Delivery vs. Engagement

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So what’s the difference between digital delivery and digital engagement?  It’s huge!

I sat in a conference several months back with some leading organizations sharing their digital strategy.  The ideas were great but it continues to be impressed upon me that there is a critical difference between delivery and engagement.  And from all of those presentations… I heard 100% delivery in the world of digital.  

Okay, so partially, that’s to be expected.  The digital space is largely a place to “delivery” or pushes the content/resources you have available.  And we most commonly think of engagement as being more in person and not in the digital space.  

I would offer the foundation that digital should always lead to interpersonal in-person connections… but we’ll save that for another discussion.

Most organizations have a digital strategy that’s 100% delivery.  

 

Most digital strategies look like this:

  • Blog postings

  • Facebook postings

  • Instagram postings

  • Twitter postings

  • LinkedIn postings

  • Webinars

  • Virtual events

  • Websites

 

Most digital strategies do NOT look like:

  • Conversations

  • Guiding people down a path

  • Connecting people with each other

  • Being responsive to the needs of others

  • Making great connections

  • People forming groups

  • People moving from digital to interpersonal in-person connections

 

So this is where you have a choice.  Do you want to be all about running a digital delivery strategy or a digital engagement strategy.  And yes, it’s a choice.  Digital engagement is going to take more work but you’re also going to see greater results.  Here are some building blocks to help you start down this path.

  • Define your Difference - start by defining what you mean by both digital delivery and digital engagement.  It’s good to have both and even if you’re great at engagement, you still need the delivery part.  Just don’t leave off the engagement!  

  • Build a Path - create a path for where you are leading people and how you are guiding them there.  The path will help you (and your community) to see the direction forward. 

  • Drive to Connections - the best way to wrap your mind around digital engagement is to think about personal connections.  What connections would you like to see people make and then reverse engineer how to get there.  

  • Try Things - there’s no silver bullet for what digital engagement looks like and it’s often very different per each organization.  Dream up a few things and give them a try.  

 

I’ll close with this.  I truly believe you have a duty, stewardship, and responsibility to help nurture and engage your audience (with you and with each other).  May I challenge you to think well beyond the realm of just digital delivery.  It’s work but the rewards are amazing.


 

Cause Machine Solutions

The Cause Machine platform is built on a philosophy of digital engagement and a drive to see each community moving members from online connections to in-person connections.  While we love the benefits of what technology can bring to our lives… we believe nothing can bring more life to us as humans than connecting with each other.  That’s why we’ve built every piece of this platform with that goal in mind.  Schedule a demo today!

 

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