Step Three: Brand Engagement

The word “engagement” is flung about with wild abandon on every social media platform, and many think it’s only synonymous with the likes of Facebook, Instagram or YouTube.

True brand engagement goes well beyond social media. A key part of the brand-building process, engagement is the process by which positive rational or emotional connections are formed between your brand and consumers (or employees), laying the foundation for purchase. This is the step BEFORE they become a customer, or committed as an employee.

The importance of this Step should not be underestimated.

As consumers, we are exposed to literally thousands of brand messages and images daily. What is it about some of those messages that makes us want to learn more, click, read, watch or pay attention?

The vast majority of those exposures are online (but are not limited to your computer or mobile). Add in billboards, TV ads, brochures, leaflets, store-fronts and you can understand why we have sensory and brand overload.

Although no official metrics exist it’s estimated that the average person is exposed to 4000-10000 ads a DAY. Even at the conservative end of that spectrum we’re talking a lot. So how do savvy brands cut through all this noise and start meaningful relationships with consumers and future employees?

Increasingly brands are moving towards providing useful, meaningful or personalised content to entice those first engagements and create interactions. In an October 2019 study by the CFO Club, 86% of American CFO’s surveyed said that content marketing was the most crucial area for them to spend their marketing dollars.

Smart companies are using content to attract and engage employees too - whether it’s helping them be more effective in their jobs, selling the dream of working at the company or getting them involved in social issues, creating meaningful “on brand” content is as important for employees.

Let’s look at some innovative content engagement examples ...

CASE STUDY: HubSpot

HubSpot is a CRM, sales and marketing software platform which helps businesses to grow and manage their customer base. Launching in 2006 with only three customers, there came a point where they realised that the sales process was changing and that customers didn’t want to have sales messages pushed at them.

“Many companies have forgotten they sell to actual people. Humans care about the entire experience, not just the marketing or sales or service. To really win in the modern age, you must solve for humans.”
Dharmesh Shah, CTO & Co-Founder, HubSpot

Instead they coined the phrase Inbound Marketing, and attracted customers to them. They created a massive content hub that allows customers looking for solutions and answers for problems to find them, because they provide free, useful content on all aspects of marketing, sales and customer acquisition and management. Once customers find them online and engage with them, they’re one step further to purchase.

Now worth around $22.64 Billion they’ve clearly gotten this right.

CASE STUDY: GE

When General Electric wanted to find new ways to engage potential B2B customers looking for wind turbines, engines and suchlike, they turned to a platform you wouldn’t necessarily expect - Instagram.

Engaging six Instagram Influencers at a time, they led a tour of their locations such as the Aviation Testing Centre in Winnipeg Canada and their transport manufacturing facility in Fort Worth Texas, encouraging them to snap pictures and upload to Instagram in real time using the hashtag #GEInstaWalk. They also brought along superfans that they had found through online competitions on the platform.

Their results were impressive to say the least : over 3.3million impressions per tour, over 200 000 social engagements in the first 48 hours alone, 3.8 million unique viewers on GE’s Instagram account and 3000 new followers. All without spending a cent on advertising.

CASE STUDY: AirBNB

We’re all familiar with this global industry disruptor but let’s how they attract potential new employees through video content showing them a “slice of life” working at Airbnb.

Watching this video, future employees will get a good idea of the culture, environment, values and types of people who work there, and hopefully be inspired to hit “Apply” on that job ad.

Of course content is not the only way to create engagement, but it is certainly the most meaningful way in today’s world where content consumption is at an all time high.

Whatever your method of initiating engagement there are some key rules to apply:

●   Be clear on what is meaningful or relevant to your intended engagee.

●   Communicate in a tone, style and way that is applicable to them.

●   Be consistent. Especially if you’re going the content route, you need to produce regular, varied content to keep people coming back.

●   Remember that one exposure alone may not be enough to trigger engagement. Some categories and brands may require more consistency in order to build enough trust for that first interaction.