{"id":8880,"date":"2021-02-11T17:05:49","date_gmt":"2021-02-11T22:05:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ceros.com\/inspire\/?p=8880"},"modified":"2021-10-05T15:00:57","modified_gmt":"2021-10-05T19:00:57","slug":"new-rules-audience-engagement","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ceros.com\/inspire\/originals\/new-rules-audience-engagement\/","title":{"rendered":"What Are the New Rules of Engagement?"},"content":{"rendered":"Reading Time: <\/span> 4<\/span> minutes<\/span><\/span>\n

It’s harder to go viral.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to recent data from research and monitoring tool BuzzSumo, engagement with Facebook pages has fallen by 20% since 2017<\/a>. Listicles\u2014a low-hanging but effective strategy for improved audience engagement\u2014were falling flat, too. Not even clickbait headlines were working, a sign that audiences had begun to ignore these SEO hacks. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Still, audiences weren\u2019t rejecting content altogether. Data<\/a> from PathFactory, a personalized content platform, shows that while session times on B2B marketing content have decreased, overall consumption has actually increased<\/em> during the pandemic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So yes, it might be harder to go viral, but there\u2019s still an eager, engaged audience<\/a> out there. For the 80% of social media marketers<\/a> who said that their number one priority this year is to increase engagement with their content across all channels, you can\u2019t just rely on marketing tactics from 2011 (or even 2020) to succeed in 2021. There\u2019s still no magic pill to achieve audience engagement, but understanding a few simple rules can help you get there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Quality Above All<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

In its early stages of growth, the team behind the Morning Brew newsletter prioritized quality over quantity\u2014not a decision many would make in the same situation. Readers of the daily business newsletter were only counted as \u201cengaged\u201d if they opened six or more of their first 12 newsletters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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That\u2019s a pretty lofty bar, but this figure helped the Brew team to determine how many readers had been hooked. These readers could be relied upon to return over a long period of time\u2014that <\/em>was more important to the Brew than overall views in the short term. While their stricter definition of engagement qualified fewer readers as \u201cengaged\u201d, they\u2019d already begun building a lasting, loyal relationship with its audience. At present, Morning Brew has an astonishing 42% unique open rate and over 2.5 million subscribers\u2014so in the end, the team got its quantity, too.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

There\u2019s no gimmick out there that can make people engage with lazy or unremarkable content. The Morning Brew succeeded because the insights readers found in each newsletter were valuable or interesting enough to keep them coming back. Quality, not quantity, is the primary driver of engagement. Of course you need to set, and more importantly meet expectations with a regular cadence, but quantity without quality is meaningless.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Each post should be exceptional. Otherwise, it\u2019s better to say nothing at all.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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