A piece by Tameka Kee in Paid Content yesterday about “engagement” brings back memories of when the industry use to talk about “stickiness.” Stickiness is what led Yahoo! to essentially hand-over its brand position as the leading search engine in favor of life as a content destination (eventually, “Portal”).
I fear the same slippery (sticky?) slope with regards to the issue of engagement, which is that there will be a sudden rash of contrivances designed to lure and hold audiences that then get sold to advertisers as the genuine article. I fear a sudden surge of engagement peddlers on every corner pushing pamphlets in my direction as I walk by.
Media engagement is found at the intersection of quality and relevance and should be allowed to happen with as little extra fiddling as possible. It does not necessarily add-up to time spent, described at one point in the Paid Content article as the “go-to metric.” Time spent in one place may be substantially less than time spent in another, but the audience engagement in both places may be the same. Take most of the blogs of the world today, for instance, including Paid Content, which are designed to offer news and content in short hits that make reasonable demands on a reader’s time. Frequency, if it is not the same as time spent, is equally important as a measure of engagement. Is Paid Content part of your daily routine? Or just an every now and then media event? Engagement is also about loyalty.
Engagement is one of the most important of media virtues, and exists in abundance online. Let’s avoid the fillers and additives this time, however, and make sure that what gets delivered to advertisers is the real engagement item.
