Impact of Social Media on Product Innovation

To understand how social media affects product innovation, the research company Kalypso talked with more than 90 manufacturing and service companies followed by in-depth interviews of select businesses, notes the company's website. Here's a sample of their results.

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The company's press release noted that while many organizations are familiar with using social media for outbound marketing and communications, the research reportedly indicates that leveraging social media for product innovation is a new concept for most companies (think Rasmussen's two-way communication). The study found the majority of companies interviewed are struggling to find effective ways to use social technologies to enhance product innovation for a variety of reasons - 46 percent reveal they are not sure which approaches are effective and 23 percent say the effort is too time-consuming. As a result, only 33 percent reported that they have a formal strategy in place.

Should you want to read the report, you will find it in the class's Course Materials section on Blackboard. You might find it handy when writing the short and long reports.