One of the most overlooked benefits of building or facilitating an online community around your brand is the market research opportunities. Your brand community – even if nascent and emerging – consists of hundreds or thousands of customers that are familiar enough with your company (and care enough about it) to self-identify as a fan/friend/member. What better laboratory are you going to find?
A primary element of your social media activation strategy should be at least quarterly surveys of your fans. That should just be routine. But sometimes, you can use your brand community for specific, targeted research and product development efforts.
As I describe in the video post below, Del Monte developed a successful new product (Snausages Bacon and Eggs dog snacks) based almost entirely on feedback from their brand community. (NOTE: I eat snausages in this video. Not a great idea, as it turns out.)
(Video got messed up on this, but for obvious reasons, this was a one take situation)
Here’s another good piece on the subject of using customers for research, from John Kembel on MarketingProfs.
Are you thinking of your online fans as a source for product or service feedback BEFORE you create the product, not just after it launches? Maybe you should.
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Webby for best blog post: See @jaybaer and his latest video [link to post]
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RT @jaybaer: [link to post] visual shout out to @ambercadabra and @davidalston with my @radian6 shirt [and he eats snausages as well]
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@jaybaer ROTFL – I can’t believe you ate the playdough snausages
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@jaybaer man of the people. willing to eat “campfire smoke injected playdough” dog treats in the name of SM education [link to post]
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Jay – You’re the man! At least you didn’t say “Tastes like chicken.” Keep up the good work.
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Great video blog about using YOUR audience as a focus group…and includes my friend @jaybaer eating Snausages. [link to post]
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Wow.
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Crowdsourcing Your Dog Food | Social Media Marketing | Social … [link to post]
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Crowdsourcing Your Dog Food | Social Media Marketing | Social …: Social Media Strategy Blog Social Media Consu.. [link to post]
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RT @jaybaer: Convince and Convert New Vid Blog [link to post]
How will he top snausage eating? Home kidney transplant kit?
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@jaybaer DAMN. Should have thought of this before you helped me get my gall bladder removed. We could have collaborated!
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Great post, JB — absolutely right. If Tropicana had done this, they wouldn’t have had such a massive rebranding FAIL.
Susan Baier´s last blog ..Use Your Insight to Torpedo Your Marketing Efforts
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Great post from @jaybaer about value of your customers in new prod development – and not just because he eats Snausages. [link to post]
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“Not sure I’d serve that at a dinner party” understatement of the year. @jaybaer eats dog snacks & talks crowdsourcing [link to post].
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@jaybaer why oh why did the video have to cut out…i was looking forward to the actual look on your face when you ate that snausage.
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Brings new meaning to the phrase”eating your own dogfood”.I would assume the Del Monte marketing people used this same taste test approach.Of course, I assume they taste tested with real dogs as well somewhere in the process.
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RT cgraeber : @jaybaer Yes I ate snausages on camera…Your customers are a prod dev goldmine [link to post]
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Have you seen this video by @jaybaer? Not only informative but he actually tests out the product. Give it a look: [link to post]
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Jay,
Been subscribing to your blog for about a month. Nice to see a fellow AZ blogger. Will be up in Flagstaff in two weeks to cool off. Can’t wait.
@Takuya_Hikichi´s last blog ..The Moment We’re Living Through
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Reference to @jkembel article in MarketingProfs in this fun blog post about using brand communities for market research: [link to post]
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