Everyone’s got an opinion. And with the exception of paid blog posts or paid tweets (which you already know my thoughts on), I LOVE the real-time, unaided consumer reactions/intelligence one can get on pretty much anything by just doing a simple Twitter search.
One of the great things about working in Advertising/Marketing these days is having the ability to hear raw, near real-time feedback as to what people think about your execution as they experience it – especially broadcast spots (TV Commercials). People are a lot more uninhibited in the comfort of their own home hidden behind the security of their computer.
Let’s take “Pepsi Throwback” as an example. The company at their very moment has instant access to the very latest consumer sentiment about the product – and without paying a cent for the intelligence. Some of the reactions are very positive and some are negative. But in general there seems to be an overall positive vibe to the new (or, more accurately, old) Pepsi product and some people want it to stick around beyond its limited 8-week lifespan.
The big question, as a colleague pointed out to me, is how much weight should Twitter or the greater social web hold in terms of making business decisions? To what degree should companies/brands rely more on social media intelligence versus the comfort of more traditional consumer research & testing methods?
I think both have their place in the marketing world but if brands/agencies are only employing traditional methods to produce consumer insights, they’re missing out big time on a goldmine of useful data.
Comments