From Awareness to Interaction to Engagement!

This is a video from REBarcamp NY (courtesy of @ZipvoGreg). I want you to watch it for a few reasons: 1.) it’s a pretty damn cool video and a look at an evening/event Barcamp style, and 2.) there are really some golden nuggets of advice in there! Pay particularly close attention when the video hits 7:15…

One of the challenges folks face in exploring the business utility of social media is converting online contacts into real life business connections. Jeff Turner (Real Estate Shows) lends his insight into that by saying:

You gotta create a progression from awareness to interaction to engagement. That’s where the progressions starts. So you start with somebody being aware with you, you interact with them. But interaction is not engagement. Interactions is just conversation. You don’t have engagement until someone decides to take action with something you do… — Jeff Turner

Think about that for a moment. Recognize that social media is a very effective business tool. But unlike traditional media, you can’t blast and/or broadcast your information in hopes of eliciting a response. If you do that, you have failed!

If you want to succeed, being present on the social web is step one. Being responsive (and interacting) when people are speaking about you, your company and your industry in general, is step two. Engaging with people beyond the point of “here’s my product…” is step three. Complete those steps and suddenly you have a budding community that’s willing to buy your product and talk about it with others.

What do you think? Does broadcasting work in social media? Or does Jeff make a good point?