As we come to the close of 2012, it’s hard to believe the concept of social communication through new media channels has been around for well over 10 years. Yet, it still feels new because it is constantly changing. We have so much more information about our audience and we know we need to adjust to their interests, but many still struggle to deliver information in meaningful ways.
It has been stated in many authoritative articles that consumers want open, honest relationships with businesses, and they want transparency as well as a sense of the company’s personality. Yet, there is data suggesting online engagement is declining.
So what are we doing to respond?
What is really happening? Is it that our audience is becoming less engaged or that our content is not engaging enough? I’ve seen speculation on different sides of this discussion, however what is more convincing is that the content that is being shared is not reaching the consumers’ needs or their timing.
Not only are businesses on social sites not meeting the needs of consumers in the type of content being shared, but also in how and when it is being shared. Look at the first chart and notice how often campaigns are untimely and over-saturated. Then notice on the second chart comparing engagement on Twitter and Facebook.
*Light blue represents engagement on Twitter and dark blue represents engagement on Facebook
Often the assumption is that engagement on all social sites increases in evening hours and on weekends when consumers are not at work; however this is not always the case for every site. While Facebook’s audience engagement does increase in evening hours, as many would expect, Twitter is quite the opposite. Twitter sees more engagement during business hours than after work hours.
In addition, take YouTube for example, “while Thursdays and Fridays tend to see the most YouTube campaigns hit the web, days at the beginning of the week actually tend to have higher levels of engagement.” So we can begin to conclude that while engagement is down for business profiles on social platforms, it is not necessarily due to audiences disengaging, but rather that businesses are not delivering based on the needs of its audience. Listening and monitoring are key to successful engagement with a target audience online, yet somewhere business outreach seems to fall short of this.
Just something to consider… what do you think?
