Is exhaustion a sales technique?
If current social business theory is to be believed, then yes.
Marketers love the idea that they can help to achieve a sale through maintaining a constant point of contact. The pinpoint targeting and consistent user experience allow for a more positive experience.
However, are we providing utility or overwhelming our customers with information?
Most consumers are ill equipped for the amount of marketing bombardment that happens to them on a daily basis. The noise is simply too overwhelming for them to receive an actionable marketing message. Each customer is at a different stage of information reception and ability to process multiple streams of information. Integrated marketing works for a reason: you have to have multiple points of attack.
How can we solve this growing problem?
Scalable and Customized Engagement.
The idea behind basic social business design is to achieve a greater point of contact with the customer in order to convert more effectively. In theory, the more personalized attention a customer is given? The more likely they will convert. The revolution of social engagement isn't the medium: it's the speed of the communication.
Unfortunately, this approach isn't going to be successful unless you account for the differing level of user experience, receptiveness to messages and a variety of other contextual information.
The best communication systems are opt-in. Thus, opt-in communications are a harder sell because theoretically everyone has "opened the floodgates" and is going to be receptive to the message you are putting out. This is a big mistake.
The problem isn't the idea. The system that is being used to execute said engagement is not sophisticated enough. The trenches of community management are a very different animal then the high level strategic thought that occupies most current discussions.
While the best community manager may be able to "feel" their way through outreach, engagement and conversion? The vast majority will not and will need a system set up so they can be effective.
Your outreach and engagement has to have a process that accounts for different variables. Currently, we are only accounting for one on most social platforms: product mentions or vertical mentions. We aren't filtering our approach and relying on external data to tell us more information about the person we are engaging with.
This is why an integration of a monitoring software like Radian6 into Salesforce is a pretty big deal. If you can get a better idea of who your customer is (as well as their social engagement profile) you should be able to utilize the correct approach. This would also effectively scale throughout an organization. Giving more information to your reps about a customer is never a bad thing, you just need to ensure that it actually is being put to effective use.
What would this killer app for monitoring and scaling engagement look like? A CMS with dedicated Twitter, Facebook and Blog monitoring software that allows you to interact with each medium (think of it as a Ping.fm on steroids). Can I have the Radian6 version of Tweetdeck already?! This is probably the best way to scale, however it likely is not cost effective and nor is it a perfect system.
Community engagement should never be the mandate of one person (or even a dedicated team) at your company/agency. It should be on the onus of everyone to help out and drive the benefits of your brand home both through customer service and engagement.
Don't just find one community manager. Find your employees.
Photo Credit: sneakerdog
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tagged as customized engagement, exhaustion business model, scalable engagement, social business design, social engagement, social experience
