Are you Guilty of Engagement Speak?

Over the years, we’ve learned to identify survey speak. You know, those words and acronyms that only get used in back rooms and boardrooms but then suddenly end up as foreign words in a survey for consumers. We are getting better at dropping them from surveys and I’m glad to see the acronym SKU appearing on surveys less and less often.

But social media has made us create a brand new problem. Engagement speak.

We’ve learned that the best websites use engagement tactics to increase the level of engagement they have with their readers. Thousands of social media experts now advise brands to encourage conversations with Engagement Speak, that short little call to action at the end of every blog post.

Tell me more.
What is your opinion.
What would you do.
Have you encountered this before.

Sure, they’re great and it’s nice that you want to encourage engagement. But it’s gotten to the point where it’s easy to see that you’ve read the free ebook and drunk the koolaid.

Write blog post, insert call to action.

But when I see the call to engagement, here’s what I really see.

Write blog post, insert call to action, check blog statistics.

Now is the time to stop. Now is the time to put the ebook down and have a genuine conversation with your readers. DON’T say tell me more if you only need to say thanks. DON’T probe if you don’t genuinely have a question. DON’T ask for my opinion if you’re just trying to increase your comment count.

You know what? Don’t end with a call to action. If your point was strong, genuine, and worthy of a comment, you won’t need to ask for it. An open (moderated to prevent spam) comment box is all people need.