What Is “Audience Engagement,” and Why Does It Matter for Your Social Media?

Have you ever been to a party where no one really wants to talk to anyone? Or how about a party where there’s that one guy who dominates every conversation, and he never even bothers to ask anyone else what they think about the topic he’s going on and on about?

Sounds awful, right? No one wants to be that guy. And everyone would avoid that kind of party if they could.  

Well, the same thing goes for the online world of social media. If you’re a content creator, influencer, or small business that wants to grow your followers and enhance your revenue, you need to start thinking about the kind of party you’re throwing. 

And that means you need to start thinking about your audience engagement. 

Now, we know engagement is a term that gets thrown around a lot in the social media world — but not everyone understands what it means exactly, or more importantly, why it matters. We’ve broken it down for you here, along with some useful tips for how to start improving your engagement levels, too. Keep reading to find out more!

1. What Is Audience Engagement?

Let’s go back to that party metaphor. If you’re at a really dull party where no one’s talking to each other, maybe it’s because no one knows anyone else at the party, and no one thinks they have anything in common with anyone else there. Maybe no one even wants to be there. You can’t even call it a “party” at all, really — it’s more just a bunch of random people who happen to be in the same room. 

Like a good party, a good social media page should be a place where people feel connected to each other and to you, their host. Your audience should feel open to talk to each other and to interact with you. And they should feel like you *want* them to participate in every conversation and that you care about what they think and what they have to say. 

Effective social media — whether it’s Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, you name it — should never be a one-way conversation. It should be a place where your audience feels connected and engaged to join in on the conversation.  

Audience engagement is the term to describe how much your followers interact with and connect with you and your social media posts.

Or, as Buffer put it brilliantly: “Without engagement, social media is just media.”

Ultimately, audience engagement is all about making meaningful connections with your audience. And these connections will pay off for you in the long run, big time — as you’ll learn in the sections below. 

2. How Do You Measure It?

Luckily, since engagement is such a fundamental component of social media, there are a lot of ways to measure it.  

Engagement for social media is typically measured by the number and types of interactions your audience has with your posts. These interaction options can vary depending on what platforms you’re using, but, overall, engagement measures can include:

• Shares 
• Retweets
• Comments
• Likes or other reactions
• Chat participation
• Click-throughs
• DMs
• Replies
• Mentions (either tagged or untagged)
• Using branded hashtags
• Saves
• Subscriptions
• Links back to your content
• Reviews
• Tips, donations, or coins

In other words, engagement is not about how many followers you have, or even how many views your posts or videos have. It’s about what actions your audience takes after viewing your posts. 

Every social media platform tracks various engagement measures on a post-by-post basis (for example, anyone can instantly see how many retweets and comments your latest tweet has). When it comes to seeing the bigger picture trends, though — your total engagement across all your posts and even across all your — you’ll need analytics tools. 

In many cases, upgrading your social media accounts to business or pro will give you access to see overall engagement trends on that channel. There is also a huge array of social media management and analytics tools that can help you assess your performance across all your channels. 

3. Why Does Engagement Matter? 

Now that we know what engagement is and how to measure it… why should we bother? Why is audience engagement important?

Let’s go back to that really dull party again. Let’s say it was your friend Max who invited you, and you went. But you were completely bored, unengaged, and disconnected with everyone else the whole time you were there. You couldn’t wait to get home.  

And so, when Max invites you to another party next week, what do you do? You make up any excuse you can think of so you don’t have to go. You certainly wouldn’t invite any other friends to go with you. And you’d never think of recommending Max’s parties to anyone else, either. 

When you’re an influencer, entrepreneur, artist, or small business, you want people to keep coming back to your party and to bring as many of their friends as they can. 

Engagement is the secret ingredient for building meaningful connections with your audience. Engagement is the difference between having a follower and a major fan. If you’re selling products or services, it’s the difference between a fan and an actual customer. And engagement is the difference between a one-time customer and a loyal, repeat customer who recommends your brand to others. 

By improving your engagement, you strengthen your relationships with your audience and get them more invested and interested in your brand.

This, in turn, improves your bottom line. 

Moreover, engagement is the key factor these days that social media algorithms use to deliver content to users.  For example, the Facebook algorithm now emphasizes “meaningful engagement” when prioritizing posts in feeds. According to Facebook:

Interacting with people is associated with a greater sense of well-being… On the other hand, just scrolling through your Facebook feed, passively reading or watching without interacting with others, tends to make people feel worse.

In other words, the better your engagement is, the more people your posts will reach. 

Audience engagement is also now the crucial metric that brands look for when choosing influencers for their marketing efforts. It used to be about how many followers someone has, but follower numbers can’t really be trusted these days. Interactions, however, are harder to fake. And companies know that interactions translate into sales. Many companies have started choosing to partner with “micro-influencers” for that reason — influencers with lower numbers of followers but higher engagement rates for a target audience. They’ve been found to deliver a much better return on investment.

4. How Can You Improve Your Audience Engagement?

Now that you understand why engagement is so important, it’s time to start thinking about how you can enhance yours. Here are a few quick tips to get you started:

• Interact with your followers! Reply to their comments and DMs. Acknowledge when they mention you. Answer their questions.  
• Learn the secrets of your platform of choice. For example, on Instagram, your posts will be shown more often when you use Instagram Stories. And there are new tools, such as stickers, to encourage engagement with users. On Twitter, it’s all about using hashtags. And on Facebook, people love videos — videos get 400% more engagement than just a text-only post.
• Seek out more creative ways to form direct connections with your audience overall. For example, rather than just relying on DMs to have conversations with your followers, why not text with them directly on their phones? Getting a public phone number and texting with your audience can be a powerful way to boost your engagement, promote your content, and grow your revenue. 
• Join other conversations too. Find out what your audience is talking about (the hashtag of the day for your field) and find ways to jump in with your own related content and posts.  
• Create more interaction opportunities, like polls, quizzes, contests, etc. 

Over time, if you focus on prioritizing and enhancing your engagement, you’re sure to become the life of the party. Have fun! 

TL;DR:

Audience engagement is all about how much your followers interact with and connect with you and your social media posts. Engagement is typically measured by the number of comments, likes, and shares you have on your posts, among other types of interactions. Engagement matters because it’s how the key way you build meaningful relationships with your audience and customers through social media and beyond. Higher engagement levels translate into more revenue! Most social media platforms also heavily factor in engagement into their algorithms, so your posts are more likely to show up on your audience’s feeds. To boost your engagement, make the effort to interact with your audience more and join in on conversations that matter to them. Seek new channels for opening up direct communication with them, too, such as a public phone number. The better your overall audience engagement, the bigger your success!

Are you ready to build stronger connections with your audience and more?

Toosa, a powerful new audience communication platform, will be launching soon. Don’t miss out! Get on the waiting list now for updates and find out how to be one of Toosa’s first users.