Sunday, November 30, 2008

A "quantifiable" conversation

A conversation shows our level of engagement to one another and our level of interest towards a topic. A good conversation between customers might further explore deep underlying issues they have of a brand. This kind of information, therefore, is very valuable. As social media becomes popular, it was easier for companies to get some insights on customers' needs and wants as well as their attitude towards the brand through their online conversations. However, I recognize some difficulties to determine which information is "quantifiable" to use for database.

Social media is useful in a way that it exposes people opinions through their online conversations; it, however, does not monitor the direction of their topics. Sometimes, people just plainly chit-chat because they'd like to. It can be quite hard to get a piece of useful information through forum chatting that might become an endless back-and-forth cycle. The problem is that most people either are not interested enough to share their information or their conversation does not dig a topic deep enough. Therefore, putting conversation with the same topic into groups might not hold up to a valid point/conclusion that can be used for research.

One of the biggest problems with online conversations is that they do not show their original influences. Social media can be topic-oriented and informative but will not qualify for research if having inadequate stimulis. That sounds a bit complicated, no? Let me explain to you. If a customer happen to get his hand on one of a few badly produced product and give complaints through social media, companies should not base on his complaints try to improve the other well-produced products. Knowing the stimuli that leads to a customer's attitude is very important. Social media, however, lacks the ability to explore these stimulis.

I applaud this way of approaching customers. A company that will do well is the one that knows how to please its customers. And how else it is able to do that without getting their opinions. Companies need to figure out how to manipulate the source to get information they want

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