Businesses are using social media for a variety of communication objectives – providing customer support, sharing breaking news and offering promotional information. The power of these networks to easily and quickly gather real-time perceptions is unprecedented. Market research that used to take thousands of dollars and weeks if not months to complete, can now be gathered in the moment to guide timely business decisions.
An article in The New York Times this weekend titled, “We’ll Make You a Star (if the Web Agrees),” highlights how Bravo uses social media to fine-tune story lines, identify fan-favorite characters and research audience wants. A research executive at Bravo states in the article, “We do a lot of passive listening lurking on the Web, interpreting the themes we see on our message boards, etcetera.”
Listening via these mediums is helping the network determine what key audiences think about specific storylines, characters and shows. Executives can then allocate resources and make timely changes based on that information before they lose viewers.
This opportunity is not isolated to consumer-facing brands; B-to-B organizations can also gather information in order to guide product development, messaging and resource allocation. We have worked with companies who have been able to leverage social media to determine brand perceptions within key verticals or with specific audiences. This information has then been used to determine how to weigh activities within the organization.
Use social media to your company’s advantage. The first step is to start listening and monitoring what is said about your brand, your products and trends in the industry. It could pay big dividends.