How technical innovations and social media change consumer ...

By Patrick Saslona | 15 hours ago

In our fast moving world it?s essential for modern companies to understand consumer?s wishes and needs.
The substantial technical progress influences the way how consumer insights are collected and analysed. That raised the question how companies could use technical innovations and social media to explore obvious and hidden consumer needs.

To a first impression on how our society changes in terms of their consuming behaviour and general lifestyle we have to look at the Internet usage.
In the first quarter of 2011 73% of households in the European Union were online. In 2006 it was only the half of all households.

Let?s have a view on the other side of the ocean: Currently 6% of all retail sales in the U.S. come from online sales and it?s predicted to grow up to 8% in 2014.

Considering this, the reasons why consumer insights have to change can be merged into three areas:

1. The way how data are collected changes.
2. The way how the resulting communication with the consumers is done changes.
3. The speed in which innovations are made and consumers react on them changes.

How are data collected?

Today Facebook, Twitter or other services are used to share information on how a new Hollywood Blockbuster or App is received by the consumer.
Google had become the synonym for searching on the Internet, no matter what kind of contents. But Google is not a commercial search engine, they?re an advertising company using ?crawlers? to gather consumer preferences. With the Google tools companies can analyse how long consumers stay on a website and which products are checked out and how long.

These ways of data collection are more reliable then the classical tools of consumer insights, no cheating on consumer interviews of surveys.

How are consumer communications done?

Companies are already using the Internet and social media to communicate with their consumers. 71% on the companies are using Facebook, 59% of the companies are using Twitter.
But there is also a risk for the companies. Consumers are starting to break up with brand ?follows? or ?likes? on Facebook, because their walls are becoming too crowded by advertisements or too many posts of the company/brand annoy them.

Many users only follow or like companies to receive discounts (61%) not because they want to be supportive or they?re interested in the company/brand.

Companies often focus on social media advertisements and posts because they can be used faster and cheaper then classical methods. Reactions on trends can be monitored faster, too.

The speed how innovations are made

Especially in new technology business many new innovations are made daily. New Start Ups on web services are founded in a high frequency. That affects how these companies

communicate in this dynamical environment. Business ideas, product innovations or feedback is shared via Twitter or Facebook. Cheap feedback can be generated to identify obvious or hidden consumer needs, which increases the company?s flexibility.

Conclusion

The use of consumer insights can generate an added value for companies. It can influence the complete consumer communication and marketing mix.
The new technologies and social networking can help to build consumer relationships and answer market questions. But also the risks of these tools have to be considered to ensure a balanced way of communication between new and classical methods.

References and further reading

EuroStat

http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/cache/ITY_OFFPUB/KS-SF-11-066/EN/KS-SF-11-066- EN.PDF

heise.de

Naone, E. (2010): Web 2.0 als Stimmungsbarometer [ONLINE] in heise.de http://www.heise.de/tr/artikel/Web-2-0-als-Stimmungsbarometer-1066670.html [30.12.2011]

Harvard Business Review

http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2011/09/social_medias_impending_flood.html Reppesgaard, L. (2008): Das Google Imperium, 1st edition, Hamburg: Murmann

Kotler, P. (2003): Marketing Insights from A ? Z ? 80 concepts every manager needs to know, 1st edition, New Jersy: John Wiley & Sons

Kotler, P. & Keller, K. (2011): Marketing Management, 14th edition, Essex: Pearson Education Limited

Posted in Social Media, Social Media Small Business, Social Networks, Socialnomics, Web Analytics | Tagged communication, consumer, Consumer insights, innovation, research, Social Media

Source: http://www.socialnomics.net/2012/12/11/how-technical-innovations-and-social-media-change-consumer-insights/

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