conjure up some kind of action.
Same as it ever was.
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image: mocachip
