What does Engagement Mean?

 I have been wrestling with this word for quite some time. A recent article which lambasted this innocuous word for being used irresponsibly across the Social Media articles provoked me to probe into it. From its simple English usage, one does understand that it is the means to build a good relationship, be it over the real world of atoms or over the virtual world of bits. However, if we introspect over the meaning of engagement in the real world ( or to be precise, in the traditional media sense), we would observe that the meaning isnt quite the same. Let us take a simple example of a Radio Commercial which I happened to hear recently. The brand was American Tourister: The tough luggage. The positioning hinged upon the idea of toughness

The voiceover in the Ad said : "How many times have you ever been tough to challenging situations like: a) somebody occupying your seat in the train and never budges to move... b) when you were subjected to eve-teasing c) you were accosted by a ruffian.

Share with us your tough experiences through an SMS to xxx number and win cool gifts from American Tourister."

Now what do we make of this? Can we call this an effective "engagement" with the consumers? Some might say "Yes", calculating how quickly over 15 seconds, the ad conveyed its positioning and also teased the audience to grab a gift using their tough stories, thus cementing a relationship between the toughness of American Tourister and that of the consumer.

Let us remember we are talking about Radio as a medium. If you look at the TVC, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ysIcnD5oFHg&feature=player_embedded

we can see this well shot Ad of a foreigner's luggage finding its way bravely in the dreaded Mumbai local trains. The attractive power of the visuals makes us vicariously feel the toughness of the brand.

As we can see, engagement is reinforced over a span of few seconds, through injecting the persona of the brand. This engagement could turn into a long-standing relationship with the brand, or might simply fade away, depending on the power of the message. As we can see, the onus is here on the attractiveness and unique nature of the message which has the potential to break the clutter and make its presence felt. This is becoming increasingly difficult with the explosion of media channels.

So what does engagement mean in the Social Media Space? As the cliched line goes, It’s all about conversations. It is the closest any brand can get to building long term relationships, much like humans do with other fellow beings. As we all aware, this engagement takes time. Ask all those who set out to woo a girl. They will tell you how much time it will take. However, the fruit of this long term investment is immense. The obvious reason being, over the period of time, the relationship becomes a sense of commitment with the user. This long-term aspsect is indeed the haggling part of this entire ball game. Marketers must learn to be patient and keep their stakes to build this long relationship. It is quite easy to get tempted to embrace the easier route through traditional media where the engagement is all about flaunting. Haven't we seen in parties, strangers trying to flaunt their talents and their achievement? We feel nauseated and often shun such company. We are witnessing something very similar in the media space. We are looking for a brand which speaks to us in a human voice. The million dollar question is: Are marketers ready?