What is audience engagement?

If you are pumping out whatever type of information to an audience, the concept of audience engagement will be quite important. What is audience engagement? The widely accepted definition describes audience engagement as a resultant action taken by a website visitor after being exposed to a certain piece of information. One thing that we have to make very clear is that the definition of this phrase is very subjective. Depending on who you ask, the definitions can even be polarizing. 

The Accepted Audience Engagement Definition

There are very few sources that go into detail when it comes to the issue of audience engagement. One scholar that has managed to give us an audience engagement definition that has been widely accepted is Mike Piddock. Here’s how the business tycoon defined the term, “Audience engagement is providing an outlet for audiences to interact with, be it through an empowered presenter or a physical stimulus. It is making sure you don’t presume the attention of your attendees for the duration of your event – they’re only human, and their concentration will waver without a reason to focus.” 

It might sound a bit complex, but let us break it down into parts. All this means is that during a presentation, the audience is given a chance to interact verbally and physically to ensure they become part of the presentation. The definition also makes a recommendation that presentations or whatever information you are churning out should not be too long. Humans have a really short concentration span.

If you were looking for an audience engagement definition, we could safely say that this is the one. It might come off as complex, but it is accurate and covers all the concepts you have to know about digital marketing. 

Digital Audience Engagement 

Digital audience engagement is pretty much the same as regular audience engagement. The main difference between the two is that for digital audience engagement, you are wholly dealing with an online audience. This is very important, especially now, when most events are based online. The good thing, though, is that most of the principles that apply to regular audience engagement also do the trick for digital audience engagement. 

How to Measure Audience Engagement 

Now that we have highlighted what audience engagement entails, we must highlight how to measure audience engagement. Several tools are available that can be used to measure audience engagement. Using these tools will allow you to assess audience engagement and work on that information to improve it. Here is the guide on how to measure audience engagement.

Social Media Traffic 

If you host an event or presentation, interest is bound to surge. What is the best way to check this out? Well, your social media apps have audience metrics that will help ensure that you measure the feedback you have been getting from your followers.

The best app that you can use as a measure for audience engagement is Twitter Analytics. It is quite comprehensive and offers what we can call a complete picture of how people have been engaging with your content. Remember, your tweets are part of digital content, and engagement needs to be assessed. If you are looking for means to measure audience engagement, then social media data metrics will do the trick.

Assess Lead Generation Results 

Lead generation results are some of the best assessment metrics when it comes to measuring audience engagement. The main goal of any event or content creation concept is to get leads. If you get a lot of leads, it means that your audience engagement is up there. What might be a problem is how to measure the progress. There are several tools that you can use to measure lead generation.

Lead generation results tend to focus on B2B leads rather than normal individual leads. The best way to measure this is by assessing the number of B2B businesses that have contacted your businesses. One thing that you have to keep in mind is that the information can be misleading. This is because defining leads can be quite subjective. 

If you are going to consider this method, you have to make sure that you’ve got well-set parameters. It will help to ensure that you always have accurate information. Make sure you engage with lead generation experts. That way, you are assured of accurate information. 

Conduct Surveys 

Surveys are the best way to get an insight into audience engagement. After or during an event, make sure that you send out surveys. It will give you the best insight into what the audience got out of your event or the content you churned out. Surveys should be subjective and factual. This means they have to be directly connected to your event or content. 

If you were looking for the best guide on how to measure audience engagement, you have to pick one from this list. 

Why Is Engaging With the Audience Important

Audience engagement is essential! Well, the main indication that audience engagement is crucial for your business is how constantly the topic has been coming up on social media. If you have been on the business side of Twitter, then you have probably come across these conversations. The reason why people are talking about it is that it’s of the utmost importance. The next question you might be asking is, why is engaging the audience important? 

There are several reasons for this. We are going to be listing them down.

• Grow Audience

We know that for there to be audience engagement, there has to be an audience first. Having a large audience is amazing: It increases sales and gives your brand stability and a bit of leverage in the business game. If people engage with your content, you are going to trend. It is especially essential if you are involved in social media. 

People love what other people love, and there is no other way to show interest than to engage with your content. If you invest in the engagement, you will experience a surge in your audience. You would love that, right? Well, we know that’s everyone's dream, and it is just within reach.

• Increase Anticipation 

If you have tried your hand at marketing, then you would agree with us that the best thing that any marketer can have is consumer anticipation. It can increase sales astronomically. This is one of the reasons why companies announce launch dates quite early in the marketing process. 

How does engagement increase anticipation? Well, the first thing you have to understand is that once people engage with your content, they want their input to be considered. It means customer engagement increases anticipation because audiences value validation. To put it into simpler terms, people will look forward to something if they know that they were/are going to be involved. 

Audience anticipation makes sure that the audience will pay attention to whatever you are going to be presenting to them. If they pay attention, they will engage. It becomes quite a positive cycle that nearly everyone would like. 

• Delivery 

One thing that we want after every presentation is for the audience to pick something out of the presentation. The end goal might be for them to act. In essence, every presentation has a call to action.

For most people, the perfect measure of whether a presentation was successful or not is the number of people that headed to the call to action. It shows that the message has been delivered, and, most importantly, the audience has accepted the message. Engagement with your potential customers helps in achieving this. 

Measuring and assessing audience engagement will show in real-time how their audience is responding to the “message.” It means that you get a chance to sway the crowd and get your message across. By allowing the audience to anticipate, you also allow them to concentrate and stay logged on to the presentations. 

These reasons are mainly why engaging with leads is important. 

Rules of Audience Engagement 

There are certain rules that you have to follow to ensure that you are good with the audience. These rules of audience engagement include knowing how to communicate with the audience. It is important to ensure that you do not offend your audience. 

Besides, you have to keep them engaged with some useful and interesting information. Develop the timetable for your posts, emails, or discounts. This way, they won’t lose the connection with you and your brand. These are essential rules of audience engagement. 

Are you ready to boost your audience engagement and provide your returning visitors with new offers? Well, use this guide and ensure that you get the best results that come with audience engagement. We hope that this works out for you.

If you want to jump to B2B digital lead generation with Belkins’ help, you are going to need to assess your audience engagement and improve it with our experts’ assistance.