Tracking the Fundamental Engagement Metrics
“Engagement” is a word that comes up a lot when discussing social media marketing and applications. Keeping a tab on the factors that drive engagement is not easy, as there is no single metric alone that indicates how engaged a person or a community is. Here are a few elements that can help guide you towards the conversations and interactions to pay attention to for deeper analysis. These are a few key engagement metrics to look out for.
- Remarks – Looking at how active a discussion is on a post is one of the most popular ways of looking at engagement. Examining the spark of conversation ignited by a post can be an interesting indicator to know whether the community is listening, and if they want to respond.
- Distinctive commentators – When communities are tight knit, there is a lesser number of people who contribute to the comments. However over time, looking at an increase in distinctive commentators can signify if you are reaching more people. Instead of a core contingent of fans, there will be more and more people emerging for discussions.
- Dimension of threaded discussions – With a community that is posting discussion questions, FAQs or support items, it is necessary to look at the length and breadth of the threaded discussions. These can not only prove how interested the community is, but can also show if the discussions are useful and impactful for them.
- Time spent on content – Although the content may be interesting, people interacting with the content can be quiet, which means that some engagement is passive. There even may be instances that content or ideas can be taken as an inspiration even though they may not say so. By examining how long people spend perusing your content, it is possible to find out the interest level although it is not verbalized.
- Content downloads – Downloads of content like whitepapers, e-books, or even blog posts is a popular way of tracking engagement as it indicates the interest of the subject matter. Looking at downloads can be a great leading indicator of engagement around a topic, although it may be difficult to track what happens after the content download without follow up.
- Subscriptions – People signing up to your blog or newsletter or publication is indicative that they are interested in what you have to say. Although true engagement is more interactive, subscriptions provide more opportunities to discuss on content.
- Feedback – With a well engaged community, there is going to be guidance and feedback towards business improvements. As suggestions, product improvement ideas indicate a vested interest on behalf of the people you’re trying to reach.
Understanding what engagement means to you, in context of what you’re trying to achieve, is important. It is therefore essential to tie together all the engagement analytics and other more specific measurements that indicate positive progress toward business goals.
Processing your request, Please wait....
