Book Club: Engagement from scratch
New for 2012 on Birds on the Blog is the Birds on the Blog Book Club.
We’re really excited about this and we’d love you to join us in reading, reviewing and discussing a wide variety of books over the coming year.
We’ll also be interviewing authors, and inviting them to participate in Q&A sessions with questions posed by Book Club members.
The Book Club is kicking off this month with Engagement from Scratch: how super-community builders create a loyal audience and how you can do the same by Danny Iny of Firepole Marketing.
Danny has assembled 30 real-life stories from experienced and successful audience and community builders, who each share their unique perspective and best advice on how to build an engaged and loyal audience.
It took me a lot longer than I’d anticipated to read Engagement from Scratch: primarily because it’s packed full of interesting and invaluable advice and I kept stopping to take notes.
Building an engaged audience or community isn’t easy. I know I’ve found it difficult and time-consuming. If you’re running or building a business then of course conversion is vital; but building an engaged audience is equally as important. I don’t just want to sell ‘things’ or my time: I want to have a real connection with my audience; and that can be hard to achieve and can take a long time. It was a breath of fresh air to read in Engagement from Scratch the acknowledgement that “it can take weeks, months, even years (my emphasis) to develop an audience that you have a real connection with, and knowing that before you start out is intimidating at best”.
Some people seem to build their communities quickly and effortlessly, but of course we don’t see all the hard work that goes on behind the scenes, and the strategies that are trialled, discarded and adopted. The contributors to Engagement from Scratch tell us how they did it, and how they would do it all again. Not all of the experiences and advice resonated with me, but very many did, and the great thing about Engagement from Scratch is that there are many different stories, from many different perspectives and personalities – there really is something for everyone here.
After reading Engagement from Scratch, I had a few questions to ask Danny:
1. Do you think it’s possible to have an audience that isn’t engaging and interacting, but is successfully converting to sales?
Well, there’s a difference between actively engaging and being engaged. Actively engaging is about tweeting, sharing, commenting, evangelizing, and so forth, whereas being engaged is about having some sort of emotional investment in whatever it is that you’re engaged with. You definitely don’t need an audience that is actively engaging in order to make sales – if they’re engaged, then they’re engaged, and that can translate into any number of behaviors, including buying from you on a regular basis. Now, if the question were “can you have an audience that isn’t engaged at all, but is still converting to sales”, the answer would be a little trickier – I’d say that yes, it’s possible, but that generally happens in commodity markets when people are buying on price (for example, customers who buy generic colas instead of Coke or Pepsi) – they aren’t engaged with the purchase, but that’s fine, they’re still buying. They aren’t particularly loyal customers, though – at that point, it really becomes a question of what kind of business you’re trying to build.
2. Is there such a thing as a loyal following made up of people who don’t actually engage in an overt way?
Yes, absolutely, as I explained in my answer to the last question – people can be engaged without actively engaging. The active engagement behavior that we think of is just one way of expressing the emotional investment of being engaged. Think about it like relationships – different people behave in different ways. Some are demonstrative, and some are private. Some express their feelings verbally, and some through actions. Engagement is more about the feeling than it is about the particular form of expression through which it is shown to the world.
3. What are your Top 3 recommendations for creating an actively engaged audience?
First, create and demonstrate RELEVANCE to your audience. Second, give them an opportunity to meaningfully ENGAGE by taking some sort of commitment action that feels reasonable given the context of your relationship. Third, ESCALATE the relationship by giving more back, and asking for more in return. Of course, this presupposes that you have a really good understanding of your audience, and you’ve got stuff that they really want and need.
4. If I asked you to define “engagement” in less than 20 words, what would you say?
Engagement is when your audience is emotionally invested in what you’re doing, and cares about it in a meaningful way. That’s 20 words exactly, thanks to the contraction. 
But seriously, it’s about the feeling – the rest (the stuff that we usually talk about) is just details.
Thank you, Danny 
What are your experiences of building an engaged audience? Has it been easy or difficult for you? What are your main challenges?
Join us in discussing Engagement from Scratch, and the ideas and advice in it…
You can get the digital version of Engagement from Scratch free here.
And when you’ve read it, we’d love to hear your views on the following questions (there’s a prize of a paper copy of Engagement from Scratch for one commenter ):
- What does engagement mean to you, on your blog, in your field of work etc?
- What mistakes do you think you’ve made while building your audience or community?
- What are the key ideas or strategies you’ll take away from reading Engagement from Scratch?
February’s Book Club choice
Next month we’ll be reading and discussing Business Writing Made Easy by Suzan St Maur.
Details of this book, and where to purchase a copy, are on Suze’s website.
We look forward to discussing it with you in February
If there’s a book you think would be great read for the Book Club, please let us know and we’ll consider it.
About Angela BoothroydAngela Boothroyd teaches face-to-face and online English lessons for speakers of other languages. Find her on Twitter @StudyingOnline and on her online English lessons Facebook page.
View all posts by Angela Boothroyd →
15 Responses to Book Club: Engagement from scratch
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Revenge: A dish best served cold?
I’m not a nasty person. I’ve never in my life deliberately set out to hurt someone, or cause them pain. But right now, and for the past three or four years, on and off, my thoughts have been filled with fantasies of revenge. Now I have the opportunity, and I can’t decide what to do. [...]
Engagement for a lot of bloggers means comments. One of my busiest posts ever (10,000 views in 12 hours) didn’t generate a single comment. Nearly 400 emails, but not a single comment. The post was shared all over the place.
Our top 100 women bloggers post got a lot of comments, started a fight on another blog, got 75k of views in 2 days and over 300 tweets. Not a single email…
Engagement is relative.
Sarah Arrow recently posted..13 tools to make smarter use of Google Plus
Absolutely, Sarah, and it also depends a lot on how a particular audience is most comfortable engaging. It’s important to look at all the numbers before making a judgment, because it sounds like that post was popular, and engaging!
Danny recently posted..The Twitter Hashtag Game
Hi Sarah,
Yes, you’re right, it’s all relative, and different things to different people.
As you know, I find it almost impossible to get learners to leave a comment on one of my blogs – but they will happily email me with a comment, or leave comments on the Facebook page. They’re telling me how they want to engage and it’s up to me to listen and to find ways of fostering / nurturing that engagement and interaction.
Twitter: StudyingOnline
Agreed, Sarah, it really depends on the industry. I find that more regulated ones like Pharma prefer to email rather than comment publicly, so I often use emails as a useful metric for how things are going.
sally recently posted..Pharma Conference Coverage Strategy
Twitter: maverickny
Hi Angela,
I have just downloaded a copy, sounds very interesting!
I hope I manage to read it soon, as my list seems to be growing by the day lol
Anita Hunt recently posted..Snowdrop notelets
Twitter: NitaJoyDesigns
Hi Anita,
I’m the same. I have so many things waiting to be read properly. I recommend making the time to read Engagement from Scratch – I think you’ll find it an interesting read
Twitter: StudyingOnline
Angela,
I have Danny’s book on my hard drive, but I only had a brief moment to take a look at it.
All I can say that Danny has brought a lot of interesting people together, so I bet there is a lot to learn from the successful people.
Cheers,
Timo
Timo Kiander recently posted..Weekly Productivity Tip #24: Use Your Own Head When Taking Action!
Twitter: timokiander
Hello Timo,
Yes, there certainly is a lot to learn in this book. A few of the contributors are ‘big’ names that I recognized, some I hadn’t heard of before – but all had an interesting and useful perspective. I hope you find the time to read it.
Thank you for stopping by and commenting
Angela.
Twitter: StudyingOnline
Engagement is something which I thought I didn’t have with my audience, due to lack of comments on the blog or FB. But, it’s not true! Often I don’t know that they’re engaged until long after when they talk about how my posts, tweets or FB updates have positively affected them.
I wonder if visible engagement is for us or for the reader/client?
PS I haven’t read the book, like Anita, there’s a list a mile long, however I will download a copy, thank you, and allow its magic to percolate!
Jackie Walker recently posted..Reason to Love Yourself #3 – Less Stress and More Peace
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ah, there you have hit the nail on the head Jackie – the validation is for us surely! It’s not to benefit the reader or we would be happy with the emails that only we can see
Sarah Arrow recently posted..This may be of Pinterest to you…
That’s a great point, Sarah and Jackie.
I would love to see my readers engaging and interacting with each other via comments, mainly because I think it will help them develop their language skills – but if they’re happier emailing me on an individual basis then maybe that’s just the way it is and there shouldn’t be any need for validation via visible interaction.
Twitter: StudyingOnline
I have downloaded the book thanks. Engagement is very important in my line of work. I don’t have government grants to carry out the community development work I do in SW Uganda so I rely on well wishers for finance. I believe that I must engage with them and help them understand why I need their help to help people they have never met or unlikely to meet. At the back of my mind I believe that that message must be positive and not one
that makes people feel guilty. what do I mean? I have heard someone say to others, oh you are enjoying that glass of wine at a price of £4 but that sort of could pay for a girl’s education in Africa” whilst that is true it is unlikely to get that person to engage with your cause/project and support you.
ethnicsupplies recently posted..Mountain Gorilla Organization Coffee Estate Association- Kisoro SW Uganda
Twitter: ethnicsupplies
Hi Ida,
I hope you enjoy the book and find it useful.
I can see that engaging with people in your fund raising work is crucial. And I can see that you need to do that with a positive message in order to get people to really engage with a project or cause – I find it hard to believe that people respond well to those appeals for help and adverts etc that we sometimes see on the television, the ones that are designed to make the viewer / audience feel desperately guilty.
Twitter: StudyingOnline
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Thanks for sharing this. Our business is very new and any help with engaging is much appreciated. I will download the copy and add it to my reading homework pile. I really enjoy the interaction with customers/potential customers and anyone who enjoys jewellery. Living in an isolated area and not knowing the local language makes enagemement even more important.
Ruth Seba recently posted..A seaside inspired Jewellery Collection for 2012
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