The faster the needs and expectations of consumers change, the more important it is for companies to obtain up-to-date, meaningful insights. Community insights with crowd-creation are therefore one of the most important trends for 2023.
The past three years have been an unprecedented challenge for companies in almost all sectors. Covid and the Ukraine war that followed almost seamlessly have affected the entire value chain. From problems with the supply of raw materials and personnel resources to restrictions in stationary trade and services to energy costs that continue to rise alarmingly: In order to survive, companies must develop strategies that enable them to adapt to changing conditions as quickly as possible. One aspect plays a prominent role here: the demand-oriented focus of the proposal and its presentation.
Ullrich Neiss, CEO of crowd-creation GmbH, knows that "understanding what the target group of existing and prospective customers wants has always been the decisive key to success for companies." "Tried and tested methods of data collection through market and opinion research must be adapted to the habits of the target group. That's when they deliver the best results, by working close to the target audience on an ongoing basis, rather than just providing an abstract snapshot through a one-off survey."
Therefore, what is needed above all are solutions for gaining knowledge that provide information directly from the target group. More and more companies are therefore opting to use social media in marketing, both actively and for the purpose of analysis. They hope to be able to identify current trends most quickly here and incorporate them into their own strategy. However, the sheer size and diversity of the familiar platforms and the limited access to usage data significantly limit companies in their involvement in internal and external communication with customers, employees, and business partners.
"With their own open source social network, companies gain full control in the design of a community platform, gain insights, and offer market and opinion research access to a focus group, which entails much more effort and is more difficult to evaluate when using conventional methods," explains Neiss. "With the Open Social community platform, based on version 9 of Drupal open source CMS, one's own social network can be optimally tailored to individual requirements."
crowd-creation supports companies in conceptualizing and creating community solutions that offer companies a variety of ways to actively engage with, inform, and collaborate with customers, prospective customers, employees, and other stakeholders. The topic of market and opinion research can be actively included and integrated structurally and technically in coordination with market research institutes as early as the design stage. The optional integration of complete survey software provides companies as community operators with valuable data as the basis for further marketing measures and for optimizing complete corporate strategies. Discussion forums and idea competitions can be used to involve customers and employees directly in decision-making processes or in product development, creating an increased sense of identity and additional brand loyalty.
"Our own online community platform is the logical continuation of digitization," Neiss emphasizes. "With it, companies are meeting the challenges that the market will continue to present in the coming year. Community insights are therefore the trend that companies should not overlook lightly in 2023."
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