Before you stop reading and pass this article off as another wishy washy marketing fluff piece, let me explain that the answer to these questions has to do with what you want social media to do for you in terms of your overall strategic marketing plan. Social media is a group of tools to engage your target market and to get them to take some sort of action. This is no different than any other type of marketing medium. We are trying to convey a message that will cause the consumer to take the next step. If, for instance, you wanted to make your target market aware that you have a new brand offering, just getting people to look at a social media post would be a worthwhile way to get them to notice you. Getting people to engage with your social media enough to like it would be another step. If they shared it, it would be another step of engagement. Getting them to comment or, better yet, ask you a question is the highest form of social engagement, that is, if we just wanted to make people aware of the brand.
What if you wanted people to do more than become aware? What if you wanted them to actually buy your brand? A like or share isn’t going to make the cash register ring, is it? In that case, you may use a social media post to get your target market to actually click through to a landing page where the sales pitch will take place. In this case, clicks are much more important than any other engagement you would get on social media. It all depends upon what you need from the customer at that point in the marketing plan.
Look at it this way: when you are playing cards, and you have a single king and a single ace, you would be sitting pretty if you were playing blackjack. However, a single king and ace would do you no good if you were playing poker. But if you were playing euchre, you might have something with the king and the ace combination if they were from the same suit. The king and the ace would be valuable if you were playing the right kind of game or they could be totally worthless. The same can be said of social media engagement. It all depends upon what you are trying to accomplish with it in your overall marketing strategy.
Here is the problem with much of social media marketing: the game is not clearly defined in a marketing plan so engagement may or may not be helping you achieve anything at all. I say all of that to make this point: if you are going to use social media as a marketing tool, you first need to have a strategic marketing plan that helps you define what you are trying to accomplish. Use a leveled approach that walks a consumer through your marketing process until they become one of your customers. That will require you to set goals for the consumer to take action on in each of the levels. After you have done this, then plug social media into your plan to help you reach your goals on each level. Define what actions you want these consumers to take when they are viewing your marketing posts. Weight each action according to what you are trying to accomplish so you can get a clear idea if you are getting the kind of engagement you need to reach the goal.