What is an engagement calendar? Piecing things together.





Part 2 is about mapping your engagement ideas against the engagement calendar. Well, at least in theory.

Spike engagement ideas are the big bangs, the buzz-generating-PR-type of stunts. This is where you can gain the most by mapping against your engagement calendar. You can release a piece of cool content, but wouldn’t it be better if you release the right content at the right time. Hello, synergy! These spikes should be planned around events.

Spikes should contribute to your overall engaged consumer base. Eventually you would want to build a community of highly engaged consumers. Not all of those exposed to your big bang will turn into fans, but some will. Make sure you have the mechanism to capture and continue to engage them once you get their attention.

Well, this is where deep engagement platforms come in. They should be based on passion points, not so much based on seasonality or events. For example, if you are a sports drink company, you may want to create some cool viral content or launch a competition around major sport events. These are spikes – one off activities. At the same time, you may also want to set up a platform to educate consumers about nutrition and healthy lifestyle. This, on the other hand, is continuous.

Deep engagement consists of two important platforms:

1.    Continuous conversation platforms

These are the usual suspects - your online social media presence. This is where you run your day to day communications, do reactive marketing, help spread cool content generated by fans, etc.e

2.    Continuous engagement platforms

As described before, these are more product centric and community based platforms. These should be built around passion points, and enable consumers to build an on going community around the product.

Now you only need to map out all the relevant events, and plan value adding conversations and content around them. One cool thing about having an engagement calendar is that it helps you identify gaps in content. You already know the next Olympics is in 2012. How about planning cool activities around that time for your sports drink brand?

Once you flesh out the calendar, ask yourself how your brand and product can enhance those events/experiences? Then plan your conversations down to the copy! Oh, don’t forget reactive marketing is equally important!