E-Commerce Evolution
At this point, almost every firm understands the basics of social media talking, but so many (most?) seem to fail at listening to what the market is saying. Too many organizations simply don’t listen to the market. One reason is that listening is hard work – it is a labor-intensive task. Another reason is that the automated tools to listen are very expensive and are not yet very good at evaluating (as positive or negative) the tone of what the market says. Despite these real and significant drawbacks, firms have a chance to understand what customers like/dislike about the brand, the organization, and its services, if they listen and pay attention.
Please find a recent example (within the most recent 12 months) of a firm that has utilized social media to listen to their market. The example can be either positive or negative; there are some flops along with successes. Research the background of the selected use of what was learned by listening.
DO NOT USE CASE STUDIES POSTED BY LISTENING SOFTWARE FIRMS! (ex., Radian6, Omniture, IBM, etc.) These case studies are just advertisements and are not credible sources of information!
Minimally, discover what information was gained, how the information was gathered, and how the information was utilized. Then, please use the background information to answer the following questions:
1- What e-commerce problem was resolved (or not) using insights from listening to the market’s social media posts? In answering this question, please describe the situation, how measurement and collection was done, what was learned, etc. This is the problem identification portion of this assignment.
2- Who are the relevant stakeholders and what are their viewpoints in this situation?
3- What could the company do next? Develop a range of viable alternative courses of action for the firm to further leverage the social media listening capabilities. Specifically examine what the firm can to enhance their value proposition to customers and other stakeholders. Evaluate the impact of each alternative on each stakeholder group using the viewpoints as evaluative criteria.
4- Finally, make a recommendation as to which alternative the company should implement. Explain why this is the most viable alternative.
