16 APRIL 2025
What Your Audience is Telling You (And How to Respond)
As we wrap up our quarterly assessments we wanted to share some observations, and in doing so, highlight what we’re seeing in terms of audience engagement data. Audience data says a lot. Our digital-first landscape enables our audiences to be in constant communication – every comment, video view, share and moment of silence carries a message that can transform a business strategy… if you know how to listen.
This is where converging the quantitative with the qualitative becomes so essential. When we talk about audience engagement and interactions, we’re not just looking at engagement metrics or feedback in a silo. The real insights we’re looking for often lie in the nuanced layers. Quantitative and qualitative observations serve to inform the storytelling experience.
In this blog we will explore what your audience engagement data is telling you and how to respond by applying insights and observations to your business strategy.
Who is Your Audience
Your audience is the individual or company who benefits the most from your brand, product or service. Three categories for segmenting audiences include: 1) existing customers, 2) new potential customers and 3) internal team members and stakeholders. If you are selling something to a consumer or business, you may refer to these audience groups as your “buyer personas” or your ideal customers. But for the purposes of this conversation, we’ll begin with these foundational audience segments.
Deciding who your audience is, is the groundwork for decision-making. Audience personas influence product development, marketing strategy, sales infrastructure, customer support and much, much more.
Creating these personas and stories about who your audience is helps you decide how to engage with them. Deciding what their pain points are helps you communicate how your brand will make their life better. Identifying where your audience consumes information, influences where and how you distribute content to ensure you reach them where they are. And once you have determined who your audience is, only then are you ready to begin engaging with them.
What is Audience Engagement?
Audience Engagement is defined as any interaction between you, your target audience and your brand. Your key performance indicators (KPIs) serve as the essential starting point for audience engagement metrics and make clear how your audience chooses to interact with you. All pieces of the audience engagement KPI puzzle will tell you a lot about your audience and your brand.
Let’s begin with a baseline metric for examining audience engagement: A like or social media reaction are two great entry-points. But they are also “surface-level.” Essentially, these likes are table stakes. We want to focus on comments or shares, that’s where we will learn about what target audiences are doing and how they are looking to build a deeper relationship.
Comments are an essential feedback channel. Positive comments reveal what’s working, and critical feedback can serve as a roadmap for what can be improved. Organizations that listen to comments, respond to their audience and make changes accordingly do it best. They understand that there is a person behind every comment, and each and every one of us wants to be listened to. When you listen, and respond – it demonstrates that you and your brand are actively engaged, and that’s impactful.
Engagement patterns can also speak volumes. A sudden drop in engagement is a statement, a moment in an ongoing conversation that communicates that what we shared has invited an unwelcome pause. Are your recent posts or emails not resonating right now? Are there news or events that are impacting your audience? The absence of interaction is just as informative as active engagement.
Why: Turning Insights into Actionable Strategies
The true value of audience engagement lies in transforming insights from collected data, into strategy and action. They inform the answer to the question of the “why” behind audience engagement behavior. When you have established the order for engagement and aligned it with your business and/or sales priorities you are better equipped to build on what you are hearing to create and evolve experiences that resonate and drive meaningful results.
When engagement metrics increase on specific content types, it signals a shift in audience preference. Every data point tells a story. The goal is to develop a framework for interpreting these audience engagement signals. If video content consistently outperforms text-based posts, it’s a clear indicator that video is a better avenue for communicating with your audience. Or, if your audience engages more deeply with thought leadership than product announcements, this can indicate that they are interested in learning more, and you should adjust your priorities accordingly.
Making sure you are tracking audience engagement that truly impacts the goals of your business is the name of the game. While social media performance metrics are great, does a like or comment on Instagram have a direct impact on your business goals? These days, for a lot of companies the answer is “yes,” but that isn’t always the case. We talk about this a lot with our clients, and this is usually when we invite the pause and ask “why” when choosing KPIs that really matter.
The key is to develop a feedback loop that connects audience engagement KPI metrics with business decisions, and work to facilitate:
– Regular cross-functional meetings where engagement data is shared across departments
– Processes for feeding audience insights into product development
– Mechanisms for testing hypotheses derived from engagement patterns
– Clear connections between engagement metrics and business outcomes
Quantitative data is the lead for these four items, but qualitative insights add a critical human dimension. This means beginning with analytics and then examining qualitative inputs that introduce the emotional context for engagement. Qualitative elements often reveal the “why” behind the numbers that we mentioned above – moments that delight and surprise and can serve as the catalyst for new ideas and new ways to engage.
That’s why quantitative analysis in a silo can cause unnecessary effort, sometimes there may indeed be a decrease in engagement. But when you examine the “why?” – the shift may be less about you and your organization and more about shifting audience priorities.
A Continuous Conversation
Audience engagement is an ongoing dialogue. In working with our clients, we use monthly and quarterly reviews to demonstrate that we are not just collecting engagement data, we’re working to use the data and insights to create deep and meaningful conversations with the audience.
Understanding the three W’s: 1) who your audience is on a deeper level, 2) what audience engagement means for your business and 3) why audiences engage the way they do – will ensure that you remain actively and meaningfully engaged with your audience.
Today, we should all be able to answer this organizing question: “Are people engaging?” Yes, they probably are. The key is to begin with “What are they telling us, and how can we respond in ways that create mutual value?” If engagement metrics are booming, that’s great. But if they’re not, that’s not so bad. The silence is just as important. Approach audience engagement as a conversation rather than a calculation. When you take this approach, you build relationships that incorporate transaction data and result in sustainable business success.