Companies that harness social media to collect customers’ feedback on products and services aren’t just ahead of the curve — they’re part of the “contribution revolution,” Pete Blackshaw, Nielsen Online Executive Vice President, argues in his latest Ad Age column.
Blackshaw cites a recent Harvard Business Review article by Scott Cook, founder-chairman of software developer Intuit, that credits customer participation with generating “tangible enterprise value.”
Intuit, Blackshaw notes, has created an innovative user-participation model that places “Live Community” user forums on every page of its TurboTax software.
Intuit has also put company resources …

By 2020, one in five U.S. residents will be Hispanic or Latino.  But despite the growing number of American homes with Spanish speakers, most U.S. companies’ customer service and marketing websites remain English-only, Pete Blackshaw, Nielsen Online Executive Vice President, notes in his latest Ad Age column.
That lack of Spanish-language online content has left many Hispanics out of online consumer discussions, Blackshaw argues.
“If you survey the landscape of brand websites, mini-sites and Facebook brand pages, you’ll be struck by the surprising absence or marginalization (intentional or not) of Spanish-language content,” …