Think Customers: The 1to1 Blog

According to a recent survey of 400-plus U.S. consumers conducted by Vovici, 56 percent of respondents say it's acceptable to be contacted by the organization they commented on. However, survey respondents say they're less willing to be contacted by a competitor of the brand they had commented on.

Meanwhile, only 15 percent of the survey respondents say it's acceptable to be contacted by independent market research companies.

The research reflects the challenges marketers face in their efforts to leverage social media to engage with customers and try to develop tighter relationships with them. Clearly, some consumers can get prickly and feel their privacy has been invaded if a company contacts them following a comment they'd made about the organization on a social media site.

Some marketers view social media commentary as a matter of public record. "But that's not really the analogy that (consumers) see," says Jeffrey Henning, founder and vice president of strategy at Vovici. "It's like people having a conversation on the bus and you've overheard them. They're talking to their friends and it's a social space, not a commercial space. They don't want to be bothered, with the prominent exception being "if it's about your brand, then it's OK to contact me"," Henning adds.

One way of working around these types of privacy concerns is by creating private online communities with customers, says Henning. He points to companies such as General Mills which have created "temporary communities" of customers to gather feedback on new product research and other initiatives.

"People seem to be very comfortable when they know the ground rules and they demonstrate greater willingness to share more in-depth information," says Henning.