The Spring 2018 edition of 'The Engagement Issue' addresses the challenges of social media engagement and offers strategies for brands to improve their performance. It emphasizes the importance of both organic and paid content, alongside measuring engagement rates to enhance audience interactions. Additionally, the publication highlights successful case studies from leading brands, illustrating effective tactics for engaging social media strategies.

1. THE
ENGAGEMENT
ISSUE
TREND
TAP
SPRING 2018
A quarterly trend publication
unfolding all things social content,
data, and perspectives by
1

2. A NOTE FROM
THE EDITOR
Hello!
We’re The Social Lights, and this spring, we’re bringing
clarity and creative solutions to a hotly contested topic:
social media engagement.
Whether you’re seeking a “magic” formula or hoping to
uncover the secrets of the most engaging brands on social,
we’ve curated the best resources right here.
Ready to outcompete? Carve out the next 15 minutes and
let this be your resource. We’ll bust some myths, talk
measurement in “just nerdy enough” fashion, and analyze
the best tactics from best-in-class brands.
MARTHA MCCARTHY KRUEGER
CO-FOUNDER + CEO
2
The Social Lights is an innovative social media agency that partners with leading consumer
companies to grow their audience and achieve their desired business results.

3. TABLE OF
CONTENTS
Understanding Genuine Engagement — Page 5
Looping Your Social Content — Page 8
Choosing the Right Formula — Page 10
Calculating Engagement Rates — Page 10
Learning From Best-In-Class Brands — Page 16
Untapped Opportunities — Page 23
3

4. WELL THIS ZUCKS.

5. DOES GENUINE ENGAGEMENT
EVEN EXIST ANYMORE?
Everyone loves an alibi: It’s the algorithm, it’s the platform,
it’s Gen Z. An alibi alleviates the need to challenge and
change one’s thinking, but it won’t lead to success.
Yes, genuine engagement still exists — It may not always
be easy, but it’s definitely possible.
5

6. UNDERSTANDING IT’S NOT
ORGANIC VS. PAID
It's no secret that organic reach for brand pages
has diminished significantly over the years prior
to the blunders, but Facebook has not changed
its mission as a social platform —
to engage users and keep them happy.
As marketers, we have the opportunity to help
brands build trust with these users.
Engagement isn't necessarily dead, but
platforms reward brands when content —
organic or paid — is highly relevant and keeps
users on the platform for a longer period of
time.
Most importantly, and what more brands need
to understand, is that the success of organic
content does not exist without the support of
paid and vice versa.
6
Amidst the recent Facebook chaos, users are
beginning to beeline to other platforms with
less advertisements, political arguments, and
security doubts.
In response, brands have shifted their channel
strategies to align with changing user
preferences. Some have already abandoned
Facebook all together (#DeleteFacebook).
With users overcome with trust issues, brands
are left asking: Is high engagement even
attainable if organic content and paid ads are
viewed with hesitation?

7. PAY-TO-PLAY?
ON SOCIAL?
GROUNDBREAKING.

8. ORGANIC
OUR RECOMMENDATION:
—
Use organic content to test for free.
Organic content is your opportunity to
constantly experiment with new ideas
and formats to inform paid initiatives.
A/B testing is not just reserved for social
ads. Create unique links for tracking, and
you will be able to uncover new ways to
refine your paid targeting, assets, and
copy.
8
We know what you’re thinking. You’ve heard it before —
the success of your social content depends on how big
your budget is. But instead of focusing on obtaining a
bigger budget, mindful social marketers should focus on
how far they can stretch each social dollar.
To efficiently scale engagements, you need to understand
the differences between types of social content and how
to create a feedback loop between them.
TYPES OF SOCIAL CONTENT +
HOW TO LOOP THEM
PAID DARK
BY DEFINITION:
—
Content served to those following
your brand page, or to specific
audience segments outside of your
brand page, with paid boosting.
OUR RECOMMENDATION:
—
Use paid ads to amplify performance
and gain access to granular tracking
metrics that are not available
through organic content. Having
access to these additional metrics,
with the ability to view them
individually, allows you to identify
correlations between paid and
organic efforts. You will also be able
to accurately attribute wins between
the two, getting a more complete
picture of audience behavior and
sentiment.
BY DEFINITION:
—
Content posted on your brand
page without paid boosting.
BY DEFINITION:
—
Content that is shared outside of what
can be measured, such as instant
messaging, secure browsing, and
email.
OUR RECOMMENDATION:
—
Because dark content is shared in 1:1
conversations, think of it as digital
word-of-mouth coming from a
trusted source. Therefore, it tends to
drive more quality leads. Make it as
easy as possible for users to share
with the tap of a button, and use
dark social tools to track its source.
With insight into your most shared
content, you will know where to
allocate dollars for even greater
performance.

9. YOU’RE A
SOCIAL MEDIA
MARKETER,
HARRY!

10. SO,
IS THERE A
MAGIC
FORMULA?
When it comes to measuring engagement, one
formula does not fit all. Determining the right
engagement rate for your brand will be based on
your campaign objective and the combination of
metrics that provide the most accurate depiction
of your post's performance.
Three types of engagement rates are detailed
below, along with benefits and drawbacks for
each.
Engagement Rate =
STANDARD ENGAGEMENT RATE
Standard Engagement Rate typically
considers Engagements / Impressions.
Because these stable metrics are readily
available through native analytics, it is a
consistent engagement rate across
platforms. A drawback is Impressions =
Reach x Frequency, so variable frequency
can be inconsistent.
PLATFORM ENGAGEMENT RATE
Platform Engagement Rates are directly
from the source and therefore vary
platform-to-platform. Most often, the
differences are in Base Volume, as some
platforms consider Impressions or Reach
while others consider follower size at the
time of post. Drawbacks include keeping
up with changes to Platform Engagement
Rates and lack of consistency between
platforms.
CUSTOM ENGAGEMENT RATE
If you want to include more metrics,
create your own, or weight them
differently, you can opt for a Custom
Engagement Rate. Choose stable metrics
and you have a formula comparable
between platforms, yet unique to your
brand. A drawback is not being able to
compare against industry benchmarks
and advertising indexes.
10
Engagement Volume
Base Volume

11. “
11
it’s awkward, it’s
obvious, and most often,
it’s a stretch.
When brands post social media
content that doesn’t resonate
with their audience,
Imagine going to a party and
joining a circle with the wrong
story, at the wrong time —
falling flat (and short
of laughter) would be a hit
to your brand…

12. JASMINE GRAPER
Senior Community Manager,
The Social Lights
“
12
Therefore, impressions and
reach are important but
engagement rate
paints the best picture of who is:
nodding along,
sharing with a friend,
double-tapping, and ultimately
becoming an advocate for your
message.
By measuring engagement rate
over time, you learn how to best
tell your story...
and get your audience to laugh.

13. STANDARD
ENGAGEMENT RATE FORMULAS
PLATFORM
ENGAGEMENT RATE FORMULAS
=
=
=
=
=
LIFETIME ENGAGED USERS (REACTIONS + COMMENTS + SHARES + CLICKS)
REACH
REACTIONS + COMMENTS + SHARES + CLICKS
IMPRESSIONS
RETWEETS + REPLIES + LIKES + CLICKS
IMPRESSIONS
LIKES + COMMENTS + SAVES
FOLLOWERS AT TIME OF POST
LIKES + COMMENTS + SAVES
IMPRESSIONS
RETWEETS + REPLIES + FOLLOWS + LIKES + CLICKS
IMPRESSIONS
REPINS + SAVES + CLOSE-UPS + CLICKS
IMPRESSIONS
LIKES + COMMENTS
VIEWS
NOT PROVIDED BY THE PLATFORM
Analyzing social content using Engagement Rate (ER) allows us to better understand which content
drives high-quality engagements. However, actions that are considered engagements and the way
engagement rate is calculated varies across platforms. Below, we provide our “Standard” ER calculation
formulas and compare them with platform-provided formulas. Note that calculating ER for competitive
assessment replaces “Impressions” with “Fans/Followers” based on available competitor metrics.
CALCULATING ENGAGEMENT RATES
=
LIKES + COMMENTS + SHARES + CLICKS
IMPRESSIONS
LIKES + COMMENTS + SHARES + CLICKS
IMPRESSIONS
REPINS + SAVES + CLOSE-UPS + CLICKS
IMPRESSIONS
13
*provided by Iconosquare, a third party tool
Engagement Rate
is a percentage,
so each equation
is multiplied by
100.

14. TYPE RATIONALE
EXAMPLE
FORMULA
WEIGHTED
ENGAGEMENT RATE
Analyzing content by weighting system allows brands to better
understand the depth of engagement:
Likes = Shows opinion
Clicks = Deeper engagement (sent to site)
Video Plays = Deeper engagement (more time spent)
Comments = Shows opinion and personalizes thought
Shares = Shows opinion, personalizes thought, and their friends see it
SHARES AS A PERCENTAGE
OF ENGAGEMENTS aka
“VIRALITY”
Brands that care about the organic reach earned from shares
use this formula to determine the content or content themes
that their audiences like to share with their friends. Facebook,
LinkedIn, and Twitter are platforms where this is most useful.
EPHEMERAL CONTENT
MEASUREMENT
For platforms where content is short-lived, completion rate is a
common metric, but you can also create formulas to dig deeper
into how followers engage with content before it disappears.
Content with more “tap backs” on Instagram Stories indicates a
higher level of interest from followers.
COKE JOURNEY, COKE’S ONLINE MAGAZINE, NEEDED AN
ENGAGEMENT METRIC THAT WENT BEYOND GOOGLE
ANALYTICS
Coke was tasked with attracting an average monthly audience of 1.2
million and keeping them engaged. So, they created their own metric to
capture engagement metrics and understand how and why content was
gaining organic views: Expressions of Interest (EOI). The formula weights
Social Reads and Social Shares above SEO and visits metrics.
TYPES OF CUSTOM
ENGAGEMENT RATES
=
=
=
LIKES + (CLICKS x 2) + (VIDEO PLAYS x
2) + (COMMENTS x 3) + (SHARES x 5)
IMPRESSIONS
SHARES
TOTAL ENGAGEMENTS
TAPS BACK ON IG STORY
IMPRESSIONS
COKE CREATES CUSTOM METRIC TO
MEASURE “EXPRESSIONS OF INTEREST”
CUSTOM ENGAGEMENT RATES IRL
14
THE POINT SYSTEM
SOCIAL READ 10
SOCIAL SHARES 5
SEO 1
THE FORMULA
EOI SCORE FOR A STORY ON
THE COKE JOURNEY SITE =
(Social Read x 10) + (Social Shares x 5) +
(SEO x 1) + Total Visits Rank
10
READ MORE

15. YOU CAN'T BE
THE BEST IF
YOU DON’T
LEARN FROM
THE BEST.
BRANDS DOING IT RIGHT

16. UMBC SCORES
POINTS ON
TWITTER
March Madness: 16-seed UMBC not only upset #1
ranked Virginia, they won the hearts (and retweets)
of the 100k+ new followers that they gained on
Twitter in a weekend from their engaging real-time
tweets.
Lesson: It pays to be bold. UMBC’s witty, playfully
confrontational tweets during the game were as
unexpected as a 16-seed beating a 1-seed, but
they worked.
BEST-IN-CLASS ORGANIC CONTENT
UMBC
16
16

17. NETFLIX CALLS
OUT THOSE WHO
BINGE
How do you promote a cheesy Christmas movie
without a huge budget? Netflix got millions of
impressions when they used in-house data to
promote A Christmas Prince. This success wasn’t
isolated. Netflix has had engaging tweets about
2018 Friends episodes, viewing habits, and
Halloween costumes.
Lesson: There’s a huge amount of power (and
engagement) to be found when you connect your
brand to the culture zeitgeist of the moment in a
way that’s natural, surprising, or relatable.
BEST-IN-CLASS ORGANIC CONTENT
NETFLIX
17

18. FITNESS ADS
THAT AREN’T A
STRETCH
Similar to beauty and skincare, fitness is an
industry that has the advantage of visual proof.
Sharing that visual proof on Instagram was what
elevated Kayla Itsines’ fitness brand into a $100
million dollar wellness empire. Although
regramming her clients before-and-after photos
has proven to be successful organically, Kayla opts
to give away free mini workouts via Instagram ads.
This way, the ad is more likely to get saved and
provides a digestible preview of the full workout in
her e-books and mobile app.
Lesson: Your ad will often be referenced, shared,
and have higher recall if it’s visually resourceful.
BEST-IN-CLASS PAID CONTENT
KAYLA ITSINES
18

19. BEST-IN-CLASS PAID CONTENT
PATAGONIA
CREATIVE WAYS
TO CAROUSEL
In Patagonia’s latest Carousel ads, they
leverage powerful imagery to sell products
or to take a stance. As a result, they have
garnered engagement on par with their
video ads. The Carousels show the product
being used “in the wild” and provide users
with quick views of the product without
having to be redirected. In user comments,
you can see that Patagonia purposely
retargets those who have already purchased
the product to increase reviews in the
comments. Some have even uploaded their
own product photos.
Patagonia has taken it to the next level by
using the Carousel unit to show
transparency, featuring individual workers
who are a part of their Fair Trade Program.
Lesson: Engage users quickly in the first and
second images of your Carousel. Give users
a reason to click back, whether to compare
product colors or to read an employee story.
19

20. BEST-IN-CLASS PAID CONTENT
GLOSSIER + BIRCHBOX
THE BEAUTY OF
DIVERSIFIED ADS
The concept of ‘one thing in X number of
ways’ is not new in the social food world,
but we are beginning to see beauty brands
leverage the content trend to show
diversity in ads. Glossier uses a video
carousel to show how a specific makeup
set would look on women of different
ethnicities. Birchbox takes the same
approach but opts for a video with a split-
screen thumbnail showing four final looks.
Lesson: Choose your thumbnails wisely
and consider showing them in a collage.
Auto-playing videos sometimes aren’t
quick enough to grab attention. Pick the
most interesting and understandable video
frame or upload a photo of your own.
20

21. BUBLY THROWS
FANS FOR A
LOOP
No matter how you pronounce it, GIFs are some of
the most engaging content out there. Not only do
users share them on public social media profiles,
but they’re used countless times in messaging
conversations between friends, family, and co-
workers. As Pepsi launched its new sparkling water,
Bubly, they leaned heavily on GIFs (both branded
and unbranded) to engage their target audience.
Using Giphy’s brand channel capability, Bubly’s 454
GIFs had 1 billion views less than a month after
launch.
Lesson: People naturally engage with content that
they find useful in the moment. Match your content
plan to the way users already use social with their
friends and reap the benefits.
BEST-IN-CLASS DARK CONTENT
BUBLY
21

22. FREE TAKEAWAYS AHEAD.
*GOD’S PLAN STARTS PLAYING*

23. 23
BRIDGING THE GAP
Engaging your fans and followers can be
simpler than it seems. Just remember to ask:
LET’S GET TO IT.
Every day, we deliver hundreds of
millions of organic and paid
impressions for our amazing clients.
The lessons compiled here only
scratch the surface. As long as there
are untapped opportunities, there
will always be a need for brands to
continue learning in order to
outcompete.
Does your social strategy include both
organic and paid content?
Have you determined the right formula for
calculating engagement rate?
Do you know how your audience engages
with your content?

24. UNTAPPED BRAND
OPPORTUNITIES
CREATE A FEEDBACK LOOP BETWEEN
ORGANIC, PAID, AND DARK SOCIAL
Use organic as a testing ground, paid metrics to
understand audience behaviors, and dark tracking to
identify what users really want their friends to see.
SPEND TIME ON KPIS BEFORE CHOOSING
AN ENGAGEMENT RATE FORMULA
To accurately measure and attribute social impact,
choose the metrics that ladder up to your desired
outcome and help achieve your business goals.
MATCH YOUR CONTENT TO THE WAY
YOUR AUDIENCE ALREADY USES SOCIAL
Users have been conditioned by platforms
differently. What’s familiar on one is not the same
on the other. Listen to your audience and discover
what is shareable on each platform.
LEVERAGE CULTURAL MOMENTS THAT
MAKE SENSE FOR YOUR BRAND
The easiest way to “beat” the algorithm is with
hyper relevancy. Find creative ways to naturally
align your brand with trends of the moment.
24
BE RESOURCEFUL TO BE REMEMBERED
Surprising and delighting your audience shouldn’t be
limited to organic content. Give free tips, hacks, and
how-to’s to provide a useful preview to your product
by amplifying your posts.

25. YOU’RE
WELCOME.
CONTRIBUTORS
Emily Pritchard
Martha McCarthy Krueger
Alli Kahle
Ben Nesvig
Gina Vo
Mollie Cook
Stephanie Steiner
CONTACT US
25
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26. TAP THAT.
BEST READ WITH
OUR FAVORITE
BEER OF THE
MOMENT.