Engagement v eyeballs in social media

2011 was full of debate around how you measure the ROI of social media. Talking to clients and colleagues in different marcomms disciplines, the debate seemed to polarise into two schools of thought.

1. Engagement: Social media is about engaging with customers, prospects and other audience groups, with the main business goals being around loyalty, customer service, reputation management. This school is usually backed by PR professionals and creatives. KPIs are around actions such as Likes, Comments, and sentiment.
2. Awareness: This school sees social media as a way to reach a lot of eyeballs, sell them stuff and generally use social media as a direct response channel. This thinking is often championed by media buyers, direct marketers and CRM specialists. KPIs are around views, reach and if possible, sales. 

Personally, I don't think one school is right and the other wrong, but I do think social media naturally lends itself to the Engagement way of thinking. The most popular social channels are all about having conversations with audiences rather eliciting a direct response to an offer. [I am slightly biased as my background is PR.] If given the choice, I would always take engagement actions [Likes, Comments] over static awareness numbers, like views. [I still believe it is better to have an engaged audience than a large passive one.] 

Having said all that, in 2011, I saw more and more people wanting more from brands in social spaces than just a conversation. They want brands to provide something of value. This could be information, interesting content, or the offers and promotions the direct marketers use. 

IMHO, 2012 is going to see more and more brands moving to an approach that combines engagement and direct response, particularly if social shopping takes off. Brands will need to provide offers, deals and things of value to its social audiences, as well as holding two way conversations. People running social media campaigns will need to learn from all marcomms disciplines and devise campaigns that have engagement, awareness generating and direct response activities.