Mixing various social media, online groups, customer lists into one place might make it easier to manage, but it ruins the unique identity of a community.
Kevin Hillstorm, of MineThatData fame, put it best recently:
When people talk about integrating all channels, they make one major assumption … they assume the customer is the same. Often, that's not the case. I have clients where print customers are 60 years old, emailers are 52 years old, social are 33 years old. So when you integrate everything, you smooth the edges off of the channel/demographic relationship. You take away the reasons why social might work with the 33 year old and why print might work with the 60 year old. You're left with a homogeneous marketing blob that works with your core customer, but not the rest of the customer file.
We shouldn't be integrating, we should be seperating. We should be helping our audience divide into ever more interest-specific groups. The smaller and more focused to their specific topic matter, the more engaged the audience will be.
I would rather have hundreds of groups each developing it's own unique identity across dozens of platforms.
