subject: BPO Riddle: Does Social Media Brand Work? [print this page] BPO Riddle: Does Social Media Brand Work?
The BPO firms dabbling with social media now want something definite on their plate. For too long have they been listening to the social media experts trying to convince them that lead generation do well this way. The lack of tangible results in the short run is the primary reason for doubt. Branding products/services on the social media platform is another emerging trend that is still in the beta stage. The call center services include them in the list but when it comes to delivering results, the business process outsourcing firms are falling short of expectations. Matters are further complicated with the metrics being different for different social platforms like Facebook, MySpace and Twitter.
Branding needs research. It's high time the BPO firms realized that. I have noted many outbound call center agents having no idea of the platform he is using. It's more prevalent for the not-so-popular networks like Friendster and Bebo. The call center agents have to understand what markets these networks are popular in. For example, Friendster works wonders in South East Asia while Bebo is most popular in England and Ireland. You have to keep these factors in mind because product placement is integral to a successful sales campaign. The business process outsourcing agents have to realize that friends on MySpace are either too chilled out to really care for brands or are trying to push their own brands online.
The same goes for the others. Intelligent, educated people constitute Facebook and Twitter. They know a spam profile from a genuine one. When your BPO agent masquerading as a live person pushes a link without a line of introduction, they know what they are dealing with. Your call center agent is either deleted, or reported as spam. Once the complaints start pouring in from a number of sources, the privacy policy authorities will go after your outbound call center agent's profile. The profile can be expelled from the network. If your over-eager call center services agent sends across too many friend requests, there is a warning. A bulk message is as lame as a bulk email blast. In such a scenario, the question is definitely looming large: do social media branding work?
The answer is, yes. It does. Research has proved that online users do depend on social media to look for products/services. That percentage is lower than that of people looking up search engines, but a 33% is still good to keep the BPO agents interested. This is the figure for the number of people who are fans of a product/service page. But the flip side is, on Twitter, only 3% people look for online recommendations from friends/followers. More than 18% said that they look up offline sources before checking out online. The research definitely encourages the call center agent who is pushing for social media branding. Pull marketing works for social media better than push. Try to bring the potential customers to your page before you allow yourself to offer web-links. Remember that the trick lies in interacting with your fellows on social media.
