Over-commercialism is turning customers off. We’ve heard this message before. The proliferation of commercial messages on pay television (remember decades ago when the appeal of cable television was fewer commercials??) and FM radio may be self-destructing those media channels, as more and more people cut the ties and use Internet television and radio subscriptions to access the content they want with no commercials.

On the Internet, the situation is no less dire. Pop-up ads, forced video ads before video content, e-mail spam, instant message spam and “cross-channel” marketing (being forced to stare at a car logo throughout a James Bond movie, for example) are exhausting consumers. It’s no wonder we’re tired of advertising

A recent study conducted by Lithium and Harris Poll examined the online behaviors of adults from across the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Germany and Australia by posing questions that led to insights about their online behaviors and preferences, according to a recent blog post by Katy Keim for Marketing Land.

“It’s no surprise that today’s consumers are slowly becoming overwhelmed by brand messages,” wrote Keim. “Especially given the fact that those messages are being hurled at them in every channel at rapid-fire speed. As you might expect, the more over-saturated the marketing playing field gets, the less receptive consumers become to being told how to feel and think (by brands, that is). So, they are increasingly turning to the advice of family and friends to help them work through the decision-making process.”

Social media has ridden to the rescue. Rather than risk mind-melt by exposing oneself to the endless flood of corporate marketing messages, adult consumers are personalizing their marketing channels using social media and taking recommendations from people they trust.

“In fact, we saw in the research that over two-thirds of American, British, French, Australian and German adults (68%, 69%, 67%, 67% and 78% respectively) are more receptive to online recommendations on what to buy from family and friends versus online advertising,” wrote Keim.

For this reason, it’s critical that companies today engage in intelligent, personalized social media-based customer support, otherwise, they’re missing out on engaging customers “where they live” today. Unfortunately, this is beyond the capability of many companies today who did little more than use social media channels as one-way digital billboards.

Smart companies today are using call center on demand solutions to bring social channels into the contact center fold and treat them like any other channel to be monitored, scheduled, and included in the multichannel (or omnichannel) customer media mix. Failure to do so risks missing customers entirely in the places they are increasingly looking to engage.