Social Media And Branding: How Business Intelligence Software Creates World Class Brands
Social media platforms create incredible scale. Business Intelligence software is software that takes enormous amounts of information and predicts accurately what consumer’s desire. Social media is a game changer in the creation of modern brands. The thing that makes social media so critical is its incredible scale. On Facebook alone, 1/3 of the entire world is on this platform. Think about this for one minute. A marketer now has one platform in which he can approach 1/3 of the world’s entire population.
This is just Facebook. If you add Twitter and YouTube, which are growing by leaps and bounds each day, perhaps the whole world is integrated.
Because of this incredible scale, business intelligence software is critical in developing modern brands. It involves high-speed calculations. It involves world class statistical analysis. Much of business and sports are analytic driven. Business intelligence software gives a company a tremendous competitive advantage. Business Intelligence Software develops world class brands.
One of the pre-eminent consumer product companies is an example of how this is done. This company endlessly analyzes data created from its business intelligence software. This software has the capacity to crunch up to 10,000 scenarios simultaneously. This creates the ability to predict whether premium-priced diapers will be a bust in Morocco or the impact of a toothpaste promotion could have in Brazil in comparison to this same promotion if it runs in Chile.
This software is teamed up with Facebook and other social media platforms. Social media is now a special tool that was not available in times past. Business Intelligence software has been available since the early 1990’s. The presence of social media creates huge information networks very quickly. Metcalfe’s Law says that a network of 2 quickly becomes a network of 1,092.
A product engages with a customer and the customer likes the product. This customer communicates this product with their friends. Social media is very viral. Through the “comment” box, a marketer can very quickly learn just what a customer likes about their product and what they don’t like. Business Intelligence Software and social media platforms allow the company to quickly develop highly differentiated and well-positioned products that a customer in a particular market truly wants. This creates strong world class brands.
Branding is the ability to provide a consumer with just the thing that they want at a point in time when whey want it. If you deliver a product that is exactly what your customer wants, naturally this is going to give you and your organization an advantage that your opponent simply cannot offset.
This is critical to the consumer products company. They can’t create revenue by buying other companies or brands. They must expand by creating products that people really do want.
This creates a problem for the company. This problem can only be solved if highly desired products are created. This company is large. To achieve just 4-6% growth, this company will have to develop a new $4 billion business each year.
The company’s domestic markets are mature. Most of the growth won’t come from there. The company’s new revenue streams must come from emerging markets. Emerging markets have profit margins smaller than mature economies. To off-set the lower margins, the company will have to sell larger volumes. This can only be done by offering products that people in emerging markets really do want at price points that customers can afford.