IBM is testing technology that guesses at people’s core psychological traits by analyzing what they post on Twitter, with the goal of offering personalized customer service or better-targeted promotional messages.
A crucial part of the pilot program will test whether messages targeted with the technology’s help perform better than others.
“Our hypothesis is that the conversion rates will be quite high,” says Zhou. At least, she expects them to be higher than is typical: email marketing messages ordinarily have a response rate of just 0.34%, she says, and phone marketing calls achieve about 13%.
This could be a smart move, especially if they can figure out people effectively. I doubt that will be too difficult.
