Monday, June 28, 2010

Forums and opinion sites

Today, companies have no choice. If they want to keep a leading position in their market, they can no longer ignore this wealth of information exchanges that represent Internet users."The world becomes a huge village, an electronic forum.

The customer is really king now!

His Weapon? Blogs and forums on the web
These forums or review sites are mines for companies as well as for surfers. Travels, eating out, choose a film, play, product, insurance, rental car long term, etc... all goods and services are now involved. There are thousands, even millions of reviews on the web, directly accessible and visible world.

The multitude of options, choices, easy access to information, freedom to prefer one supplier over another and the opportunity to express its opinion on the web to give customers an additional influence on activity of the company. The customer and placed in the heart of business concerns, is more than ever king!

At the same time, this abundance of information is a great opportunity for any business to know what customers think of its products and those of its competitors.

Forums and blogs, the expression is free and natural; users of all occupational categories and ages are spontaneously share the experience they had with a product or service and give their opinion on aspects they have satisfactory or disappointing. Each review contains a significant amount of quality information. Richer still, the game of questions and answers on the forums offer a wealth of information it remains only to collect: "I consider such a purchase, that you advise me," "for accompanied, choose what insurance?”...

Products or services are so valued by users who wish to share with others what they experienced. In their discussions, they [users] spontaneously mentioned aspects that they felt were important and a multitude of elements that would not have arisen through traditional survey techniques and it would be detrimental to ignore.

Network analysis and web content: a strategic factor in global competition
Consumer habits are less subject to the law of a local market. While some retailers seem to ride the wave of "defending the purchasing power of consumers, customers, meanwhile, more and more inclined to mobilize and come together on consumer networks. And this trend is naturally enhanced by a crisis like the one we have now.

Today, companies have no choice. If they want to keep a leading position in their market, they can no longer ignore this wealth of information exchanges that represent Internet users. They face a new requirement to access information, process and analyze them to finally provide the means to identify, define, anticipate and create competitive advantages in a market that has become global.

Thus, network analysis provides a look at those who have one thing in common, such as the network of buyers of the same model car as supporters or opponents of a football club, or one of the participants to the same event. But a more comprehensive vision on the network structure, it forms the basis for a more detailed analysis yet, and for the content of trade; know who is talking, what with whom and in what terms, is much information available to businesses, provided they are accompanied by a company able to pick them up and extract for themselves the content.