Social Media helpful in Product Innovation

In this era of globalization and changing fashion it is very essential for companies to modulate and bring new attributes to their products/services in order to lure more customers. Change is the only permanent thing in the World and without a change you can’t survive in this cut throat competition.

With the changing fashion, needs and desires of customers are changing at a rapid pace. Consumers are attracted towards those products/services which have something new, creative and are aloof. But the question arises how to get this? In this busy life everything is running so fast that it’s difficult to cope up, then how can new creation can be developed? How companies can convert the ideas of customers into tangible business opportunities? With the help of traditional surveys or something else? definitely no traditional approach will be helpful...

The most effective answer to all these question lies in the usage of Social Media. Much have already been written about the advantages of social media over traditional media and its impact on companies. But have you wondered about the other aspects of social media? Its assistance in generating new product innovation and development..Undoubtedly its cheap, less time consuming, intuitive, effective over its earlier competitor - Traditional Media.

The best part of social media sites is Engagement of customers. More the customers are engaged more will be the thinking process about new product ideas from customers side and later on it will give a healthy data to companies to convert those lucrative ideas into new product. But this approach does not works in Traditional media and this gives an edge to social media sites. Facebook, twitter, del.ici.ous, youtube, etc are providing a platform to engage customers in new and diverse ways.

For better understanding lets see the Fashion Industry - the most vulnerable and changing industry in the market. So it becomes toughest job for designers, make-up men to bring new changes and innovation in clothing and make-up accessories. Big fashion names like Chanel, D&G, Gucci, L’Oreal, Polo Ralph Lauren, Tommy Hilfiger, Giorgio Armani's cosmetics, Lancome, Estee Lauder, etc are using the social media sites in some way or the other in order to find out what customers/clients really want? What are the unmet needs of customers? From time to time they run campaigns on these social sites to engage more and more customers so that they can penetrate into the minds of customers to know what exactly they want. Products which are good from long time too won’t survive if they don’t bring changes and innovation into it.

Through the use of social media sites, blogs, forums companies are not driving the innovation alone. Key users and customers are there to act as co-pilots. Though the nature of user involvement will vary, but it will be ubiquitous. Sometimes, product innovation will be driven through crowd-sourcing and sometimes lead users. But engagement of users will be involved in the innovation and later work on product development can be started.

The usage of social communication channels are not only changing the ways the companies market products, but they are also assisting in changing the strategies and operations companies use to develop products.

So it is significant to capitalize on the data available on social media platforms in order to convert new ideas and thoughts into new product. Companies can either go directly into a separate market (entirely new product) or can make changes in the existing product. The fusion of different thoughts and ideas will cultivate into a fission in the form of a new product with best features and this can be achieved efficiently and effectively with the aid of Social Media sites.


Heena Lodha

The author is a business researcher with CheckBuzz, a social media monitoring company.

About CheckBuzz : A Social Media Monitoring Company, which tells brands/corporates what bloggers, journalists, powerful consumers, or even ordinary people are saying about them. Having a healthy experience of 3+ years, this company gives its solutions on Social media consulting, Social media marketing and Social media monitoring.

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