Tweeting it Up

I chose to do my search on Ellen Degeneres. I felt the first tool given, Google Zeitgeist, was less relevant to use when searching for information about a celebrity’s media hits. I used Google Trends to see when people most commonly search for Ellen Degeneres and all I really discovered was that when she makes big public statements, like marrying Portia de Rossi or that she’s going to be a judge on American Idol, her media hits increase. This is of course pretty intuitive information.

However, I found the Blog Search to be much more relevant. It supplied a lot more information about what people were saying about Ellen, which details people’s attitudes. This is much more relevant when dealing with a celebrity because they have to maintain their public image. Google Zeitgeist doesn’t display for what type of Ellen information people searched for so there is no way to know if the searchers were feeling negatively or positively.

Companies can use Twitter to both gain insights and create customer experiences for their customers. On Twitter, there are several ways a business can gain insight from consumers. First of all, and perhaps the most obvious point, is a business can simply type in its name and find out if people have been “tweeting” about them. From these tweets, companies can learn what customers like and dislike about their products. On a larger scale, companies can get to know their customers better by seeing what else the customers are tweeting about and by seeing who customers are “following.” Essentially, Twitter is great to show the networks customers have with each other and how they are all connected through your product and your business. Additionally, by acquiring these insights about customers, businesses can know their customers better, and as a result create better products for them.

Twitter, along with other social media sites, is great because it gives consumers a chance to interact with each other about your company’s product and also gives consumers a chance to interact with your company on a more personal level. Companies that have Twitter accounts can view who is following them and get an idea about the fans they have from these followers. This allows a business to see how all of its customers are connected and what they all have in common. Also, when customers follow businesses, those businesses can write updates and give their followers exclusive information that can be viewed very easily by the customer. Because so many people are twitter-crazed and even get status updates to their phones, status updates on Twitter can virtually instantly connect businesses to consumers.

Also, Twitter can be used to create special customer experiences they may not be able to have otherwise. One example of these special experiences is this summer, because I follow Ellen Degeneres on Twitter, I would receive updates about special things to watch out for on her show and potentially win prizes for noticing. This allowed me the chance to win items that could have potentially left me feeling more connected to Ellen, but I didn’t win anything. However, I tuned in to watch and tried to win anyway! Another example of a special experience being created for the customer happened this summer when I worked with a literary publicity firm. They regularly used social media outlets to stay close to potential customers and create customer experiences. One unique customer experience they created was called “Tweet the Author.” The basic idea was for the author to set aside a specific time to answer any questions consumers might have for the author that the consumer posted in their status updates. The author could see all of the questions because at the end of the status entry, consumers just simply put “#TweettheAuthor.”
This was a great experience for the consumer to get to know a little more about the author or the book they love and allowed the consumer to feel closer to the product.

Gotta Love Wally World

1) Whenever I think of the term “experience” in relation to retailers, I think of the overall shopping experience customers have with the store. I would wager that most of my friends are not generally ever happy with their Wal-Mart shopping experiences. With that being said, my friends usually go to Wal-Mart because they are looking to find the cheapest prices on the products they are looking for and know what kin d of shopping experience they are going to have before stepping into the store. Many of my friends think the lines are too long, the stores are too crowded, and think of a trip to Wal-Mart as a hassle and something they dread dealing with. Both of my roommates have actually stopped shopping at Wal-Mart because they hate the entire Wal-Mart experience. As I stated before, people shop at Wal-Mart to get the best prices and not to have the best “experience.” If we are speaking of experience in terms of atmospherics, then no; Wal-Mart has never had this as a competitive advantage (like say Starbucks does) because it’s company goals are based around cost. However, if we are talking about experience in terms of creating low prices for the consumer, always knowing what you’re going to get with your Wal-Mart experience, and generally having most of the products you want in stock, then yes; Wal-Mart has created this kind of experience for the consumer that it has been able to use as a competitive advantage.

In continuing with the second definition of experience, I feel that Wal-Mart has definitely made good use of the extensive amounts of data it has about its products and its customers. With its huge efficiencies made possible because of the extensive technology it uses to generate valuable data, Wal-Mart can afford to offer those low prices. Wal-Mart offers efficiencies and low prices that its competitors simple can’t offer its customers because Wal-Mart has been able to use its data so effectively. Although price isn’t every retailer’s competitive advantage, Wal-Mart is practically synonymous with savings.



2) This may seem silly, but I never really thought about my personal information being kept and stored whenever I swipe my debit card or credit card at checkout, or when they ask to see my ID. Obviously as stores that use frequent shopper cards and loyalty cards, I knew my information that was filled out was stored and kept into the stores’ databases. It’s kind of a creepy idea to know that my personal information is being stored by a major corporation and even creepier to know that Wal-Mart is for sure one of hundreds of stores keeping my personal info on tap without having a loyalty card. However, as the article points out, many people don’t realize their information is taken and stored and available to anyone that has the permission to access it. It is a major problem that people don’t know what’s going on, because if they did, they probably wouldn’t like it. Many customers simply just don’t think about it and don’t realize how much of their personal information is being recorded.

As the article states, Wal-Mart collects more data about its products and customers’ shopping habits than any other retailer, so privacy concerns are a definite issue. Also, they have access to SO much of SO many people’s personal information, including drivers license and social security numbers, because of the enormous quantity of stores and 100 million customers walking through them each week. Because Wal-Mart is a major corporation who’s main goal is to make a buck, my initial response to this question is that Wal-Mart will use whatever it can to make money, even if it means revealing personal information about its consumers. But honestly, I wouldn’t feel safe with any retailer having personally identifiable data about me.

However, my later reaction is more of a feeling of a catch-22. Wal-Mart needs information about its customers to be able to make predications, have correct inventory, and maintain efficiencies that allow it to offer such low prices. Even if I don’t necessarily trust Wal-Mart, I kind of don’t have a choice because I want low prices that they provide. I guess the risk of Wal-Mart misusing customers' personal information is the risk we all have to take and just hope Wal-Mart is only doing proper things with that information.