Spotting Trends Through Social Media
Written By: Sujan Patel On June 27th, 2007 | 4 Comments
Are you looking for new product ideas, are you looking for ways to improve your product, or better ways to market your product? How about capitalizing on some of the short-comings of your competitor’s products? Social media offers some of the most un-biased information on the web and offer a wealth of knowledge for new spotting trends.
Sites like Facebook, Digg, Stumbleupon, Youtube, Myspace (list goes on) are a good places to find new product ideas and extensive information on existing products. These sites have a huge user base and large amounts of daily traffic and are even better places to market your products.
Once you determine which social media sites to join(don’t be afraid to try more than one), the fun starts. Do a keyword search related to your product or service and those of your competitors, and start reading. Are common themes or opinions coming up? Is there an un-met need that is surfacing? Ask questions and test ideas in these type of websites. It is free marketing research right at your fingertips.
Also don’t forget to monitor Digg, Technorati and other blogs for interesting ideas. Bloggers are some of the most opinionated people on the web and they are not afraid to post their opinions. Blogs with large
followings can definitely shift demand or create demand for products and services.
Just today I read a story on Digg about How to build a better, tastier and juicier burger. Any restaurateurs out there? This could be a new product idea for you. How about coaching HR Managers on the 10 Mistakes Managers Make During Job Interviews? This was duggtoday as well.
New ideas are plentiful in social media websites. You just need to spend some time
research to see which ones you want to capitalize on.
June 27th, 2007 at 12:55 pm
[...] Single Grain Blog, San Diego Internet Marketing company has a great article on spotting trends through social media. Share and Enjoy: These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages. [...]
July 5th, 2007 at 11:08 am
[...] Facebook is the ultimate focus group. Facebook users’ comments regarding applications will help you create the killer application. Are users speaking positively about an application or are the complaining about it and offering suggestions for improving it. Monitoring comments about applications will allow you to respond with better applications and the ability for free testing. Do you currently have a blog that you maintain on a blogging platform? You can now import your posts into Facebook Notes. All you do is add your RSS feed into Facebook Notes and it updates every time you post to your blog. Your friends will be instantly updated with your blog posts. Be careful, the new Facebook Platform can become addictive. These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages. [...]
July 15th, 2007 at 7:09 pm
[...] Establish an identity at these social media sites and you can begin to form relationships to create future customers and clients. Spotting trends through social media can sometimes be better determined by industry professionals and can be a big time saver to let people who are already comfortable with multiple platforms take on this roll for you. [...]
October 9th, 2007 at 11:13 pm
[...] 7)But, I think the best business feature is market research. Following the interests of your friends and the groups that you join, allows you to spot trends. Ask questions and tap into the collective intelligence of Facebook. [...]