Engagement Fatigue: The Ultimate Consumer Response to Irrelevant Engagement Marketing
I’m writing about disorder today.
Not one that we face at this precise moment, mind you, but one that we will experience as marketers rush headlong into the social web. As we create community after community so that we can coerce-I mean encourage-”friends,” “fans,” “followers,” and whatever else you want to call those elusive, sought-after “brand fanatics” to engage with us.
The disorder is engagement fatigue. Engagement fatigue will occur when mass numbers of people participating in social networking-everyone who is making marketers salivate because they’re swarming to Facebook, Twitter, etc.-get tired of brand engagement marketing and tune out.
I’m proposing engagement fatigue for inclusion not only in marketing lexicon, but in the DSM IV, because when it manifests itself, psychologists may need to help marketers recover from engagement fatigue reaction disorder. [Note: Before posting this, I Googled both terms and couldn’t find them, which means I’m making an historic contribution to both marketing and psychology. Cool!]
Musings from #musms09
I’m thinking about this because I attended a terrific conference this week-a social media summit at the University of Missouri-where Brad J. Ward (@bradjward) and Liz Allen (@lizallen) shared different perspectives on the importance of understanding and managing social media. [You can check out their presentations and track back-channel conversation.]
Brad talked about how marketers like Volkswagen and Vitamin Water are embracing Facebook, using the staggeringly popular social network to build brand communities where people can follow and engage with their brands. My first reaction that this is an compelling glimpse of the possible.
Then reality set in. Is it just me who believes that a brand community centered around Vitamin Water just might not be sustainable? And, moreover, that there aren’t that many brands that have enough emotional resonance to engage people for an extended period of time?
I’m probably a poor sample, but there are very few brands that I personally care enough about to engage with or about in a community.
Not that I’m not loyal to certain brands. One that surely qualifies is Apple. Apple has helped me to be more productive at work and its products enhance my personal life. As a result, I’ve personally spent or authorized upwards of $1.5 million for laptops and other hardware; software; iPods; iPhones and assorted accessories; not to mention apps and iTunes purchases in the past 20 years.
I talk about my experience with Apple products and can state unequivocally that it provides the best customer service I’ve ever experienced. But while I really appreciate the tools that Apple has created-and while some people may consider me a fanboy, though I don’t-I haven’t signed up for an Apple community or group of any sort and can’t imagine myself doing so. Emotional resonance with a brand only goes so far for me, even with my Mac.
Do you engage with brand communities?
How about you? I know people who are involved in all kinds of online communities, but most of them are grass-roots communities based on professional or esoteric interests, not communities built by a brand for the sole purpose of its promulgation.
For many brands, building a brand-focused community is going to require a lot of dedication, inspiration, perspiration, and ultimately frustration because the really hard and most elusive part will be getting enough people to care long enough to achieve some sort of ROI on the effort involved in building the community. And without that effort, there’s little chance that a community will succeed. It’s quite a conundrum and already I’ve seen communities fail. You have too.
Moreover, how many brands have enough emotional resonance with people for them to spend time in a brand community engaging with others around the brand?
I can think of some brands that I believe have the requisite consumer loyalty and enough interest over time to sustain a community. Harley Davidson. Sporting teams—the Chicago Cubs, the Red Sox, Manchester United. How many more? I’m just not sure.
So I suggest that most brands just don’t have the scale, emotional resonance, and long-term loyalty to make a community work. People may continue to buy a brand’s merchandise-as I’ll continue to buy Apple products because they’re well-designed, durable, and easy to use-but I think that most brands are going to have a huge challenge translating loyalty to real, long-term engagement through Facebook or other social networks.
That’s where I believe schools, colleges and universities have a real advantage. People really care about these institutions and have an emotional connection with them, one that may be rekindled via a thoughtfully managed, truly engaging social network—not that this is going to be easy or free.
Engagement spam—then, engagement fatigue
From a larger perspective, though, what happens when every marketer is trying to engage customers and potential customers? [Oops, how Web 1.0-ish of me! I meant friends!]
You can see engagement spam coming as marketers harangue us to join their communities. People will ignore it and either won’t participate or will stop participating in communities. And as a result, a lot of communities will collapse.
While I believe that people do crave real engagement, once the fad of engagement marketing is over, they just won’t make time for the phony engagement that most marketers will serve up. And they’ll take their attention elsewhere.
So what’s a brand to do?
The most important step is to create communities around meaningful exchanges with others in ways that are relevant to the brand and to the genuine interests and needs of community members. Brands can’t be manipulative when they create or sponsor engagement around issues or concerns related to the core brand.
Amy Mengel makes this point in Five reasons corporations are failing at social media, based on notes from the October Inbound Marketing Summit.
She cites as examples Citrix Online’s Workshifting community, developed to help people who telecommute or work out of other nontraditional locations; Kodak’s photography blog that covers a lot more than Kodak products, and the community that Humana, the health insurance giant, developed around bicycle sharing. And she remarks, “If a company is only talking online about its specific products and not looking for ways to connect to the bigger picture, it’s pretty difficult for people to be engaged.”
Great topic and insight. This is a good reminder and very useful update about something I looked at in 2008, “the limited utility of brand community”:
http://www.alumnifutures.com/2008/01/alumni-networks.html
But I didn’t come up with the phrase ‘engagement fatigue’ - which I like. Maybe it’s the evolution of ‘profile fatigue’?
Posted on October 17, 2009 by Andy Shaindlin
This is a great post with lots of tasty morsels of things to think about. I don’t engage with brands much via the social web. But I’ve thought of this “engagement fatigue” a lot in relation to how we do work in higher education, honestly. I mean, there’s this barrage of marketing that’s really old world in its application directed at a generation that’s been sold to their entire lives in really big ways. I tend to think when that’s been your life, that you can tend to make poorly informed choices because so much of what’s been pitched to you is really founded on some time tested marketing techniques, rather than on the premise that you actually need what’s been sold to you the way they’re selling it.
So the rush to the social web by institutions without a gameplan and even with one, sometimes gives me pause, because I think about “how are people engaging us?” and “are we really giving them what they want via this vehicle and are we serving our message well by using it in a manner that might not really allow us to communicate organically or how we might in a different format.
Anyway, like I said…I really enjoyed this post.
Posted on October 18, 2009 by Ron Bronson
Thanks for your comments! I remember your post, Andy, and didn’t make the connection until you mentioned it. Walled networks will certainly lead to engagement fatigue much more quickly because there are fewer members and less “there” there for most of them.
Aside from this walled garden problem of proprietary networks, Ron mentions the issue that I see a lot. Applying old thinking and old models to current communications isn’t always bad, but you can miss a lot when you don’t listen to your intended audience.
Posted on October 18, 2009 by Michael Stoner
Thanks again for coming to #musms09, it was great to meet you!
Nearly a year ago I blogged about a sign that hung above my desk while I worked at Butler (http://squaredpeg.com/index.php/2008/11/12/its-not-what-you-think/). The poster comes from a Seth Godin quote:
“It’s not what you think the customer wants or wants the customer to want. It’s about creating and assembling a collection of tools that captures the attention of those who truly care.”
I’ll avoid using your Apple example, since they seem to be a rare exception of a company that builds raving fans without really participating in anything web-based. (Steve doesn’t blog, no customer service via social web, etc. etc.)
The second sentence of that quote is important to me and is something I continuously think about. How can I/we/you create and assemble a strategy based around the collection of tools (Flickr, Facebook Page, Twitter, etc) and capture the attention of those who TRULY care? A large percentage of an audience, and even raving fans, might not truly care. But those who do, those who wish to connect on a deeper level, receive updates and information, etc., those are the ones we are reaching well. In your case, you aren’t “those who truly care”, but others might be. And that’s who the brand/company/institution is reaching.
You’re right, though. Engagement marketing as it currently lives will pass on. But the decline rarely happens as quickly as we think it will (see: newspapers, television, landline phones, radio, billboards, etc.). And when that happens? Find a new way to engage and interact with your audience. Who knows where we’ll be in 1, 3, even 5 years. But by leveraging and effectively using the current tools available, goals and objectives can be supported and reached.
Posted on October 18, 2009 by Bradjward
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Nike+_Human_Race
The Nike+Human Race is something I think should be modeled. Is Nike promoting it’s shoes and apparel? Yes. Will thousands, maybe millions interact with a brand on October 24th? You bet. Do people involved with the race feel marketed to? I doubt it. They are involved in something bigger than themselves… and that is what captures people’s attention. (think 2008 election)
“The 2009 Nike+ Human Race is being run in only 3 locations. New York City, Ohio State University, and University of Southern California. The rest of the race is to be run digitally on October 24, 2009. Participants will use Nike+ kits to run a 10k and sync their miles on NIkeplus.com”
Seems to me a brand can do something in the world that makes a difference, and gets people to stop and take a look… or maybe even participate.
If Nike were merely schlepping its wares on Facebook and Twitter they would be merely scratching the surface compared to this type of engagement.
The questions is: Now what?
The answer - is within our organizations. Good brainstorming, trust, willingness to take risks, and we will find niches in which to engage our constituents.
Posted on October 18, 2009 by Ted Hattemer
I agree that higher ed is in a unique position to capitalize on engagement marketing because we already exist as communities. Our audiences either have spent (or hopefully will spend) some of the most important years of their lives on our campuses, building relationships with the institution and each other. Much of the social web has already organized itself to help people re-connect with their college friends, so it’s a natural place for IHEs to be. Plus, the achievements of one’s alma mater also boosts the value of one’s degree, so the news is more relevant to devoted friends.
As far as other brands go, there’s only so much I want to hear about from my favorite coffee chain or television show. Very rapid fatigue factor there.
Posted on October 19, 2009 by Davina Gould
Great post, thanks for writing.
This speaks to the bad habit most people have of overestimating their brand’s importance in the mind of consumers.
Tina Hay, the editor of the fabulous Penn State alumni magazine, often says no one *has* to read their magazine. They don’t assume they have their readers’ attention; they assume they have to *earn* it.
I think this translates to social media and community building as well. Even in a field like higher ed, where we are better postitioned than most to build strong communities, let us not assume people are just dying to connect with us. We need to be thoughtful, understand our unique and specific audiences and constantly push ourselves to think about how we can truly provide the most value.
No small task, for sure, especially when you have to balance that with the need/desire to actively promote the brand and pressure from others who are in disagreement or denial about this concept.
Posted on October 19, 2009 by Tracy Mueller
I agree with you on the terms you laid out: ” ... coerce—I mean encourage—”friends,” “fans,” “followers,” and whatever else you want to call those elusive, sought-after “brand fanatics” to engage with us.”
But that’s not what’s happening out there. Engaging is a bi-directional activity. Coercing is largely one-directional. In Social Media we simply join existing conversations.
Social Media is not a fad. It is here to stay, because it is fundamentally human. You could even say, it was here all the time, we do engage with each other on a natural and regular basis. Only when someone tries to “hard-sell” something do I tune out.
So in reality it is not a Social Media fatigue that you are foreseeing, but simply a (long-overdue) our reaction to decades of talking down to us, with no or little recourse.
Posted on October 19, 2009 by Herbert Reininger
Michael, thanks for the link and the thoughtful post. I think you nailed it in the third section of your post - brand-focused communities aren’t really sustainable, and many don’t have the emotional resonance to build a community around.
When I think about brands that I’m a fan of and interact with, it’s usually something I’m passionate about (my Jamis bicycle, my Canon camera, Magic Hat beer, my favorite local restaurant). I’m not likely to interact with or become a fan of motor oil, cat food, or dish detergent because I just don’t care about those things. The brands like Nike and Citrix and Humana who are facilitating communities around a related topic—versus just creating a community focused on their brand—are the ones I think will really be successful.
I think you’re right in that colleges have an opportunity to create “truly engaging” social networks because their communities are already so connected to them. The Nazareth College reunion campaign that you wrote about earlier is a great example of this – linking the online and “real” worlds to rekindle people’s emotional connections to the school.
@amymengel
Posted on October 21, 2009 by amymengel
Thanks for all the comments on this post, folks! I love Ted Hattemer’s example of the Nike + Human Race—it’s one that joins those that Amy offered in her post as an example of a brand that is trying to engage on broader terms than just narrow brand promulgation.
I’m very enthusiastic about the potential that social media offers to people—and to marketers. I’m just very skeptical about the motivations of brands engaging in developing trivial communities with the accompanying engagement spam, which I see on so many of the LinkedIn communities I’m a part of. I’m tired of it already and it’s only going to get worse.
So I’m not dissing social media, just steeling myself for the consequences of a much broader embrace. Frankly, the coercion part repels me; what I would like marketers to do if they want to create a community is to create something that resonates more than many of the examples I’ve seen.
Brad, I appreciate your reminder that we’re only in the beginning of all this. I appreciate the fact that many of the examples we’re seeing now are experiments. I know you aren’t suggesting that people emulate the Vitamin Water example, but use it as an inspiration to do cool stuff of their own. Stuff that will engage people in different ways. Imagination, daring—plus a good sense of what’s important to one’s own community and the willingness to listen, learn, and change—are all important.
I’m all for capturing people’s attention by doing cool stuff. Again, Ted’s example is a good one, as are the ones that Amy cited in her post.
Again, thanks to all of you for the lively, engaging (!) dicsussion.
Posted on October 21, 2009 by Michael Stoner
I’m reminded of the early days of the Web, when companies first started creating Web pages to attract attention, way, way back in the early -mid ‘90s.
There wasn’t much to those pages. They were billboards, really, but we visited them anyway because there wasn’t much else to view.
Soon, there was a lot more to view, and we stopped visiting commercial pages.
The same is true today. For example, Zipcar is a very hip brand and they have an engaging presence on FB where they hold car-naming contests, announce new customer-driven policies and do give-aways. But how many times have I visited? Once.
There are too many other places to go—such as your blog, Michael—that have real meaning to me and where I can engage. Sorry Zipcar.
Posted on October 26, 2009 by Lori Woehrle