The real value of social media engagement

If you have a client/boss/colleague that’s still having trouble seeing value in social media engagement, throw this article their way.

First off, trying to assign a monetary value to a “like” or a “share” is silly. It’s like trying to attach dollar amounts to the traffic passing your billboard.

Aside from things like earned media, brand awareness, and purchases — all things that social media can track to some degree — the hidden value of consumer engagement has become easier to see through the recent social media data revolution.

Engagement is data. Data that be analyzed and turned into actionable insights. You can identify consumer demographics, psychographics, purchase patterns, trends in user preferences, and make predictions about future habits.

A very basic example is targeting your brand video to a broad audience on Facebook and letting Facebook auto-generate a second audience for you comprising everyone who has watched that video in its entirety. Using the Facebook Audience Manager tool alone will allow you to uncover a treasure trove of details about your ideal consumer.