The Participation Economy
Clicks are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to measuring online user behavior and Web initiatives’ effectiveness. There are far mushier metrics marketers and publishers use to benchmark their initiatives, engagement being one of them, even if there’s no real industry consensus as to what the term “engagement” should or does mean.
Engagement is a tough thing to measure. It’s not so much a quantifiable thing as it’s a user’s mental or emotional state, for which time spent is an awkward, inaccurate proxy. Given that just a definition of engagement is elusive, perhaps marketers should consider a related indication of user interest and involvement: participation.
