Multi-Target Look at Social Media and Open Innovation

Social media is a powerful tool that companies can use to leverage open innovation efforts. By engaging with the innovation community, ecosystem partners, and customers/users, companies can build credibility and become preferred innovation partners. Social media can also provide hard-core business benefits such as more and better new product ideas or requirements, faster time to market, lower product costs, and lower product development costs. Social media offers five key aspects that support open innovation: better interaction, idea generation and feedback loops, business intelligence, identification of new people who can assist in innovation efforts, and branding, promotion, and marketing of innovation outcomes. If leveraged correctly, social media can help bring in unexpected contributions from unexpected or previously unknown sources and create the conditions and environment for disruptive innovation to happen.