Engagement – At the Core of both Content AND Promotion

In a recent blog post Dan Keller from Tycoon Blogger shared an interesting insight with the blogging community. Dan was reviewing that old ‘Who do you love more, Mommy or Daddy?’ question, or in webmasters terms: ‘Who is King? Content or Promotion’. His new take on the topic was that there’s a third contestant for the crown: Engagement.

The ability to engage with your readers and build a community around your blog is what ultimately separates average bloggers from great bloggers.

Let me say I really enjoyed seeing a new take on this question. However, if I may further develop this line of thought, I suggest that engagement is not separate from either content or promotion. You can direct both your content creation efforts and your marketing efforts into being more (or less) engaging.

For example, you can promote your blog in many ways. Some are more engagement-oriented, such as commenting on people’s posts or participating in forum debates. Even your social media promotion can be more “engaging” – as in actually participating in Twitter conversations. Your level of actual interaction with your readers (i.e. engagement) is something you can actually fine tune, to make your promotion effort more (or less) engagement-oriented.

Your content can also be more or less interactive (interaction being at the core of reader engagement). Asking your readers questions, replying to comments, or referencing other bloggers’ content – these are all ways of making your content more engagement-oriented.

So, you see, engagement, IMHO, cannot replace either content or promotion as the royal pair of blogging. It can and should be where you orient both your writing and your marketing efforts.

Tagged as: blogs, comments, content, marketing, social marketing, webmasters