Digital Davos: Best Practices 2.0

At last week's World Economic Forum in Davos, George Colony, the CEO of Forrester Research, said that one of the most important trends in business today is the use of the Web to "crowdsource" consumer feedback to improve products and services and drive social impact.

Colony calls this new set of best practices "Social Sigma." Speaking to a room full of social media executives, Colony said: "Six Sigma is the gradual improvement of process to improve products and solve problems" while Social Sigma is the gradual improvement in how companies "hear" from customers to create better products, services and community service strategies. He said that "social media and social networks can now be used to drive excellence" in these areas. Community and stakeholder feedback, he says, can be used by companies as a powerful new tool.

The only catch to this "Social Sigma" approach? "There will need to be a reformation of leadership in many companies for it to work," Colony says. "We need to create in more managers an obligation to listen."

Colony also used last week's Davos forum to release his firm's latest survey findings on the use of social media by American and European consumers. The results include these findings:

1. The "trust level" of corporate Web sites remains "very low," with just 1 percent of global consumers surveyed saying they consult corporate blogs for information.

2. Seven of the 15 most-trafficked Web sites are social networks.

3. Americans spend 5-6 hours per day on social media, "the second-biggest human activity after sleeping," Colony says.

4. Of the major social sites, Twitter has 25 million unique visitors per day (flat over the last six months); Facebook has 130 million (also flat for the last six months); MySpace has 50 million-60 million (down over the last three months); LinkedIn has 15 million (down) and Ning has 6 million (down).

5. Social networking is far from ubiquitous -- for now. In the United States, 17 percent of online users will consult a social site per day. Among 18- to 24-year-olds, it's 27 percent; among 25- to 34-year-olds, it's 24 percent; among 35- to 44-year-olds, it's 12 percent; among 55- to 64-year-olds it's 9 percent. For those aged 65 and older, it's 6 percent. "We are unable to do surveys on individuals younger than 18, but we believe the number of people in the youngest age range is almost double than that of the 18- to 24-year-olds," Colony says. "The wave is here; it's coming."

What do you think of Colony's predictions? Are you already measuring consumer feedback with social networks? How goes the experience? Is your company an exception to the data that Forrester has compiled? Let us hear from you.