2011: The Year of Social Feedback

Do you have an idea for the next big thing in peanut butter? How about a new fragrance for your Air Wick freshener? Does your breakfast cereal’s mascot need a makeover?More and more companies are jumping on the social feedback bandwagon, and being asked these questions isn’t too far from what we began to see in 2010. Here are just a handful of examples, including Air New Zealand’s Aviation Academy, which asked users to submit their ideas for cocktails, in-flight snacks and eye-masks; TokyoFlash asked users to design a new watch, and Audi wanted us to design them a car. Globally, companies are increasingly using social media to crowdsource ideas and better execute the things they’ve planned.The questions don’t need to be in the form of a large-scale competition, either. It’s as easy as setting up a poll on Facebook, asing if your next restaurant should open in Ponsonby or Takapuna, or asking your fans to fill out a quick market research survey online. Facebook, Twitter, blogs and many other applications of social media allow even the smallest of companies to be agile and responsive, empowering them to dig deep and discover what’s on the minds of their customers.It’s likely that we’ll see a lot more companies using social feedback to enhance their decisions with crowdsourcing and real-time feedback and opinions. After all, it makes sense strategically. The equation is always the same: offer a great product, add great customer service and you’ll have customers that hang around. How do you improve the equation? You make the product better. You deliver exceptional customer service, because you’ve listened to what you could do to improve. Social tools help you to do that. If companies need a reason to start interacting with their customers using social media then this is it.In the first marketing paper I ever took, my lecturer made an excellent point: Today, every company wants to have a relationship with their customers – but do I really want to have a relationship with my brand of peanut butter? Perhaps, if I care about my peanut butter enough to formulate the ‘next big thing.’ However, I doubt that we’ll be quick to tune out of this new engagement strategy, especially if a company is offering up big prizes in exchange for our ideas, thoughts and comments.Ideas and opinions don’t need to be solicited though, they can be gleaned. Hunted down, extracted and turned into knowledge. Many websites and online communities have emerged that contain rich, raw data about the opinions and preferences of potential customers. The fashion industry is a great example of an industry with an abundance of data about the changing tastes of its audience. Sites like Polyvore allow users to put together outfits using clothes available on eCommerce websites, and communities like Look Book and Chictopia allow their users to post photos of what they’re wearing and have other members rate their look. These sites document the changing of fashion trends and there is massive potential for businesses to be using these communities for informing their next product and marketing choices.Everything is in place for companies to take advantage of the wealth of information that’s available. Whether they’re simply asking for it, providing incentives, or digging it up themselves, the potential for change and growth alongside their customers is undoubtedly there. We will see more companies becoming increasingly smart and agile, mining us for data and then re-presenting it to us through new products and better service. In fact, I’d be quite happy to offer up my opinions on honey if anyone was ready to ask me.