Social engagement is the degree of participation and communication an individual has within an online community. The goal of social engagement is to form an emotional connection between the individual and the community.
These communities are often led by, or associated with, a brand or organization. Brands may utilize social media monitoring software to help track interactions, exchanges, and other online activities to keep audiences engaged.
Social engagement is a way for individuals and brands to support social norms and increase their social capital. Members of these communities feel a natural compulsion to engage based on shared interests or needs.
Social engagement can also occur in person. However, modern audiences rely heavily on digital spaces such as social media, blogs, forums, and third-party review sites to engage with their communities.
Although every community has different objectives, social engagement aims to capture a reaction and create a response. Individuals typically start by interacting with a community on a digital platform, such as social media, and ultimately progress toward taking action.
Below are the four types of social engagement individuals practice:
Acknowledgment refers to any kind of reaction an individual makes to social content. This may take the form of a “like” or “favorite” of a social media post meant to express approval or agreement. Users can also acknowledge social content in a negative manner using different social media post reactions.
This kind of social engagement requires little effort on the audience’s part and doesn’t necessarily denote a connection between the user and the brand.
Examples of acknowledgement:
Association happens when a user publicly links with a specific community on social media. Users generally associate with brands to start a dialogue or join a larger conversation. This may take the form of commenting on a post or replying to another user.
This form of social engagement requires more effort from the audience and is considered a higher commitment level than the acknowledgment stage.
Examples of association:
Amplification occurs when users share and spread information about a brand or community. Internet users amplify social media posts by sharing them with other users, signifying that the content is important for certain positive or negative reasons.
This type of social engagement increases social reach and helps expose content to a wider audience.
Examples of amplification:
Action happens when an individual moves beyond social media interactions. The end goal of social engagement is for users to follow a call to action, such as downloading content, purchasing products, or sharing their personal information.
This form of social engagement encourages users to move off social platforms to a place where they can take high-value measures.
Examples of action:
Social engagement is commonly measured with quantifiable activity. While in-person social engagement has more tangible metrics, online social engagement is generally measured by the number of likes, shares, or follows.
Social engagement can be measured on popular social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn in the following ways:
Brands can also identify the effects of social engagement on their website. Social engagement can be analyzed on an e-commerce site with metrics such as page views, bounce rate, chatbox interactions, products added to the shopping cart, and completed transactions.
Strong social engagement empowers brands to be in constant communication with potential and returning customers. Social engagement also allows companies to increase brand awareness and respond to feedback in real-time.
Benefits of social engagement include the following:
Social engagement relies on communication and interaction within online communities. While audiences should feel naturally compelled to participate, there are steps brands can take to help increase social engagement across platforms.