Most brands have figured out the importance of monitoring and responding to consumers who @ mention them on social media. Whether it’s a customer service inquiry or positive experience with the brand, the @ mention invites marketers to engage as the door has been opened by the consumer for conversation. In fact, there is a growing expectation from consumers that these brands will respond to them within minutes, not hours after they make their post.

Marketers are now beginning to discover opportunities to proactively engage consumers on social when the person may not necessarily @ mention them, but when the timing and context is suited for their brand to jump in and be a part of the conversation. Doing this the right way leads to new customers, stronger brand affinity, and more valuable earned media from new fans of the brand. The key to making this type of engagement successful is creating a true value exchange with the consumer where they feel educated, incentivized or humored in a way that makes the brand feel real.

For example, one of our automotive clients recently saw an impressive 42% conversion rate from proactive engagements they made to “auto intenders” who were either looking for help or simply exasperated from the car buying process. Rather than aggressively solicit these people for new business, the brand used empathy and assistance to make a more meaningful connection with these people in the “moment”. As a result, they were able to realize a strong ROI on the number of conversions, impressions, and overall results that this approach yielded.

Keep in mind that these were people who willingly shared their emotions publicly on social media to stimulate a response from their followers and the overall community (including brands) on that social network. These are people seeking affirmation, ideas, likes, and exposure on social media. Their reception to brand engagement is extremely high when done properly by the marketer.

Of course, there are risks to taking this proactive approach if marketers are not selective on whom and when they engage or they become too solicitous in their messaging. Although most consumers actively welcome brands to become part of the conversation on social media, they will repel those that abuse the channel. The temptation of automating engagements to achieve reach and scale must be balanced against the benefits of true 1:1 with the right consumers.

Further, simple keyword filtering is not enough to reduce the signal to noise ratio and understanding other real-time conditions like location, weather, or time of day are important in finding the right moments. In the absence of an @ mention as a filter, it’s virtually impossible to sift through all the noise to find the moments that are relevant to a given brand. Fortunately, there are now tools that can stitch together the data points that define these relevant moments for an individual brand or campaign. It’s important to have the ability to instantly find these moments without the burden of piecing together whether someone is fit to be engaged.

Social media has created a new channel for marketers to move beyond publishing or customer service and become a “brand concierge” for consumers through proactive engagement. Publicly shared social media posts open up an entirely new channel for engagement when done with care. As chat bots and other communication channels bring brands and consumers closer together, a great starting point in making these relationships a reality is through social media.

David Rush (@davidmrush) is the Founder and CEO of Earshot, a social media marketing platform that enables brands to discover, prioritize, and engage customers in real-time. Learn more about Earshot at earshotinc.com and follow us on Twitter @earshotinc.