Interaction=Sales

What do all those row upon row of business and marketing self-help books all say? You have to ask for the sale.

The same this is true of interaction in the social media world. Remember, it is a conversation. The second person is OK. And most of all, proclaiming old news to the world is not going to get reaction.

For example (mascots removed to protect the innocent):

MASCOT take down OPPONENT 88-78 and improve to 10-0!!! Go TEAM!!!!

And how many comments did that Facebook post inspire for that institution? About 60, which sounds good until you consider the institution is in the 100K range of followers.

What if the same quick message about a big win said:

MASCOT takes down OPPONENT 88-78. Were you there to see TEAM go to 10-0?

Now, we have an ask. The same go team posts are likely, but now two extra dimensions are added. Those that were at the event can brag, and share a personal remembrance (yeah, I saw Bob hit the three pointer . . . ). Those that missed the event can lament (Go team, I'll be there next time).

The engagement point is making everyone a part of the news, not just proclaiming it like the town crier. That job belongs to the institutional website, or to real-time reporting tools like Twitter (although, there is a certain interaction point on that platform as well).

I can't give you a scientific double blind on the impact of that subtle language change, but I do know that one weekend we had more of that call to comment in the Facebook note after a football win and the next weekend it was not. The feedback numbers were higher for the Miss State post than the LSU post. One could argue that the 2OT thriller at MSU had more folks on edge, resulting in better Facebook impression numbers. But the LSU game the next week was a top 10 upset and vaulted the team into Sugar Bowl contention. Just guessing you'd think the impression graph would have been the same, if not better than the week before with MSU.

Again, to be clear, I can't give you a cut and dried here piece of evidence (really, who wants to openly experiment on their fans and risk missing a chance to pump them up by deliberately using flat language). All I can say is that logic tells me that if you ask for a reaction, you've got a better chance -- just like in sales -- to get an interaction.