Marketing or hiring is about getting new relationships, but engagement is about doing more with the relationships you already have.
That’s engagement: it’s about maximising existing relationship, to get more value out of them. It wholeheartedly seeks value over volume.
A few implications, then:
- A brand knows that engaged customers are worth 300% more, for instance.
- An engaging public speaker isn’t engaging because they draw big crowds. They are engaging because they maximise the relationship they have with the audience when they are speaking, which as a result, draws the crowds.
- An engaging brand Facebook page maximises the value of the relationship it already has with its followers. Hence, Facebook separates between metrics of reach and engagement.
- A consultant can only up sell more to an existing client if the client is engaged!
Engagement is belief in human synergy. It’s a bit like ice. Ice is sturdier and stronger than steam or water because the atoms in a solid object are tighter and more closely knit together than they are in liquid or gas form.
Engagement is maximising value by being better together.
Comments
Brian Driggs
I love the participatory angle on engagement. For as much as people like to talk about engagement and influence, at the end of the day, it’s a two-way street.
It’s reciprocal; the idea is not to simply put something out there and let others engage. We need to be prepared to reinforce the benefit of engaging by engaging, ourselves.
#bettertogether
Scott Gould
B man! Thanks for the comment – man, this feels like old times 🙂
Engagement is totally two-way. And #bettertogether is what I think the Ampersand symbol, and philosophy, is all about 🙂
And engaging ourselves – there’s a key topic! I like to think of this as in-gagement 🙂