Metrics and engagement

An interesting little ditty from mediapost . I had to laugh when I read this because, on the one hand you have the word 'engagement', then you then have the word 'impact' next to it.
Engagement impact - sounds……hmmm
I thought that the whole notion of engagement was based upon a paradigm shift in how companies interact with their audiences. I wonder what metric Jonathan Schwartz at Sun uses for his blog? Or Bob Lutz for that matter?
How do you measure open flows of communication?

After years of mulling concepts like attentiveness, involvement, and engagement as a means of measuring the impact media buys have on advertising effectiveness, Madison Avenue is officially embracing "engagement," as its new media planning metric - one that could replace the vaunted concept of "frequency" as the multiplier in most media plans. But a panel of advertisers and agency executives discussing the move Wednesday during a closing panel session at the Association of National Advertisers' 2005 Marketing Accountability Forum in New York had a difficult time defining exactly what the new metric would be, how it would be applied, or whether it would be done so consistently across all media.

It seems everyone likes the idea of engagement, but they struggle to define what it is. Again, how one company engages with its audience and stakeholders will be different to another. That means bespoke or a flexible metric or it means that engagement is the mechanic, but actually what you need to measure is the final outcome that all brands want which is advocacy .