Wanna be in a focus group? If
you're a blogger, or partcipate in an online community or
forum, there's a chance you already are in a focus group. In fact, you
could be part of the biggest focus group ever.
A recent article from the Wall
Street Journal reports
that businesses are mining blogs for nuggets of knowledge about what
their customers want (or don't want.)
Blog watching seems to pay off
in a number of ways for businesses, from spotting trends before they
hit corporate media to prepping CEOs for tough questions from
reporters. Companies like Motorola and Electronic Arts even hiring
blog-monitoring firms – like IntelliSeek
and MotiveQuest
– to parse bloggers' language and acronyms (like, OMG, or
FUBAR) into blogger demographics a company can then use to better track
its audience and their desires.
So blogs are turning out to be
not only a useful tool for businesses to reach consumers, but also a
rich source of consumer information for businesses willing to mine it
and use it. I'm not sure that this in and of itself is news, but it's
worth nothing.
What I'm waiting to
see is whether bloggers and other online conversationalists will take
to corporate campaigns the way they have to political campaigns, like
the Big Brass
Alliance's campaign to bring
broader public and media attention to the Downing
Street Memo.
Will bloggers/consumers band
together for the purpose of bringing their concerns to
corporations? Sooner or later, yes. When they do, will they
stick to demands about services and products, or will they also tackle
corporate responsibility? It remains to be seen, but it'll be
interesting to watch.