Terms of engagement: Analyzing public engagement with organizations through social media

• We examine a social-media user perspective of engagement using interviews and focus groups.
• Engagement is an informative, personal, present and social experience.
• Millennials engage organizations via social media to facilitate social interactions.
• Engagement may be as much a spontaneous activity as a premeditated one.

Despite the growth of research on social media engagement over the last five years, studies have failed to define exactly what engagement is. While many studies equate engagement with the broad array of social media activities, this study argues that engagement is conceptually distinct, and involves cognitive and emotional immersion that may not characterize all social media usage. This study addresses the need to clarify the concept of social media engagement in both communication research by exploring drivers of this immersive state of social media engagement from the perspective of those who are among the most active in social media: Millennials. The study also explores Millennial consideration of engagement with organizations online. In-depth interviews and focus groups suggest that engagement is driven by information consumption, interest immersion, sense of presence, and social interaction. Furthermore, findings point toward the need to consider the spontaneous nature of online sociability, the relationship between online engagement and the organization–public relationship, and the concept of engagement itself.