Define user engagement strategy
Every piece of content produced, has an underlying idea or concept, which generates the need for the content production. And yes, this content is serving a purpose; the purpose of satisfying audience’s needs. These needs might be fulfilled as Utilitarian experience, being an advice/ tip/ learning/ guidance on something or the Timeout experience, being the source of entertainment for the people. This creation process involves a couple of considerations. Let’s take a strategic look on different content media creations to magnify the user engagement.
Stir up the engagement
Engagement in terms of content strategy is “the experience or collection of experiences which the audience feels while it interacts with a piece of content”. So, when being a content creator, we write an article or create a video/ image, the experience of our audience with this piece of content is defined as engagement. Engagement involves the responses of audience towards this content e.g. the likes, comments or shares for a particular post. Hence, more engagement means more likes, comments and shares. So, user engagement depends upon the experience users have with this post.
For any brand, the user experience is what the consumers relate to a particular product and how they feel about it. As in content production, the brand is the written or visual object, the user experience demonstrates how does the audience relate itself to this content, how the blog post, image or video has influenced the consumers and how do they respond to it. The connection they develop as a consequence concludes the idea of user engagement. They might like this content, share it within their social circle or comment in order to express their views and opinions. More audience engagement can be measured by more actions taken by the audience on a particular post. If a post is intended to increase traffic on a particular link, more clicks on that link show more engagement.
The user engagement target depends upon the medium being used. Written content invites user engagement in a separate way while the visual content has different impact.
User engagement in videos
Videos are visual pieces of content that must be created in the form of a story in order to inflate audience interest. Interesting videos with high quality graphics have higher user engagement in the forms of more views, comments, likes and shares. More actions on these videos communicate that these videos are delivering some value to the viewers and hence, satisfying their needs.
User engagement in images
An image is worth a thousand words. Like videos, images are also the example of visual content, demanding good quality pictures according to the preferences of the audience. Trending topics generate more user engagement and it has been found that images with some supporting text engage the audience more. Engagement in images is reflected by more likes, comments and shares on different platforms.
User engagement in blogs/ texts
Written content is the most challenging in terms of generating user engagement. Today, when the audience doesn’t have time to read blogs and articles, images and videos, which are regarded as “Multimedia”, are the preferred content types as the message is conveyed visually in very less time. So, user engagement in written content might not come out as expected. This can be enhanced by inserting images and videos in blog posts, asking the audience to share their own experiences or opinions on the post and trying to make the participation activity interesting. Very long blog posts are not recommended as they drop audience’s interest. User engagement in written content can be best measured by more likes, shares and constructive discussion in comments.
The interest and participation of audience can never result if the content is not produced according to their demands and preferences. So, the concept or idea of the content should always be inspired by target segment’s interests. This will ensure your content reaches its target group and drives more user engagement.
