Does engagement matter?

I constantly hear about people proudly talking about the number of likes their Facebook campaign, but does it really matter?

Of course, it all depends on the purpose of the campaign, but if your definition of engagement of a campaign being views and likes, I would say it doesn’t matter. While some would agree on this statement, I would say we are misinterpreting engagement. Views and likes are in most cases nothing more than a vanity metric. Views and likes, however, makes us feel good and successful. How can you brag about a campaign that got four likes and 40 views? If you are using the correct metrics, you can show your ability to target the right audience if you manage to get the desired in conversions.

In my opinion, when talking about engagement, we’re talking about that moment when they do the desired action. If that desired action is a like, fine, but it shouldn’t be. It should either be a desired action in the form of a conversion from the communication or an emotional reaction. If that message with the four likes resulted in four new customers, I would say that it is a more successful campaign than the one with 100 likes and 1000 views if it didn’t provide the same fiscal benefits either short- or long term. Chances are the campaign with less engagement, in the traditional sence, is more expensive as well.