Social media in organizations

Abstract

The increasing use of social media by people across the globe has not only empowered the customers by providing them a platform to voice their opinions, but has also helped organisations understand the customer sentiments around their brand, track their opinions or feedback about their products. Many organisations have been able to build on many innovative ideas shared on these social media, which was successfully acknowledged by the customers. But while the organisations look into these ideas for product development, they need to be careful of the biases that might come up in the path to development of the product from these ideas, like seasonal issues, demographic and geographic limitations. We have analysed the entire process of product development through the lens of co-creation. We have quoted many instances where the organisations have developed successful product based on customer reaction on various social media platforms. We relied on various secondary researches, especially customer stories from various social media management platforms. We would like to thank Dr. Rahul De (Professor, IIM Bangalore) and Stuti Sikka (Brand Strategist, Law & Kenneth Saatchi & Saatchi Pvt Ltd.) for their participation in the study. We have provided a few key managerial takeaways to ensure that the biases are handled well during the product development. The most noteworthy takeaways being: ensure significant representation of the target market the company is looking for. Use appropriate filtering mechanism to understand which project ideas should be taken from social media, and which needs further investment to for more insights. The companies must be aware of the digital divide, when going ahead with the idea of co-creation.