Can Facebook Help Manufacturers Create Better Products?

by Fronetics | Nov 28, 2017 | Blog, Manufacturing & Distribution, Marketing, Social Media, Supply Chain

Manufacturers who are active and engaged on Facebook are more likely to introduce product innovation than those who are not.

If you’re killing time during business hours on Facebook, you may actually be onto something valuable. Well, no, — scrolling through your sister-in-law’s vacation album is unlikely to help your business. But recent studies show that staying attuned to user feedback on Facebook may actually help manufacturers create better products.

The practice in question, social listening, is the process of monitoring social media to identify and assess what users are saying about a company, individual, brand, product, or service. We’ve written about how social listening can help your business — you can gain market intelligence and learn how your company, products, and services are being perceived.

But two researchers from the Centre for European Economic Research (ZEW) have taken things a step farther. They studied data from nearly 3,000 German manufacturing and service firms to analyze the role that Facebook plays in the innovation process. What they found was that the probability that a company introduced a product innovation was significantly determined by firms’ adoption of a Facebook page and by the activity by users, measured by both quantity and quality.

The researchers, Irene Bertschek and Reinhold Kesler, discuss their findings in detail in this article published in the Harvard Business Review. So you can skip to the bottom line, we’ve pulled out a few key takeaways for manufacturers:

Negative comments are your friend…

…if you take them seriously.

While you might cringe when you seed a negative customer comment on Facebook, what the researchers found was encouraging: “Surprisingly, only the share of negative user comments was significantly predictive of innovation, perhaps suggesting that customers were helping to steer companies away from bad ideas.”

To make this work for you, it’s important that you pay attention to negative reviews, actively engage with them, and pass along relevant information to the people within your company who can address the issues. For more ideas, check out this post for tips on dealing with negative customer comments.

Simply being on social media isn’t enough — you need to be actively and intelligently engaging.

The study found that companies who were “using keywords in their posts that encourage users to leave feedback were significantly more likely to release a new or improved product.”

In other words, to gain the kind of valuable feedback that allows your products and services to improve, you need to be intelligent about soliciting it. “When developing social media strategies,” suggest Bertschek and Kesler, “companies should not only focus on marketing aspects, but also consider the potential for the firm’s innovation success.”

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Top 3 Priorities for Manufacturing Companies in 2018

by Fronetics | Nov 1, 2017 | Blog, Manufacturing & Distribution, Strategy, Supply Chain

Manufacturing companies are hoping to continue their revenue growth in 2018 by focusing on 3 key areas.

KLR has released the results of its annual manufacturing industry outlook report, and the optimism following last year’s elections will continue straight through 2017.

With promises of tax reform, decreased federal regulations and looser trade agreements, manufacturers have slowly seen revenue growth throughout the U.S. markets. That growth is projected to continue into 2018.

56% of respondents expect business will continue to increase throughout the year.

And though manufacturing companies are striving to control their costs and cut back on unnecessary expenses, many companies reported increasing their marketing budgets, including technology, to invest in the future of their revenue growth.

So where is the additional money going? Manufacturing companies are investing their profits back into new products, expanding markets and breaking into new territories.

Here are the top 3 priorities for manufacturing companies in 2018.

1. Increasing share in existing markets

Over the next 12 to 18 months, 64% of the manufacturers surveyed expect their growth to come mainly from increased market share and organic growth in existing domestic markets. Manufacturing companies are looking to increase their market share through innovation, strengthening customer relationships, reliable hiring practices, and staying ahead of their competitors.

2. Seeking new markets for products and services

Manufacturing companies are trying to think outside of the box when it comes to expanding their markets. Avon got its big break when it took the now-dated approach of selling products door to door. By trying a different avenue, it was able to increase revenue without fighting for retail space with other corporate giants. Like Avon, companies are working hard to come up with innovative ways to break into untapped markets.

3. Developing new products and services in response to changing consumption patterns

Using social media platforms and other marketing tools, it’s easy for manufacturing companies to stay in touch with their customers. This engagement provides the best insight into the types of products, features and solutions your customers are looking for. Based on this crowdsourcing, or social listening, companies are able to develop products that they know will resonate with consumers and their changing needs. Though product development can be expensive and risky, incorporating customers into the conversation helps manufacturing companies minimize risk.

Despite growth throughout 2017, there are still challenges that manufacturing companies face. How are manufacturers coping with these challenges? They are adjusting their priorities and focusing on these three areas to continue growing their business and, ultimately, their sales.