That little thing we call engagement
That dreaded E word, yes that’s right folks, I am talking about engagement. Clients love it, but true engagement of the non-gimmicky type is hard to create.
There have been a couple instances of late, where brands’ attempts to generate engagement have backlashed. Waitrose’s promoted #WaitroseReasons campaign didn’t quite yield the engagement they expected, and Jamie’s #Jamies15MM promoted trend for the launch of his latest book also generated some hilarious comments.
So what went wrong?
The unwanted engagement (although all publicity is good publicity, right?) was perhaps down to an unfortunate choice of hashtag in Jamie’s case. Or is down to the fact that consumers are getting tired of brands wanting to continuously engage them, and want us to listen to their needs again like in the old social media days?
And then I had an Eureka moment. If you studied marketing at university, you must have come across Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs. The need of belonging forms the backbone of any community, and Twitter users who follow Jamie Oliver or Waitrose on Twitter are interested in good food.
Engaging consumers about food (which Waitrose is very good at on Facebook) taps into consumers emotional purchase decision, whilst asking consumers where they buy food is a rational question, thus reducing willingness to engage.
When engaging your community, always ask yourself why your followers/fans would want to engage. Remember the old adage, listen then engage? It may be time to start understanding the needs of our customers and move away from the broadcast mode to get our customers to engage in a more meaningful way. I believe that consumers still want to be engaged, otherwise why on earth would a product such as Duck Tape have 5 million fans on Facebook?
