I’d say, conditionally worth the hype.  Trying to engage with all of your customers all the time is an overwhelming task, but targeted engagement with the right audience can be extraordinarily beneficial to your brand, both in sales and service.

I am doing more and more with clients around ‘digital engagement’, as a new packaging for social media marketing. The ones who are doing it right are drawing a line between the breadth and coverage of most marketing goals and the depth and attention required for valuable engagement.  Defining what engagement means and how it is different from social media marketing is important.

I see engagement as a targeted relationship with an audience that can further promote your brand goals and objectives through connections that are timely, relevant, and useful to all parties. It is about giving your audience the opportunity to have a voice in your brand spaces, and providing back support and content that is meaningful to the individual who has chosen to engage with you.

Engagement takes time, intention, and appropriate content. It is more than just having property on platforms like Facebook, YouTube, Pinterest, and Twitter, it is about having the capacity to provide content and conversation as appropriate with targeted audiences.