According to McKinsey’s, valuable ‘weak signals’ representing snippets, not streams of information, abound in social media conversationshelping companies to figure out what customers want-or don’t want.
Sensitive ‘social listening’ is the key. For example, a global manufacturer whose hiqh quality and low prices were the topic of one customer’s recent social media post almost certainly would not have examined it but for a senior executive who was a sensitive social ‘listener’ and found its implications intriguing. Did the company have an opportunity, the executive wondered, to increase prices or perhaps to seek market share more aggressively at the current prices?
To find out, the executive commissioned research to quantify what had started out as a qualitative hunch. Ultimately, the low-price perception turned out to be an anomaly, but the outsize perception of the product’s quality was widely held. In response, the company has started funneling marketing resources to the product in hopes of building its market share by capitalising on its quality and differentiating it further from the offerings of competitors.
One global beverage company is considering including social-media awareness in its hiring criteria for some managers, to build its network and free its management team from “well-rehearsed habits.’
Deciding when and where to keep the antennae out is critical. Customers often start engaging with products or services in new, tech-enabled ways, simply by sharing perceptions about a company’s offerings and how they are using them. This can be hard for companies to relate to at first, as it’s quite removed from the usual practice of finding data patterns, clustering, and eliminating statistical noise. Spotting signals in such circumstances requires managers and employees to have the time and space to surf blogs or seek inspiration through services such as Tumblr or Instagram.
Companies must channel what’s been learned to the appropriate part of the organisation so the findings can influence product development and other operational activities.
Contact Melvin Day at mday@marketingmoves.com.
Telephone +44 (0)1932253352
Marketingmoves recruits only the best marketers; only for technology; worldwide.
