CMSWire, an online magazine that focuses on customer experience and business information management recently tackled the subject of whether or not digital and social improves customer relationships.

Author Noreen Seebacher writes…

Life has become increasingly complex for modern marketers. In the not so distant past, all anyone expected them to do was identify, acquire and retain customers. Now they’re expected to build long-term relationships with them — and as anyone who has ever had a partner or a spouse can tell you, that takes a lot of work.

The article begins with reference to Brian Solis’ latest book WTF…

In his most recent book, “What’s the Future of Business: Changing the Way Businesses Create Experiences (WTF),” Brian Solis explores the challenges of building customer relationships as well as options to improve them.

Solis, a principal analyst with the Altimeter Group, suggests marketers can improve customer relationships through the use of social identity, which he defines as the information about an individual available in social media, including profile data as well as ongoing social activity. As he explains:

“Marketers are spending more on technology every year — especially technology that can engage customers in personal ways at scale, like marketing automation, email service providers, retargeting and dynamic web content. Social Identity improves value of these tools by improving targeting capabilities.”

Interestingly, Seebacher took Brian’s work and presented it to senior marketers to get their take on what’s happening and what’s next.

We shared his hypothesis with five senior marketers to see whether they agreed that brands can target and personalize customer messaging through social identity.

The Question

How does the contextual insight available in social media provide an opportunity to better know and engage audiences with personalized content and experiences across channels?

See how each marketing executive responded over at CMSWire.