A company attempting to seize the initiative in a given market segment, or drive home a message to a specific audience, has more opportunities than ever to reach out to that audience and engage. This is the role of most brands’ social media programs. But it is not enough just to establish a LinkedIn page, Instagram account or Facebook presence. Audience Engagement is about conversation — posting in groups, commenting on trends and inviting dialogue.
Audience Engagement content is part of that dialogue. A lot of existing content can be repurposed for audience engagement through posting, either to start a conversation or as a response to ongoing threads.
- Not all Audience Engagement content needs to be original; this is a great justification for social sharing of curated content, if it reinforces a sense that the brand team truly understands the issue being discussed and has an affirmative take on it.
- Your brand’s Thought Leadership content works well in an audience engagement context, especially when individuals to whom the content is attributed participate directly in the discussion.
Audience engagement needs to maintain distance from overt brand promotion.
Examples of Audience Engagement content include:
- By-lined articles: Come Together: Business and IT Executives See Their Roads Converging (SupportWorld)
- Guest posting on blogs: Why customer journey mapping should start with your sales team (Nutshell blog)
- Customer stories for industry associations: “Making IG Real: Six Stories from the Front Lines of Information Governance Success.”
Peter Dorfman Creative Services 