Social Media and the Engagement Funnel

Social media is all about engagement – interactive, real-time, non-linear, and responsive. It has drastically altered how brands and organisations communicate with their customers.

Interactive posts allow your follower to get involved, polls, quizzes, ask questions, or if you have the budget produce interactive content like infographics or games that you can post.

Posting on social media as something is happening, for example at a gig or event you would share photos or updates on what is happing. Very often TV programmes have their own #tag so that a live conversation takes place between viewers in real-time while the programme is on air.

Social media is non-linear, unlike a story that has a beginning a middle and an end, your followers may pick up (or not) any of your posts at varying times. Your communication with your flowers is not sequential

Being responsive on social media is about responding to comments as quickly and consistently as possible so that your followers are encouraged to respond to your posts

Communication has moved from a broadcast model to an engagement model. One that is about having genuine conversations with consumers and not a hard sell.

In this linear funnel, consumers are encouraged to move through a series of steps that:

• Stimulate awareness of the promotion
• Create interest in the promotional message
• Convert this to desire for the product
• Stimulate action usually in terms of purchase

The level of consumer engagement increases as they move through the funnel with growing interest in the brand. This funnel is still useful to focus marketers’ thinking on the action or outcome required.

But it is not comprehensive enough for social media strategy development because it does not show the perpetual nature of consumer engagement that builds loyalty and advocacy. The loyalty loop, popularised by McKinsey, can be more useful.

Follow the link at the bottom of this step to read more about how marketing professionals have started to move away from the traditional engagement funnel.