I Saw An Engagement

Chris Thilk of MWW disagrees with both the ANA’s Michael Palmer and Micropersuasion’s Steve Rubel about the validity and mythology of engagement:

But what neither Palmer nor Rubel talk about is the squishy middle that exists between "creating the right programs" and "measuring the results." That's an important omission since that's where the possibility for true engagement lies...

Engagement to me means when a company or marketer reaches out to the participants of the conversation and gives them a pat on the back, follows up with more information or updates, writes in to correct something that's wrong or otherwise makes themselves available as a resource. There's very little that gets me more excited than getting contacted by someone I've written about. That shows me they're monitoring and want to engage in a dialogue. Building those relationships is beneficial to everyone since the company can be more certain of an accurate message being communicated and the writer gets a whole new stream of good information to draw from.

Chris makes some good points. But will advertisers be able to scale such interactivity from mass down to micro? The spirit is one thing, but the practicality is another.

The ANA also has more on this debate here.