As social media becomes more popular as a means of increasing customer relationships, social media users around the world claim to be more willing to collaborate in a wide variety of areas, with the companies that attract them.
Among those willing to help, which is the majority of those interviewed, 64% said they are interested in collaborating to improve an existing product or service, and another 64% said they are willing to collaborate in improving customer service.
Other identified areas in which users declared themselves ready for their contributions were the development of a new product or service (59%), give their opinion on the company’s overall strategy (52%), and give their opinion on the communication of companies with respect to products (51%).
Another significant proportion of users were equally willing to collaborate to improve existing advertising campaigns (46%) and in the development of new campaigns (45%).
Among the 19 countries that participated in the study, Chinese citizens were the most willing, with 98% prepared to assist the brands and 96% to the companies. The Japanese were not far off, with 96% and 94% respectively. US users responded favorably by 81% and 84%, while Australians showed 69% and 68% respectively.
Social media users prefer to collaborate using online versus offline channels. Curiously, social networks are not at the top of the indicated preferences, but in a third place. Among online channels, e-mail ranks first, with 66% of respondents saying they would use it. Web pages, with 56%, are the following media, followed by social media (44%), forums or business communities (33%), online chat (24%), to stop other media such as blogs 17%) and short messages (16%).
For offline channels, face-to-face meetings enjoyed the favor of 26% of the responses, followed by mail / letters (23%) and telephone (13%).
Despite the preference for e-mail in the online options, social media still play a relevant role in quite a few cases. Among the responses of those willing to help a company to improve its overall strategy, the largest percentage chose, with 43%, for communities of free access type Facebook, followed by communities of research and market analysis (35%), , and closed communities (33%).
Companies that favor collaboration with consumers benefit from this. Sixty-two percent of consumers who responded to another Cint study in January 2012 commented that they were more predisposed to purchasing goods and services from a brand if it asked them for their opinion on them. Fifty-six percent of respondents said they felt more loyal to a brand that spent part of their time consulting them, less than twice those who claimed that their brand loyalty was not influenced by it (24%). 77% of respondents said that brands now listen more to consumers than they did 10 years ago.
