Crowdsourcing your Innovation

One of the best reasons to maintain an online presence is that you can use is at a tool to fuel your own creativity and gather community feedback on your path. Blogging is tool to bring the community to you, and you to them. Do not underestimate the amount of two-way communication that can happen while blogging.   Here are 4 ways to use your blog to gain feedback, and how you can use this as inspiration to aid in your progression.

1. Use your blog directly to conduct market research. As the people on your blog are likely to be part of your demographic of likely customers, getting their direct feedback can be incredibly helpful. If you are able to get a good following and have people who have a positive feeling towards your brand, you can use this by conducting surveys on areas where you think there may be interest. Sometimes the simplest approach is simplest: ask your customers what they want to pay for.
2. Similarly, you can create discussion about ideas that you think have potential. Engaging your audience with discussions relative to their interests can bring out their opinions. Companies often face massive backlash when they fail to understand what their customers want. Talking to your audiences and finding out what is wanted by drawing them into discussion is a great way to find out how they feel.
3. Third, you can gauge people’s response to discussions about your services. For example, if you talk about caring for your customers, but the comments that people are attempting to post are all sarcastic and laugh at the idea that you have good customers service, it’s a good indication that your public perception is not great. This can be a sign that you need to look at your employees or reevaluate your policies to create a more pleasant experience. This evaluation of positive or negative feedback can help you troubleshoot problems in your business strategy.
4. Fourth is the tactic of using your blog posts data to find out which things are of interest to your customers. For example, if you as an electrician make a blog post detailing how to identify a common electric problem and this article goes viral on social media, it is a good indication that there is demand for this service. Upping your advertising for this service, and making sure to bring it up with clients can generate additional revenue bringing leads.