Why “Engaging in the Conversation” Might Be a Waste of Time

I admit it. I was wrong. At least, partially. I have believed, taught and evangelized about the benefits of “engaging in the social media conversation” for as long as I've been in the social media space. It's always felt right to say and, for the most part, could be backed up anecdotally with a few personal examples.

All of that changed after reading a few blog posts from the “original social media scientist”, Dan Zarrella. How did he change my world view literally in one afternoon? It all started with a tweet. This tweet, to be exact:

Engaging in the conversation doesn't work on Facebook https://bit.ly/jeUNvW on Twitter https://bit.ly/idiCrM or on Blogs https://bit.ly/kqlv7o

— Dan Zarrella (@danzarrella) July 5, 2011

These posts (which you can find here, here and here respectively) sent my social media world into a tailspin for the rest of the afternoon. “Could what I've always believed about engaging others in social media be wrong?” I thought to myself. Turns out, the answer is “yes.”

I went on a existential Twitter journey, so to speak. First, denial:

@danzarrella calls into question some of the methods I use. And he's right —> Engaging the conversation doesn't work https://bit.ly/idiCrM

— Justin Wise (@JustinWise) July 5, 2011

Then delusion:

“Enagaging in the conversation doesn't work.” >> Loving this stuff from @DanZarrella https://jwi.se/lsNaia

— Justin Wise (@JustinWise) July 5, 2011

And finally, acceptance:

Methinks that social media needs more level-headed, data-driven thinkers and practitioners.

— Justin Wise (@JustinWise) July 5, 2011

Zarrella, who works at HubSpot, is in the business of bursting the social media bubbles filled with “rainbows and unicorns” – a methodology that sounds nice but has no data to back it up.

Zarrella's basic premise across these articles is that engagement in social media doesn't work like we think it does. In others, simply engaging people online on Facebook fan pages, Twitter and on blogs doesn't necessarily lead to more page views. In some cases, like Facebook, the more comments there are on a particular post, the less views it gets.

That's right, a negative correlation.

*Gulp*. Now what is a practitioner supposed to do with that? The thing Dan has going for him is data. Lots and lots of data. This isn't some conclusion he came to because he had a “gut feeling” or because he “knew it was right.” These are real, hard numbers from real world social networks.

Hard to argue with that, no matter what your “gut” might be telling you. Let's take a look at each one of the social networks he mentions. I'll add some thoughts along the way.

Blog Conversations Don't Lead to More Links or Views

Dan says:

There is no correlation between the number of comments on a post and the number of views that post got. There's also no correlation between comments and the number of links that post got.

Here's the chart he's referencing:

Simply put, if you're killing yourself trying to answer all the comments you get on your blog posts, you can stop. In the grand scheme of things, it doesn't have much of an effect on how many times your post is viewed. (Did I just hear a collective sigh of relief? Breathe with me, my fellow tired-fingered brethren. Breathe….)

Bottom line: Don't let lack of (or surplus of) comments be a primary indicator of how well your posts are doing. Comments are an unreliable metric. If you're going to measure anything, measure how many links your post is getting.

Twitter Replies Don't Lead to More Followers

Dan says:

Users with lots of followers respond much less frequently. The effect is the same when you compare users with more than 1,000,000 followers with those that have less.

Here's the chart that he's referencing:

As you can see, there's a reverse bell graph at work. Essentially, the people who @reply on Twitter most frequently either have very few followers or a large amount of followers. The in-between is filled with people who don't respond as frequently in their tweets.

How does one move from the middle to the “top”? Dan suggest sharing more links. I think he's right. The more I use Twitter, the more I find that people crave interesting links and relevant information. As I've included sharing more links into my Twitter strategy, I've watched both my follower count and Klout score rise.

Bottom line: Spending large amounts of time responding to Twitter followers may be useful if you already have a significant Twitter following. Interjecting yourself into others' conversations doesn't seem to be as effective as I once thought.

Facebook Conversations Don't Lead to More Views

Dan says:

The amount of “conversation” that happens on your Facebook posts has nothing to do with the number of people who will see it. Once again, we find that conversations have very little (if anything) to do with reach-building social media marketing effectiveness.

Out of all three networks he profiled, this is the one that blew me out of the water the most. I have taught, and honestly believed, that the more comments a fan page post received, the more chances it had to get into the coveted News Feed of other users. That, as Dan points out, doesn't seem to be the case.

Here's the chart he's referencing:

As you can see, the correlation is actually negative! Meaning, the more feedback a post gets, the less likely it is to be seen. Ack! This is truly a paradigm-shifting revelation for me. This basically means that artificially prolonging a conversation on a Facebook fan page might actually be doing more harm than good.

Bottom line: Not sure what to do with this one, but the data is there. It seems as thought allowing a fan page to organically determine the level of conversation may be the best strategy. As an administrator, your job is to simply provide interesting, useful links, content and information.

What Does This All Mean?

In a word: Lots.

• Those of us who have been touting the “engagement theory” need to go back to the drawing board and review our strategies.
• Content, not conversation, is the keystone to social media effectiveness.
• The “social” in social media has more to do with the ability to share useful content than share opinions. (Have you seen the message boards on your local newspaper? I rest my case.)
• And on, and on.

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