A New Technological Era

Over the years, our human civilization has evolved technologically. From the origins of the printing press to the first televised airdate to the creation of the internet, our society has begun a new era of innovative technology mediums. Our current generation has recently taken an interest in social media usage.
Now-a-days, companies have begun using various types of social mediums for several different reasons. Two main reasons revolve around obtaining insightful consumer information as well as creating a completely new experience for them. Personally, I think it is very important to look at social media in both contexts; in order to gain consumer insight, the individual or company must first create a unique experience for the consumer. I believe companies use their homepages to create a personable consumer experience. This homepage site allows consumers to explore various products of the company and gain a better understanding of its history and goals. I feel the company needs to exercise their most innovative skills on their homepage because this presents the opportunity to create a new experience for the consumer outside their physical locations. The consumer may be more attentive to various aspects they were oblivious to within the store. In addition, this can create a competitive advantage for the company, offering various benefits for the consumer their competitors lack thereof.
Furthermore, after creating the unique consumer experience, it is vital for the company to research and gain insights about their customers. Facebook, MySpace and Twitter are examples of social media techniques both consumers and companies are using. These examples are personal devices for the consumer allowing them to express their interests and opinions about various topics. Companies can therefore, search through these mediums and gain a better understanding of products that have a strong correlation. The company is able to target a greater mass of consumers. Also, it presents the opportunity for the company to discover any complaints a consumer may have and directly address them about it. As we discussed in class, within in an hour of a posting of a negative comment, companies have contacted the consumer to address their complaint and create a solution benefiting both the consumer and company. Given how technologically savvy our society is now, I think these social media techniques are a good way to contact the consumer. A very important factor, I think, new social media creates, is more transparency within companies. Transparency is exactly what consumers look for and thrive on. I believe a company that is transparent with their consumers is able to create a more personable relationship as well as life-long customers. However, I think I will always praise the traditional approach, gathering consumer feedback in a face-to-face interaction, very highly. I think it is a stronger approach to interact with the customers on a face-to-face basis because the marketer may gather insightful information, such as facial expression, that social media lacks.
Moreover, after putting myself in the shoes of an actual marketer, I began my journey research the company General Mills. Personally, I have strong interest in the consumer market industry. At first, my ultimate goal was very broad. I wanted to get a very general idea of what consumers though about General Mill’s performance and its products. Using the blogsearch, I found only 2 blogs contained useful information. In fact, one of the articles discussed 2 specific social media tools: My Block Spark and Psssst, both inviting connected consumers to share their feedback about the company and its products. In addition, the article states the company hopes to build early awareness and involvement within their consumers, providing fast word-of-mouth when new products launch. An interesting finding I found was, the company solely used new social mediums to launch their Progresso Broth product, which now is doing well. The remaining results discussed very abstract subjects, barely referencing the company.
All in all, social media tools allows a company to create unique customer experience outside their physical store location and gain consumer insight based off those experiences.