Engagement isn’t an audience
We have more ways than ever to measure whether somebody noticed us. I’m not sure we’ve become equally good at knowing whether they care.
Insights
Sep 13, 2026
We have more ways than ever to measure whether someone noticed us. I’m not sure we’ve become equally good at knowing whether they care.
There's a particular kind of excitement that happens when a post takes off.
The numbers start climbing. Someone drops a screenshot in the group chat. The client is happy. The algorithm has smiled upon us. Whatever else happens that day, we have proof that people were paying attention.
Then tomorrow comes.
Who came back?
I’ve spent much of my career working on brands and television properties with unusually vocal audiences, and one thing becomes obvious when you watch people closely enough: attention and attachment are not the same thing.
Someone can watch a clip because everybody else is watching it. They can comment because something annoyed them. They can share something because it is ridiculous. They can enter your competition 14 times because there is an iPhone involved.
All of that is engagement.
None of it necessarily means you have an audience.
An audience behaves differently. It remembers.
It knows that something happening today connects to something that happened three weeks ago. It develops favourite characters, running jokes and rituals. It notices when you change something. It has expectations of you. It argues with itself. It complains. Sometimes, very loudly.
And then it comes back.
Reality television makes this distinction almost comically easy to see. A viral clip might reach millions of people who never watch another minute of the show. Meanwhile, somewhere else, somebody knows what time nominations happen, has been tracking an alliance since week two and is already arguing about Sunday before Sunday arrives.
The smaller number on the dashboard may represent the deeper relationship.
This is why I’ve become increasingly suspicious of engagement when it is presented without context.
Not because engagement is meaningless. Quite the opposite. Reach tells us how far something travelled. Comments tell us something provoked a response. Shares can tell us that people found something worth carrying into another conversation.
These are useful signals.
But we often ask them to prove something they cannot.
A million views cannot tell you whether you have built a relationship with a million people. Forty thousand comments on a giveaway cannot tell you how many of those people would still be there without the prize. One spectacularly viral Tuesday cannot tell you what happens on Wednesday.
Digital has made us exceptionally good at counting arrivals.
I think the more interesting work begins with return.
The strongest audiences I’ve worked with have something approaching collective memory. They accumulate history with a property. Every interaction doesn’t have to introduce itself from the beginning because there is already context between you.
That changes what you can make.
You can call back to old moments. Build anticipation. Create rituals. Leave things unsaid. Reward people for paying attention. Eventually, the audience begins contributing to that history themselves.
That kind of relationship doesn't fit neatly into a weekly performance report. But you can feel the difference when it exists.
Perhaps that is the danger of dashboards. The things that are easiest to count can quietly become the things we value most.
I still want the views. I still want the comments, shares and ridiculous numbers in the group chat.
I just want to know what happened next.
Because virality tells me how far something travelled.
An audience tells me who stayed.
More to Discover
Engagement isn’t an audience
We have more ways than ever to measure whether somebody noticed us. I’m not sure we’ve become equally good at knowing whether they care.
Insights
Sep 13, 2026
We have more ways than ever to measure whether someone noticed us. I’m not sure we’ve become equally good at knowing whether they care.
There's a particular kind of excitement that happens when a post takes off.
The numbers start climbing. Someone drops a screenshot in the group chat. The client is happy. The algorithm has smiled upon us. Whatever else happens that day, we have proof that people were paying attention.
Then tomorrow comes.
Who came back?
I’ve spent much of my career working on brands and television properties with unusually vocal audiences, and one thing becomes obvious when you watch people closely enough: attention and attachment are not the same thing.
Someone can watch a clip because everybody else is watching it. They can comment because something annoyed them. They can share something because it is ridiculous. They can enter your competition 14 times because there is an iPhone involved.
All of that is engagement.
None of it necessarily means you have an audience.
An audience behaves differently. It remembers.
It knows that something happening today connects to something that happened three weeks ago. It develops favourite characters, running jokes and rituals. It notices when you change something. It has expectations of you. It argues with itself. It complains. Sometimes, very loudly.
And then it comes back.
Reality television makes this distinction almost comically easy to see. A viral clip might reach millions of people who never watch another minute of the show. Meanwhile, somewhere else, somebody knows what time nominations happen, has been tracking an alliance since week two and is already arguing about Sunday before Sunday arrives.
The smaller number on the dashboard may represent the deeper relationship.
This is why I’ve become increasingly suspicious of engagement when it is presented without context.
Not because engagement is meaningless. Quite the opposite. Reach tells us how far something travelled. Comments tell us something provoked a response. Shares can tell us that people found something worth carrying into another conversation.
These are useful signals.
But we often ask them to prove something they cannot.
A million views cannot tell you whether you have built a relationship with a million people. Forty thousand comments on a giveaway cannot tell you how many of those people would still be there without the prize. One spectacularly viral Tuesday cannot tell you what happens on Wednesday.
Digital has made us exceptionally good at counting arrivals.
I think the more interesting work begins with return.
The strongest audiences I’ve worked with have something approaching collective memory. They accumulate history with a property. Every interaction doesn’t have to introduce itself from the beginning because there is already context between you.
That changes what you can make.
You can call back to old moments. Build anticipation. Create rituals. Leave things unsaid. Reward people for paying attention. Eventually, the audience begins contributing to that history themselves.
That kind of relationship doesn't fit neatly into a weekly performance report. But you can feel the difference when it exists.
Perhaps that is the danger of dashboards. The things that are easiest to count can quietly become the things we value most.
I still want the views. I still want the comments, shares and ridiculous numbers in the group chat.
I just want to know what happened next.
Because virality tells me how far something travelled.
An audience tells me who stayed.
More to Discover
Engagement isn’t an audience
We have more ways than ever to measure whether somebody noticed us. I’m not sure we’ve become equally good at knowing whether they care.
Insights
Sep 13, 2026
We have more ways than ever to measure whether someone noticed us. I’m not sure we’ve become equally good at knowing whether they care.
There's a particular kind of excitement that happens when a post takes off.
The numbers start climbing. Someone drops a screenshot in the group chat. The client is happy. The algorithm has smiled upon us. Whatever else happens that day, we have proof that people were paying attention.
Then tomorrow comes.
Who came back?
I’ve spent much of my career working on brands and television properties with unusually vocal audiences, and one thing becomes obvious when you watch people closely enough: attention and attachment are not the same thing.
Someone can watch a clip because everybody else is watching it. They can comment because something annoyed them. They can share something because it is ridiculous. They can enter your competition 14 times because there is an iPhone involved.
All of that is engagement.
None of it necessarily means you have an audience.
An audience behaves differently. It remembers.
It knows that something happening today connects to something that happened three weeks ago. It develops favourite characters, running jokes and rituals. It notices when you change something. It has expectations of you. It argues with itself. It complains. Sometimes, very loudly.
And then it comes back.
Reality television makes this distinction almost comically easy to see. A viral clip might reach millions of people who never watch another minute of the show. Meanwhile, somewhere else, somebody knows what time nominations happen, has been tracking an alliance since week two and is already arguing about Sunday before Sunday arrives.
The smaller number on the dashboard may represent the deeper relationship.
This is why I’ve become increasingly suspicious of engagement when it is presented without context.
Not because engagement is meaningless. Quite the opposite. Reach tells us how far something travelled. Comments tell us something provoked a response. Shares can tell us that people found something worth carrying into another conversation.
These are useful signals.
But we often ask them to prove something they cannot.
A million views cannot tell you whether you have built a relationship with a million people. Forty thousand comments on a giveaway cannot tell you how many of those people would still be there without the prize. One spectacularly viral Tuesday cannot tell you what happens on Wednesday.
Digital has made us exceptionally good at counting arrivals.
I think the more interesting work begins with return.
The strongest audiences I’ve worked with have something approaching collective memory. They accumulate history with a property. Every interaction doesn’t have to introduce itself from the beginning because there is already context between you.
That changes what you can make.
You can call back to old moments. Build anticipation. Create rituals. Leave things unsaid. Reward people for paying attention. Eventually, the audience begins contributing to that history themselves.
That kind of relationship doesn't fit neatly into a weekly performance report. But you can feel the difference when it exists.
Perhaps that is the danger of dashboards. The things that are easiest to count can quietly become the things we value most.
I still want the views. I still want the comments, shares and ridiculous numbers in the group chat.
I just want to know what happened next.
Because virality tells me how far something travelled.
An audience tells me who stayed.