Social Media Usage: Part of a Robust Core Customer Metric?
A study released by the Society for New Communications Research discusses how Social Media (i.e., blogs, online rating systems and discussion forums) is not only an important bellwether for consumers making decisions about a brand, but also as an indication of loyalty to a brand.Consider this scenario: You’ve just purchased the cool new MyVu video glasses and you decide that it is better than sliced bread. Likely, before making this purchase, you used an Internet search engine like Google to see what others were saying about this new device.
Your results show reviews on engadget and Gizmodo as well as some for sale listings on merchant sites like Amazon.com. Sure enough, clicking through to any of these not only provides you with an editorial review but also user comments and ratings. Based upon the information you’ve gleaned, you plop down your credit card and buy the MyVu glasses.
A week or so later, after you’ve come up for air from watching back-to-back movies on your new device, you decide to share the love. Back to the search engine, and you put in your two-cents worth at all of the sites that you found valuable for your choice information.
This example illustrates the burgeoning power that Social Media can play in the purchase decision. But if you were an online mogul, and your business’ success rests on how well you do with sophisticated customers who rely on the Internet for their info, how can you ignore the power of this medium?
Through the use of Internet scraping and scanning tools, text analysis and some nifty algorithms, it’s entirely possible to mine Social Media sources for suggestions of your brand’s health. This could be incorporated into your Brand Health Index or used in convergent analysis to convince Finance, senior management or venture capitalists that you’ve got a hot thing.
Social Media seems like more than a fad, and judging from its ballooning usage, it is becoming adopted by more than just gossipy teenagers.
How do you see Social Media being used in your Voice of the Customer efforts? Do you think that information gleaned from Social Media might be useful as part of your company’s Core Customer Metric?
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