Engagement is so 2014. Here’s what I’m doing in 2015.

When I look back at the last couple of years, one firm trend comes to mind. Engagement was huge. Reach out to consumers, engage with audiences, push and pull opinions and thoughts from the brains of everyone around you.

This new theory of engagement led to many tweets like these:

“Thanks for engaging with me!”
“Thanks for engaging with us!”
“Thanks for engaging with our content!”
“Thanks for your input!”
“Thanks for the follow. How would you describe your brand?”
“I look forward to engaging with you!”

These tweets are nice and polite and every last one of them has landed in my direct messages or been sent as a tweet on its own. These tweets demonstrate a commitment to the theory of engagement – creating conversations, friendships, linkages between people.

But they are missing one major component. Everyone one of these tweets is completely lacking genuineness. Open response templates, insert option 7.

Think about every conversation you’ve had with your friends. Friendly, specific, personal. Have you ever thanked your friends for engaging with you? For enjoying your content? For contacting you? If so, you need to rethink your friendships.

These engagement thanks yous are not friendly conversations. They are “following the rules” conversations. They are non-genuine, click-baiting, build the follower count conversations.

These thank yous mix up the THEORY of engagement with the PRACTICE of engagement.

So what should you be saying to people? Well, I can’t give you many specifics. Every conversation is unique. Every tweet is unique. Every reply should reflect that uniqueness. Every reply should be a genuine practical personal and friendly comment.

Thank me for chatting with you about response rates.
Say you’re glad that I liked your infographic.
Say you’re glad I mentioned margin of error.
Say you’ll think of me when a question about probability samples comes up.

Leave the theoretical discussions to your blog entries and white papers. Practice the theory when you’re chatting online.

Thanks for perusing this post. I hope you liked it. I’d be happy to chat with you about it. Not we. Me. Annie. 🙂