Chapter 8

Improve Products and Services

As soon as a product or service becomes available and people begin to use it, marketers and advertisers face the task of improving it in ways that keep it relevant and resonant. Consumers often want the product or service to better fit their needs and preferences. Some of these are needs and preferences that they didn't even know they had before, but that have come about from experience or new social/economic circumstances, such as recession or recovery or changed family situations. Products that have been with us for a century or more (Kraft Foods alone has more than 40 of them; Kraft 2010) have succeeded for so long because the companies that own them paid close attention and adapted to evolving consumer tastes. Improved products and services that resonate add to consumer happiness, have extensive life spans, and make long-term financial contributions to their companies.

Social media listening enables companies to uncover areas that are ripe for improvement and that can harmonize the relationships between products, services, and customers. The examples we cover in this chapter clearly demonstrate the ways that signals from even the most basic listening posts can help companies make timely adjustments to their changing consumers.

Winning Plays That Help Improve Products and Services

We developed three winning plays from the case studies we reviewed:

• Align content to conversations and discussions. The content that your product or service provides to customers and prospects is an important aspect of their experience. Improve this content by implementing an editorial plan based on how topics and themes are trending for your product, service, or category, and how site visitors are sharing content. Deemphasize those subjects that are losing popularity, exploit those that are gaining recognition, and continue to support evergreen topics. For example, Procter & Gamble's (P&G) BeingGirl.com Web site creates content by closely listening to product-related discussions that are concerned with the girls’ experiences (discussed in the section “Keep Site Content Fresh and Relevant”). Similarly, the MD Anderson Cancer Center follows discussions about the disease and uses the findings to offer awareness and education programs that are more closely tied to these popular conversation topics than to objective measures like the disease incidence. While the latter serves to rate and rank medical importance, it may not represent what is on people's minds and claiming their attention (see the section “Tune Marketing to Meet Consumer Needs and Interests,” in this chapter).
• Capture ideas that improve the fit between products, services, and consumers. Listen to social media to uncover issues, concerns, and improvements as they're happening and being voiced, rather than waiting for customer satisfaction research or reports from call centers to point them out. Make timely course corrections to keep consumers in sync with your products or services. Companies of all sizes can do this. Startup flavor company True Citrus, for example, drew upon its Facebook fan comments, Twitter tweets, and customer service records to learn about interest in new flavors, frustrations that not all retailers carried the full product line, and needs for larger serving sizes to accommodate families. Even Twitter, a medium used by many for social monitoring, itself listens to conversations about desired features and third-party enhancements (see below).
• Respond to listening-led insights with decisive, superbly executed marketing actions. True Citrus responded to their customers' needs by creating line extensions, offering bigger package sizes, and launching an e-store—all of which contributed to revenue and profit growth. Twitter added and improved upon user-created features that have broad appeal. The site can significantly improve. Why would customers show any interest in your offering if it is inferior to what is currently available? The moves described here are not radical, but incremental adaptations that arise from taking part in the conversation, listening, and engaging when appropriate. Companies that act upon listening insights are committed to implementing them, often in bold ways. For instance, NASCAR made changes to its races and TV schedule based on guidance from fans, not from a competition committee or other experts. Show your customers and prospects that you listened and acted on their advice in order to improve their experience.

  Firms that enhanced their products or services used one of the following three tactics that we uncovered through our case study research:

• Keep site content fresh and relevant.
• Add user-desired features into the core product.
• Tune marketing to meet changing consumer interests.

We'll discuss each one in detail next.

Keep Site Content Fresh and Relevant

Along with pulling customers and prospects into sites, content keeps them there and encourages their return. Because Web sites have morphed from page-based brochureware that offered a one-dimensional experience—“Here's what you need to know to buy our product”—to interactive, social sites that allow people to engage with content and each other, the role of traditional advertising has often become secondary. People are returning to Web sites because of the experiences they have, the emotional connections they make, and the knowledge they acquire. For this reason, many organizations are committing to developing and offering branded content, engagement, and networking services that are relevant to their customers. This promotes an environment that supports overall marketing of products or services and their growth, as BeingGirl.com illustrates.

Launched in 2005, P&G's BeingGirl.com site is a branded community exclusively for young women. Visitors go there to discuss concerns related to being a girl, request and comment on existing or developing products, or just to entertain themselves. Sponsored by feminine care brands Tampax and Always, the site teems with information about personal health matters and the issues many young females face; at the same time, it offers fun features like quizzes, games, horoscopes, and beauty and social tips. By 2007, BeingGirl.com showcased its global appeal: It was available in 18 languages and had nearly 2 million registered users (see Figure 8.1).

Figure 8.1 Branded community BeingGirl.com, sponsored by P&G's Always and Tampax brands, serves as a social media listening post for generating insights from girls worldwide. This screenshot shows an Arabic version of the site.

By mining girls’ conversations, comments, and product reviews, and tracking some behaviors, like content sharing and product requests in this brand backyard source, P&G developed insights into the motivations, likes and dislikes, and the “whys” underlying the views of younger females. Moreover, as with the earlier Fiat MIO example in Chapter 6, P&G efficiently and rapidly gained a global grasp of its customers across many cultures and regions, while hastening its ability to respond to market shifts and innovate with confidence.

P&G uses these insights to periodically restructure its content, based on issues that the girls raise, and to keep an eye on trending topics. Tampax and Always marketers pay close attention to discussions around their test and in-market brands, as well as any refinements and improvements they made that solved problems or enhanced the products or the girls’ experiences with them.

In addition to the adjustments P&G made after interpreting social media listening program signals, BeingGirl helped with branding and the bottom line. Forrester research analyst Josh Bernoff reports that BeingGirl is a wise investment, claiming that the community “is four times as effective as a similarly priced marketing program in traditional media” (quoted in Morrissey 2008). Branding research shows that the effort appears to influence purchase consideration of Tampax and Always.

Add User-Desired Features into the Core Brand

Building new features into products, or modifying them to more closely match user preferences and concerns, is the approach taken by our next two example companies—Twitter and NASCAR. By using social media listening, both made changes designed to strengthen the support for their products. Twitter adapted customer innovations, while NASCAR acted on customer recommendations.

Adapt Customer Innovations

Twitter's release of two product innovations, Lists and Retweets, landed the company on the front page of the New York Times business section (Miller 2009), in an article headlined “Twitter Serves Up Ideas from Its Followers.” The piece described how this enormously popular company—one of the poster children for social media—maintains resonance through listening that involves various tactics. These include monitoring tweets, tracking how users augment their service with third-party applications, evaluating which features have broad appeal, and developing and incorporating them into the core product set.

Twitter added the Lists feature to help people more easily follow others, like celebrities or politicians, and help users organize and manage the posts they get from the people they follow (see Figure 8.2). Retweeting, which is similar to message forwarding, became a popular element in numerous third-party Twitter applications. This method of spreading tweets is used by some social media listening companies as a factor in calculating an individual's authority or influence. Twitter's Retweet tool improves on the “field versions” by eliminating redundant posts—which simplifies their management and improves their integrity—while clarifying authorship and preventing people from changing the original post.

Figure 8.2 Twitter added Lists in response to community interest in the feature.

Twitter's ability to implement community-developed features connects to its platform and the perspectives of founders Evan Williams and Biz Stone. The site struck an interesting balance of flexibility and malleability that allowed users to invent unanticipated uses for it. As Williams said, “You get a bunch of users interacting and it's hard to predict what they're going to do. We say, ‘Why are people using this, and how could we make that better?’” (quoted in Miller 2009).

Let Fans Drive

Ever since experiencing explosive growth from 2004–2006, NASCAR has faced the issue of declining attendance and TV ratings (Sigala 2010). Though the sport is healthy—ranking third in popularity after the National Football League and Major League Baseball—the key to the association's future is holding on to core fans and rebuilding its base by making its product more fan-friendly.

NASCAR listens to its fans through the Fan Council, a private online community of 12,000 run by Vision Critical, a full-service research provider that manages brand communities. Through its social research, NASCAR made two major changes to its live competition on the ovals: It adopted the more exciting double-file race restarts after cautions, and implemented earlier and more consistent TV start times, to make watching more predictable and convenient.

In the first instance, NASCAR discovered and validated fans’ suggestions. It implemented the restart rule and continued social media listening, and received positive reviews. In terms of TV start times, NASCAR quantified the sentiment around the discussions, starting with the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series, launched in 2010.

It is innovative, bold, and fairly unprecedented to let fan comments guide such major changes to a sport. In most, if not all, other professional sports, competition changes are usually the province of owners, league management, and special committees, but not fans. Apart from asking for fan input into popularity contests like All-Star games, it is nearly impossible to imagine that Major League Baseball might act on fan views regarding designated hitters, or the National Football League on whether or not fair catches should still be allowed.

The example of NASCAR demonstrates that social media listening insights can influence major business decisions throughout organizations and their brands—even at the highest levels. NASCAR's Managing Director of Market and Media Research, Brian Moyer, pointed out that, “The Fan Council has created a shift in company culture as it relates to consumer research. Nearly all departments have embraced the Fan Council for a variety of topics related to the sport. The council members, representative of our avid fan base, do an excellent job engaging us” (quoted in Vision Critical 2009). Indeed, the role of Fan Council member is such a coveted position that there's actually a waiting list to get in.

Tune Marketing to Meet Consumer Interests

Service providers and product manufacturers attune their marketing with social media listening. Two such organizations, MD Anderson Cancer Center and flavor manufacturer True Citrus, adjusted their marketing in ways that benefitted both their customers and their companies.

Choose Programs to Market

Service providers, such as health care systems, must remain constantly in sync with the communities and populations they serve and plan to serve. An example from health care is the renowned MD Anderson Cancer Center. The center knew that people were talking about living with cancer more than ever before; so it aimed to understand those conversations in order to learn how it might align the center's services and enhance marketing. Initially relying on Google and Twitter, the center later moved to a more fully featured social media monitoring initiative that would dig deeply into cancer-themed forums, conversations about cancer that were occurring, mentions of the center, and the sentiments expressed regarding conversation topics and the center itself.

Listening helped the MD Anderson Cancer Center market its education and awareness programs, usually around specific health care topics. Focusing on men's health, the center's social media listening findings enabled the organization to reevaluate its programs. Discovering that related discussion levels were low and sentiment flat, it scrapped the prior year's Prostate Cancer Awareness Month. Instead of focusing on a single illness, the center broadened the program to include a variety of cancer-related topics under the umbrella of Men's Health Month. That effort went on to achieve higher levels of center awareness and health discussion. According to Communication Program Manager Jennifer Texada, “Over the last year, we've witnessed an increase in the number of mentions of MD Anderson…; word is spreading that we're listening via Twitter, Facebook, cancer blogs, and message boards, etc., and responding to our various audiences” (quoted in Alterian 2010).

Social media listening enabled the center to adjust to its market based on audience conversations, not on the basis of disease-centric measures that typically guide education and awareness programs like incidence and treatability. By doing so, MD Anderson avoided another dud program. Aligning itself to community interests brought forth a successful program that resonated with its audience.

Evolve Products and Services

Few small, up-and-coming companies have leveraged social media listening to address the evolving needs of its customers better than True Citrus. The Baltimore-based company produces natural crystallized citrus powders, such as True Lemon and True Lime, that were originally created to transform water into refreshing, naturally flavored beverages.

True Citrus consumer marketing VP Heidi Carney says the company's social media listening program has directed its line extensions, packaging, advertising, and e-commerce. Its straightforward approach collects and aggregates direct consumer contacts, such as letters, e-mails, and phone call notes, which range from 1,500 to 5,000 each week. An active social media presence on both Facebook and Twitter allows fans and followers to discuss topics among themselves, make suggestions to the company, and foster engagement among True Citrus and its communities. Tracking and analyzing conversations led the company to adjust its marketing in ways that kept the brand in sync with its rapidly growing fan base: In just six months, Facebook fans quickly climbed from 1,000 to 25,000—and they are indeed demanding customers. Here's a rundown of the five ways True Citrus responded, each of which is rooted in listening insights (Carney 2010):

• Create line extensions. All products offered since the original True Lemon were developed based on customer feedback. After True Lemon hit the market, people asked for True Lime, then True Orange, then True Raspberry Lemonade, and continue to ask for new flavors.
• Offer new formats and package sizes. Initially, True Citrus flavors were packaged in individual-use tubes—one tube, one drink. The company is blessed with creative users who started using True Lemon and True Orange in unforeseen “off label” ways—for cooking, baking, or seasoning. Single-serve packets are inconvenient for those uses, which prompted customers to request a format better suited to them. Additionally, some customers, primarily young mothers with children, wanted bigger sizes to make larger quantities for their families, play groups, and entertaining needs. The company responded to both requests, introducing True Lemon and True Lime shakers, and packages for making a quart of each.
• Test advertising. True Citrus includes customers in the development of new taglines. For this purpose, it supplements listening with surveys and focus groups.
• Redesign Web site features Listening-led changes aim to make the Web site more usable and provide a wider variety of services. The company added an expanded recipe section to the site, improved the store locator to make it easier to find outlets, and improved overall navigation.
• Launch an online store. True Citrus products are still gaining distribution; they are not universally available yet, and some stores carrying its products do not sell the complete line. Therefore, the company created an online store expressly to satisfy customers’ desire to be able to purchase the complete range of products. The store is now one of its most profitable sales channels.

Although social media monitoring and related efforts at True Citrus comprise just 10 percent of its marketing budget, Carney says it is “worth much more.” Despite the many companies that receive letters and calls from customers, and have—or think about having—some type of social media presence, not all are able to harness those consumer suggestions and voices effectively. Doing so requires management commitment, prioritization of these initiatives, and implementation of processes to aggregate, analyze, and report. When companies like True Citrus manage to do this, the entire organization feels its impact and is able to respond fully to its customers, and finely tune the fit between them.

Summary

Social media listening identifies ways that products and services can be improved and, over time, stay resonant with consumers. Marketers and advertisers acting on signals from social media listening make certain that their offerings remain in sync with their customers.

Maintain synchronicity by making changes or innovating in a number of ways, including: modifying the product, improving on the online experience, refreshing content to meet evergreen and new interests, simplifying transactions, and/or focusing on unmet or underserved needs. Do not limit listening insights to just one or two areas; look comprehensively for insights on all aspects of product improvement.