One of the components of my Customer Insights class this semester is to write a research paper on a topic that is interesting to us. We are going to be linking these topics back to class concepts dealing with customer insights and experiences. I feel energized by the opportunity to share my views and opinions on something I find interesting, yet have had some difficulty in specifying what I want to talk about. Throughout the past week and a half or so, I have sat down to brainstorm ideas that I thought would make for a good topic, and at this point, I have come up with two different topics that I would like to potentially explore.
Initially, I sat down and I thought about what was interesting to me. After some whittling away at my thoughts, I came to the conclusion that social media tools such as Facebook and Twitter are fascinating to me within the world of marketing. I came across an article on MarketingProfs, an organization that, according to their website is “a rich and trusted resource that offers actionable know-how to help…market…products and services both smarter and better.” I am on multiple MarketingProfs listserves and constantly receive articles and snippets of marketing-related information from the site. One article, however, caught my eye.
In an article entitled “How to Connect with Customers on Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter,” the people at MarketingProfs write about how important it is to simply have an online social media presence. From this article, I started thinking, and developed a sort of research question that I would be interested in exploring: How does the use of social media tools to create an online presence help a company develop better customer experiences and insights? In general, I am fascinated by the blurred lines between professional and recreational social interaction that is brought upon by a tool like Facebook. And, with the movie The Social Network capturing audiences everywhere, the story of Mark Zuckerberg and his journey to create one of the most powerful information tools on the web can certainly provide for some interesting analysis.
In the midst of thinking about social media, I came across an article called “‘Human Virus’ Snakes Through Twitter.” This article briefly introduced the psychological need for people on Twitter to “retweet” (aka repeat a phrase or thought to pass it along). This got me thinking about the sheer power of what social media has over users and makes me think about what it would be like to have control over such power. Ultimately, I am led back to an article that my professor gave me at the beginning of the semester called “Google: the search party is over.” This article introduces the idea about how Facebook may be able to take over Google in terms of being a top provider of information. The article writes: “Some investors also worry about Google’s ability to keep pace with consumers’ evolving use of the web. Say you want to buy running shoes to train for a marathon. Five years ago you would have simply Googled it, looked at the list of results, weighed your options, and made the purchase, perhaps by clicking on one of the sponsored links that accompanied your search. Today you might still do that, but increasingly you might pose the question “What running shoes should I buy?” to your friends on Facebook, or maybe write “Who knows about training for marathons?” on Twitter.” This concept is absolutely fascinating to me because I am so interested in exploring this new space in the technology industry. I think that understanding and helping to champion a more concrete role for social media in the workplace would lead to a huge win for any company that did it right and did it first. Thus, understanding a company’s use of social media tools as a means to connect with audiences online can certainly help develop some interesting and new insights, as well as create more unique and robust customer experiences.
While I recognize and understand that a lot of my thoughts aren’t yet quite fleshed out, I can’t help but think there’s something there. To summarize, I believe that researching the impact of social media as a tool for companies to reach consumers in an ever-changing environment would make for an interesting research paper. I believe it’s completely relevant to the concepts taught in my class because an exploration of social media lends itself to be applied to customer insights and experiences.
While I have covered the main topic that I am interested in, I did want to touch base upon another thought that did tickle my fancy when I thought about it. Two years ago, I attended the Clinton Global Initiative University conference when it was hosted on my school’s campus. One of the speakers at the conference was Blake Mycoskie, the Founder and Chief Shoe Giver of TOMS Shoes. I was completely fascinated by the business model of TOMS Shoes, as I found it to be a perfect blend of a for-profit business with a non-profit agenda. In case you aren’t familiar with TOMS Shoes, here’s a quick blurb from their website: “In 2006, American traveler Blake Mycoskie befriended children in Argentina and found they had no shoes to protect their feet. Wanting to help, he created TOMS Shoes, a company that would match every pair of shoes purchased with a pair of new shoes given to a child in need.” I haven’t given this topic too much thought, but I believe an exploration of how companies like TOMS Shoes develop customer insights and experiences would be absolutely fascinating. I think it’s because the main customer of TOMS Shoes aren’t the people who are receiving the free pair of shoes, and I would be really interested in exploring how the marketers at TOMS Shoes engage in developing a strong customer experience. I believe using TOMS Shoes as a case study could provide for some really interesting analysis.
Overall, I recognize that I have a lot of thoughts and I simply want to share them. Whatever topic I go with (and I may think of something else later on), I know that I’ll have a fun time connecting it back to my class. I am so fortunate to be given the opportunity to share my thoughts about something that interests me, and to relate it to my major and career interests only makes the experience that much better.
Initially, I sat down and I thought about what was interesting to me. After some whittling away at my thoughts, I came to the conclusion that social media tools such as Facebook and Twitter are fascinating to me within the world of marketing. I came across an article on MarketingProfs, an organization that, according to their website is “a rich and trusted resource that offers actionable know-how to help…market…products and services both smarter and better.” I am on multiple MarketingProfs listserves and constantly receive articles and snippets of marketing-related information from the site. One article, however, caught my eye.
In an article entitled “How to Connect with Customers on Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter,” the people at MarketingProfs write about how important it is to simply have an online social media presence. From this article, I started thinking, and developed a sort of research question that I would be interested in exploring: How does the use of social media tools to create an online presence help a company develop better customer experiences and insights? In general, I am fascinated by the blurred lines between professional and recreational social interaction that is brought upon by a tool like Facebook. And, with the movie The Social Network capturing audiences everywhere, the story of Mark Zuckerberg and his journey to create one of the most powerful information tools on the web can certainly provide for some interesting analysis.
In the midst of thinking about social media, I came across an article called “‘Human Virus’ Snakes Through Twitter.” This article briefly introduced the psychological need for people on Twitter to “retweet” (aka repeat a phrase or thought to pass it along). This got me thinking about the sheer power of what social media has over users and makes me think about what it would be like to have control over such power. Ultimately, I am led back to an article that my professor gave me at the beginning of the semester called “Google: the search party is over.” This article introduces the idea about how Facebook may be able to take over Google in terms of being a top provider of information. The article writes: “Some investors also worry about Google’s ability to keep pace with consumers’ evolving use of the web. Say you want to buy running shoes to train for a marathon. Five years ago you would have simply Googled it, looked at the list of results, weighed your options, and made the purchase, perhaps by clicking on one of the sponsored links that accompanied your search. Today you might still do that, but increasingly you might pose the question “What running shoes should I buy?” to your friends on Facebook, or maybe write “Who knows about training for marathons?” on Twitter.” This concept is absolutely fascinating to me because I am so interested in exploring this new space in the technology industry. I think that understanding and helping to champion a more concrete role for social media in the workplace would lead to a huge win for any company that did it right and did it first. Thus, understanding a company’s use of social media tools as a means to connect with audiences online can certainly help develop some interesting and new insights, as well as create more unique and robust customer experiences.
While I recognize and understand that a lot of my thoughts aren’t yet quite fleshed out, I can’t help but think there’s something there. To summarize, I believe that researching the impact of social media as a tool for companies to reach consumers in an ever-changing environment would make for an interesting research paper. I believe it’s completely relevant to the concepts taught in my class because an exploration of social media lends itself to be applied to customer insights and experiences.
While I have covered the main topic that I am interested in, I did want to touch base upon another thought that did tickle my fancy when I thought about it. Two years ago, I attended the Clinton Global Initiative University conference when it was hosted on my school’s campus. One of the speakers at the conference was Blake Mycoskie, the Founder and Chief Shoe Giver of TOMS Shoes. I was completely fascinated by the business model of TOMS Shoes, as I found it to be a perfect blend of a for-profit business with a non-profit agenda. In case you aren’t familiar with TOMS Shoes, here’s a quick blurb from their website: “In 2006, American traveler Blake Mycoskie befriended children in Argentina and found they had no shoes to protect their feet. Wanting to help, he created TOMS Shoes, a company that would match every pair of shoes purchased with a pair of new shoes given to a child in need.” I haven’t given this topic too much thought, but I believe an exploration of how companies like TOMS Shoes develop customer insights and experiences would be absolutely fascinating. I think it’s because the main customer of TOMS Shoes aren’t the people who are receiving the free pair of shoes, and I would be really interested in exploring how the marketers at TOMS Shoes engage in developing a strong customer experience. I believe using TOMS Shoes as a case study could provide for some really interesting analysis.
Overall, I recognize that I have a lot of thoughts and I simply want to share them. Whatever topic I go with (and I may think of something else later on), I know that I’ll have a fun time connecting it back to my class. I am so fortunate to be given the opportunity to share my thoughts about something that interests me, and to relate it to my major and career interests only makes the experience that much better.
Brendan - I think both ideas are great. For sure, the challenge on the first topic (using social media tools to reach and create experiences for customers) is to develop a focused and well-structured outline for the paper - one that does not try to cover everything and does not bounce around aimlessly from point to point. I think you can do that very well, it is just important to recognize the importance of that outline in the writing process for this kind of topic. The good thing is that there is a lot being written about that area right now - such a hot topic. You'll also need to be sure not to just provide a book report of what you find, but to also synthesize and provide your own interpretation of all of the chatter. The second topic is of real interest to me too, so let me know if you decide to go that way and we can talk more about it.
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