A decade ago, I bought several packs of notecards from corporate satire specialists Despair.com (see bottom of post) and mailed them to my clients.
They loved them (proof a little self-deprecating humor won’t hurt you), and now the wily business satirists are taking aim at the overheated social media space with a stunning t-shirt graphic:
The subhead on the t-shirt product page? “Unlocking the Awesome Potential of Behavioral Disorders.”
Yes, I think they’re making fun of all of us (at least the social media world), and frankly, it’s about time.
Stay engaged, Tom Chandler.
p.s.:
It’s happened to most of us; we mention a brand somewhere on the Intertubes, and soon find ourselves on the receiving end of an email/blog post/twitter reply from the company.
It used to be a little spooky; now it’s fast becoming an expectation. Given the customer conversations happening right now on social media, this news was inevitable: hosted CRM powerhouse Salesforce.com just integrated Twitter functions into its “Service Cloud” product:
Salesforce.com lets you answer customer complaints on Twitter » VentureBeat
Most people on popular microblogging site Twitter (which just turned three) have probably seen customer service-type queries from other users — questions about how to make a product work, or complaints that it’s broken. I have even posted some complaints of my own. That’s one of the reasons companies like Google have created their own Twitter accounts, and its why Salesforce.com is adding Twitter integration to its customer service product, which it calls the Service Cloud.
This is the kind of integration that can only help make engagement via social media tenable in the business world – a social media force multiplier that might protect marketing & service budgets from the skyrocketing costs of monitoring and stuffing a myriad of social media channels.
Lowering barriers to customer engagement can only be a good thing – though we note the other barriers to engagement remain in place (corporatespeak, hype, indifference, inauthentic behavior, etc).
I like this move, but have to wonder why it’s still so damned hard to get two-way integration between email service providers and CRM solutions. One step at a time.
Stay engaged, Tom Chandler.
engagement, engagement marketing, twitter, salesforce.com, twitter integration, service cloud
This little gem from American Copywriter caught my eye; it relates how a hit TV show is using tweets – ostensibly sent by the show’s characters – to engage the viewing audience:
In addition, each profile links to the official AMC site, and there does seem to be some highly subtle show promotion. For instance, last Sunday morning, well before the episode aired, @don_draper tweeted: “Wishing I didn’t have to spend most of my Sunday at the office.” It was later revealed in the show, of course, that Draper had to head into the city to work on the American Airlines pitch. Nice.
I often say engagement marketing is about connecting with the shared values and passions of an audience. Nowhere is it written those doing the connecting have to be real, and this is a shining example.
Stay engaged, Tom Chandler.
