The Rules of Engagement: #1. Be Engaging
09/10/2007
[This is the third in a series of articles about the theory of engagement. We believe that engagement is the key to success in the world of Web 2.0/Media 2.0. Here is a link to the first article. In our second article we proposed a practical framework, the four rules of engagement: be engaging; be engaged; be authentic; be agile. This article continues the series by expanding on the first rule.]
1. Be engaging
1.1. Attract and reward attention - be attractive; get noticed; be relevant; be timely
A media rich world is an aesthetic/artistic one. It offers great opportunities to get noticed and create attractive products, but there is increasing competition for the attention of your audience. Hence people start to talk about an attention economy.
To succeed in this world you need great design, great content and great marketing. Under this latter heading, in a Media 2.0 world, we should include findability through search engine optimisation, news coverage (on and offline) generated by PR and community connections generated by online relations and community building programmes.
1.2 Encourage participation
It is the genius of Facebook and YouTube that they have found attractive, accessible and lightweight ways for individuals to participate in their projects and add value for the whole user community.
How can your media offering encourage community participation ? How can you get the audience to participate in building it themselves ?
Once you have taken someone from ‘passive observer’ to ‘active participant’ their engagement in your offering and their stake in your success both increase hugely.
1.3 Be pervasive - on the desktop; in the living room; in the pocket; out and about; in your own offerings and in other people’s
The digital media are pervasive and intertwined. Look at organisations like the BBC and how they are delivering in different media. Also look at the opportunities opening up around online services like Google, Amazon and Facebook to showcase your material within other properties. There is a mad proliferation of media, channels, platforms and properties so the challenge has to be to find the right places to go to engage with your customers and community.
A final thought: Given that these are the rules it’s not hard to see why user-centred design looms so large in the best development practice. By intimately understanding what your audience like, what they want to do and where they are you stand the best possible chance of being truly engaging for them.
Posted in Engagement Theory, Engagement
Pete Gale Says:Is being pervasive always what is needed? I would argue that a better maxim should be: Be in the appropriate context and be appropriate to the context you’re in.
zenbullets Says:Hi Alex,
I’ve gotta say, I’m impressed with the blog so far, the range of topics is making for very interesting reading.
On the subject of engagement there are two further points I’d add:
1. Remove The Barriers To Entry
This might be so obvious it doesn’t need saying, but so many digital media providers forget it, usually in their pursuit of making a buck of their services.
There is more to the genius of Facebook and YouTube than just their community (although, yes, that is probably the biggest factor). They are also very easy to get started with; they don’t require any significant investment by the user to gain entry (only log in details with FB).
Accessibility comes into play here too. It is important, especially for community based stuff, to make sure everyone is invited.
2. Give It Away For Free
Before Facebook we had Friends Reunited, which everyone was very excited about a few years back. They built a huge user base, mostly through some great word-of-mouth. But then they tried charging for their services and it all went a bit wrong.
Because they decided to make their money by targetting the users, denying content/functionality to anyone who wouldn’t cough up, the users all went elsewhere. I expect in the future we will see Friends Reunited as an exhibit in the museum of archaic business models.
This is touching on a much bigger topic. Digital media is challenging the way we think about economics and conventional business models, with the Open Source movement leading the way. I have been writing on this subject on my blog quite a bit recently:
The New Information Economics
Agalmics
Grow Your Own Sofa
Anyway, keep up the blogging Cogappavistas. I’ll be watching you on my RSS reader.
Matt
Media, Money and Metrics | blog.cogapp.com Says:[…] Both these cases, and the many others referred to above and at MIPTV generally, point to a growing recognition of the fundamental importance of user ‘engagement’, something we are well aware of and have discussed in terms of Cogapp’s own approach in previous posts on this blog (here, here and here). […]