Part 2: Overcoming Social Audience Engagement Challenges

In part one of this blog series, we outlined popular challenges and common myths regarding social media engagement1.

With part two, we’re aiming to help you understand not only why social media engagement matters, but also how to measure engagement in a way that is actually meaningful to your bottom line.

The “Who” Matter

As we mentioned in our last post, it’s important to understand the driving factor behind engagement data. Here at CommandPost, we believe that factor is your social audience and what we have found is that marketers don’t know who is actually on the other side of their social media efforts.

If you don’t understand who your audience is, which portion of your audience is engaging and how, and what content they’re engaging with, you’ll never truly leverage the power of your audience and increase their engagement.

In Search of Personalization

A recent eMarketer article focused on how data opens the door to create more personalized consumer experiences2. We’re not implying big-brother oversight here, but as consumers increasingly demand “more tailored experiences when interacting with companies”, marketers are pressed to know as much about their customers as they can.

Data mined through analytics is an excellent place to start, especially in social. According to Econsultancy’s “Measurement and Analytics Report 2014”3, when it comes to necessary analytics to understand consumers, digital business professionals worldwide identified “personalization and targeting” as the second-most important metric, just 1% behind “tracking behavior across devices and channels.”

But there’s a significant roadblock: Marketers can’t gain the necessary insights into their consumers to actually personalize their marketing initiatives! A recent study from Experian4 found that 40% of respondents can’t gain insight quickly enough to actually act on personalization.

Why? They don’t have the data.

Who’s “Who”?

For most companies, measuring social media engagement used to mean listening to find relevant conversations in the outside world and counting likes or follows.

As an industry, we’re realizing that raw metrics and guesses at attribution aren’t enough to prove success. It now matters more who is driving that engagement, rather than the specific engagement action itself.

Uncovering the person behind the engagement action will help you to build a solid picture of your social audience, segment that audience and understand what drives them to act on your behalf. When you have a clear understanding of what sparks your audiences’ interest, you can optimize strategies and personalize initiatives that will actually move the engagement needle.

Mastering The Audience Engagement Challenge

Creating more personal, tailored experiences for your social audience doesn’t have to be difficult. In fact, it’s pretty easy if you have the right tools to access the right data at the right time.

Here are some important questions to ask:

  • Are you really reaching your target audiences and strategic market segments through your branded social channels?
  • Can you identify who are the most engaged members of your social audience by topic and why?
  • Who are your brands best organic social advocates and what drives their engagement with you?
  • What content and categories resonate with your social audiences overall and with important audience segments?

Here at CommandPost, we give you clarity when it comes to the “who” of social media engagement. We’ve invested a significant amount of time lately helping leading brands understand their “who” and start their journey toward personalization.

Curious? Take advantage of our pilot program to identify your social audience and high-value advocates and influencers. For more information, get in touch with us at contact@getcommandpost.com.

Resources

  1. Part 1: Overcoming Social Media Audience Engagement Challenges: http://getcommandpost.com/social-audience-engagement-1/
  2. Marketers Just Want to Get to Know You (with Data): http://www.emarketer.com/Article/Marketers-Just-Want-Know-You-with-Data/1011079
  3. Measurement and Analytics Report: https://econsultancy.com/reports/measurement-and-analytics-report
  4. Maximizing Personalization: How To Improve Data Insight for Better Consumer Connections: http://d2ox65wlcvko6f.cloudfront.net/media/marketing/downloads/pdf/whitepapers/us/maximizing-personalization.pdf