Social media is not only a whole new way for consumers to communicate and express themselves, it’s also a whole new way for corporations to conduct business. Sure, a corporation can have a Twitter account and a Facebook fan page, but that’s the obvious application. Every day I see new applications for social media in market research, marketing communications, brand management, innovation, and even supply chain management. Here are some ways I’m seeing social media applied in business. For Brand [...]

One week from today, my children will be going back to school, and since we covered back-to-school clothing with denim on our last BPI, it struck me that I hadn’t thought about the mechanics of actually getting them there. Going back to school for me meant walking, but in this new age of commuting and carpooling, I got to thinking about the new wave of fuel-efficient cars that are getting families from here to there on the big first day. [...]

What do consumers think of Google+, the new “social layer” from Google that’s the company’s answer to Facebook? Laura Lippay of How’s Your Pony? answers that question by using NetBase Insight Workbench to develop an in-depth case study of Google+. The case study features half a dozen infographics that communicate study results visually. As a teaser, here are a couple of them: Check out the complete case study here: “Are People Loving Google+ or Hating It?” Great job, Laura! Michael [...]

What’s in a name? That which we call a Bose may go by another name in a tweet. Think about it. Bose. If you were going to research consumers’ perceptions of this speaker manufacturer in Social Media, you would need to think about what possible names consumers might use for Bose. They might misspell it “Bowz” or “Boze.” They might refer to it as bose.com or @BoseService if they’re talking about it on Twitter. If they were feeling fancy, they [...]

De gustibus non est disputandum. The notion that you can’t win an argument about matters of taste has been around so long it’s a Latin maxim. And the theme charts for Silk Soymilk illustrate the point: Some consumers really like the product’s taste and consistency, others can’t stand it and can’t understand why anyone would. About Silk Silk is the leading plant-based beverage brand in the U.S. The company says that “Every drop of our soymilk begins with natural beans [...]

With the first day of school (Kindergarten for my oldest!) right around the corner, back-to-school sales are in full swing. I remember when I was a teenager, the craze for back-to-school shopping was all about Jordache, Sasson and Brooke Shields in her Calvins. I also vividly remember thinking that they were an expensive and ridiculous waste of money.  I still think the same way about the new designer crazes (which I can hardly keep up with) and continue find them [...]

It’s a rare occurrence that my husband and I actually have the time to sit down and watch TV, but a favorite whenever we find the time has always been “Two and a Half Men.” As Ashton Kutcher takes over for the ever-controversial Charlie Sheen, I thought I’d check out what social has to say about the changes that have Twitter, Facebook and Hollywood buzzing. As you can see in this first chart which shows the buzz broken out by [...]