Engagement Vs. Promotion Online

A few weeks ago, a colleague (@ChrisTuttle) on Twitter asked “What rules should #nonprofits aim for when using Social Media?” We replied, “Engagement not promotion.”

And were asked to clarify. Our 117-character response was:

Engagement is 2-way, sharing, seeking open-ended interaction; promotion 1-way, giving, seeking a specific end-result.

It strikes us that there’s room here for elaboration. So here goes:

• The two-way street vs. the one-way highway: When you’re aiming to “engage” someone online, it’s helpful to add the preposition “with” to your thinking. As in, your goal is to “engage with”, or have a conversation with or an interaction with a person online. By adding “with”, a response becomes part of the equation, just like in face-to-face conversations. Promotion tends towards monologue (“We’re oing this great thing that you need to come to or check out because we say… zzz.) Unless you’re Hamlet, a monologue online is just as inappropriate as in your living room.
  • Tip: Asking questions is a great way to engage with people and solicit a response!
• Sharing vs. giving: For the sake of pithiness, our original Tweet left out a key clarifying word: information. “Sharing information” rather than “giving out information” may not seem like a huge difference, but it does matter. Giving out the number for a helpline during say, a disaster, is giving people valuable information that they need. But in most other circumstances, sharing nformation trumps giving out information because shared information has the value-add of being relevant to the people it is being shared with. Just as you would share a great recipe with your wanna-be chef nephew, but not with your wanna-be astrophysicist niece, when you share info online, you share with care.
  • Tip: Use hashtags to share your Tweets with interested audiences, such as, “#Nonprofits: read this.”
• What’s the end-game?: Is it a specific response or an open-ended one? For us, this is the biggest differentiator between promotion and engagement. Engagement is about seeing where the conversation goes next. Promotion is wanting the conversation to end in a specific way, such as, “Buy our product.” Now, it’s important to guide people towards your goal when you engage with them, but that’s not the beginning of the conversation, it’s the end result. When you promote, the interaction startswith your end goal (“Come to our…; give your…; donate…”), leaving no room for, you know, engagement.
  • Tip: Ask for ideas in relation to the event or activity you want to promote. And follow up on them!

We want to be clear. Promotion has its place online, just not all the time. And the lines between promotion and engagement are being blurred every day. We’d love to hear your definitions of and experiences with promotion and engagement. Engage with us!