Top 5 Posts on Social Engagement For Week #15

Social Engagement had been added to the list of key Marketing terms of today’s generation. Most of the experts today are of the opinion that Social Engagement should be an essential part of any brands Social Media strategy. But then on the other side of the rope, there are few experts who tend to disagree and have been telling brands not to get fixated on Social Engagement and focus on content and other strategies.

Great debate, isn’t it!

So this week, I spent reading few posts to really understand what exactly is Social Engagement and how important is Social Engagement.

Top 5 Posts on Social Engagement

1.  One of the first post that I read was ‘The 6 Pillars of Social Commerce: Understanding the psychology of engagement‘ by Brian Solis. The point about exchange of social currencies and how it effects your social network stood out pretty well. Read this post to understand the A.R.T of Social Engagement and all the important stats (50% of the shopper have made purchase decisions based on Social Media recos)

2. The second post ‘Social Engagement Maturity Reported Driving Greater Returns‘ by MarketingCharts staff gives some great insights. The point to note in this article is the tangible benefits that can be derived from Social Engagement. I read that about 84% senior executives has seen improved marketing/sales effectiveness as a result of Social Engagement.

3. The third post ‘Social Media Engagement Versus Social Marketing‘ by Britt Michaelian explains the dilemma of brands. The article explains how brands end up broadcasting their messages via pages, ads and miss connecting with audience. She has rightly said in the social networking world, broadcasting is majorly frowned upon.

Next couple of posts are interesting with the extreme right side view of Social Engagement.

4. Mark Schaefer in his post ‘Social media “engagement” is not a strategy‘ gives an entirely different perspective to the importance of Social Engagement. Loved the point where he talks about ‘Engagement must lead to stakeholder value‘. This post is classified ‘MUST READ’

5. Again we have Robert Caruso telling us that ‘Social Media Is NOT About Engagement‘. Some excellent points stating that social media marketing USES social engagement and greater reach is not possible if you have smaller number of followers, irrespective of the type of content.

And so the debate continues with no results yet.

Your turn

1. What is your view about Social Engagement?

2. Does the number of followers matter or will the quality of content matter?

Would love to hear your views, share then over the comments below.

Image courtesy of DigitalArt / FreeDigitalPhotos.net