Introduction

In 1989, Field of Dreams staring Kevin Costner was released. It’s the story of a corn farmer who has dreams about building a baseball diamond on his farm after hearing voices that say, “build it and they will come.” For those of you who watched the film, it works out and the Chicago White Sox end up playing there. In today’s world, the concept of build it and they will come just doesn’t work.

Any of us who have been in the world of social media/web marketing know that this is sort of strategy only works in Hollywood. Building a website, a fancy marketing strategy, and a great social media presence doesn’t guarantee you immediate or long lasting success. As a result, let’s look at the top five tips on how you can create a real-time engagement strategy on your website while avoiding today’s common pitfalls.

Tip #1: Determine Your Audience

In order for you to achieve an effective, long lasting engagement strategy, you need to look at whom you will be talking to. Is it existing customers, new customers, how often do they visit your site today, how’s your social reach? A thorough review of these numbers will go a long way to setting and achieving your goals.

Photo source: Matthew Field on flickr.

Tip #2: Create an Engaging Content Strategy

Effective and engaging content requires three key elements: how visual it is, does it provoke conversation, and does it have the ability to tug on your emotions (including fears). Let’s dive into that a bit more.

You know the age old expression, a picture is worth a thousand words? As opposed to the “build it and they will come” example we started out with, a picture provokes associations in your memory that make it easier to recall a memory. I’m sure there’s some fancy research out there to prove this but it also just makes a lot of sense.

In the same way that imagery associated to content provokes memory, engaging content should also provoke conversation, more social sharing, more comments, more retweets, emails, and the like. One word of advice: be sure your engaging content is also “accessible” meaning that it’s easily understood for large audiences with different skill sets. Finally, one of the risks of engaging content is that it could provoke a spirited discussion. If this happens to you, please be sure you have the right platform to help you moderate audience comments (more on that in a bit).

Tip #3: Build a Sustainable and Integrated Campaign

Let’s say your boss is super eager and rushes you to execute a real-time engagement strategy after reading this deep and insightful blog post. Hey, are you still there? You’re not already promising results are you?Easy there tiger.

Over the past 18 years of my career I have done that quite a few times. Whether it’s to please a pushy boss or an eager client, it’s easy to forego preparation for immediate gratification. In fact, according to a 2014 B2B Content Marketing study, 93% of marketers are using content marketing but only 42% consider themselves effective.

That’s less than half of you! If you haven’t already started, let’s set a good pace before sprinting.Otherwise, you’ll pull a corporate muscle and trip over poor preparation all while frustrating your audience. The last thing you want it for your audience to believe they have your ear one day and the next, you’re gone because you didn’t plan a sustainable campaign.

So what does sustainability look like when it comes to an effective real-time engagement strategy? It simply means that you need to pull a team together. Bring in product experts, your marketers, third party experts/celebrities, PR to ensure the message goes out just right, and even legal to ensure they’re aware of what’s going on.

Finally, if you’re a product organization, you could even consider pulling in customer support.More than anything, building a well thought out/integrated campaign ensures that as your real-time engagement strategy grows, that the work won’t be on just your shoulders. Your real-time engagement strategy should be a cross-functional effort that is sustainable and (hopefully) one that grows roots within your organization.

Tip #4: Choose the Right Platform

Earlier, we talked briefly about making sure you have the right platform.This is critically important as audience engagement could lead to brand risk. Let’s look at a couple of examples.

In late 2013, JP Morgan decided to use Twitter for a “live chat” using the hashtag #AskJPM. If you haven’t heard the story already, their live chat was “hashjacked” and the chat was shut down before it really even began.

What does it mean to be hashjacked? Well, Twitter is inherently public, meaning that any comment is visible. So in the case of JP Morgan, there were quite a few Tweets that were damaging to the JP Morgan brand (I’ll spare them the frustration of living through those again).

Can you brand handle that level of risk? I doubt it. Unfortunately, JP Morgan isn’t the only company to have faced this as other top brands have also been hashjacked (McDonalds, Visa,British Gas, the NFL and many more). Here are a few tips to prevent your Twitter chat from being hashjacked.

In summary, you need to be in full control of your brand’s real-time experiences. You need to have mature moderation and curation controls, you need to be able to easily engage with your audience without losing their focus, you need to easily enable them to share your content, and perhaps more than anything, you need a platform that enables you to turn engagement into lead generation. Real-time engagement takes a lot more than just a Tweet, Twitter chat, or Facebook fan page post.

Tip #5: Be an Inspiring Evangelist

Finally, when it’s all said and done, be inspiring and communicate with an authentic and knowledgeable tone. Your audience is pretty smart and will pick up on this. If nothing else, Kevin Costner created this level of inspiration in his role in Field of Dreams. Personally, I think that is why it’s seen as one of the more memorable movies of this generation. Perhaps your real-time engagement strategy can also have a noticeable impact when it comes to the success of your company.

In Conclusion

When it’s all said and done, a real-time engagement strategy is one of today’s most potent strategies when it comes to differentiating yourself from your competition. Perhaps the best advice I can give is to encourage you to internalize the words of Winston Churchill who once said:

“Courage is what it takes to stand up and speak [your content strategy]; courage is also what it takes to sit down and listen [requires the right platform to engage your audience].”

So every once in a while do a quick gut check, review these five tips, and above all, make sure your engagement strategy is not just about you.