SureCan – How digital a gas can company can go?

Social media and connectivity has gone through a long way in changing human lives. As to business organizations, utilizing social media becomes an emerging trend during production developments process. Especially for consumer facing product development, leveraging social media truly helps to break the geographic and segment barriers in order to be more innovative.

Gas can for your power equipment and social media normally don’t add up together, and very few of us expect to improve traditional gas can in dramatic ways. But SureCan USA, a start-up gas can company, has different vision on this never changing product, and knows how to make the most out of social media in production development and innovation.

Unlike large corporations, as a start-up company SureCan doesn’t have the luxury to invest millions of dollars in research and development. So the company turned to social media and launched Share Your Story, not only it asks customer to review SureCan’s own products, but also include experience over traditional gas can. Most of customer complaints over traditional gas can are – gas spill, overfill, and block view. SureCan has these customer pain points in mind during design stage and really get the problems solved with even more improvements. Social media significantly reduced the cost of product development, and allows the company to connect to potential customer directly and accelerate the speed to market.

“It’s brilliant,” said Lori Greiner, a reknown inventor and ABC Shark Tank star, while on stage. “I could see that replacing all other gas cans. I could see that in all Home Depots.”

Ideas and feedbacks on social media could be based on each individual’s real or perceived experience, thus filtering and validating messages collecting on social media is a vital step. What SureCan has done right is to identify and listen to its key customer base – landscaping contractors. #SureCanAdvocate allows the social media influencing contractors to put the product into test, and share reviews on vlogs. Listening to the right people and collecting accurate voice of customers ensure the company stays on the right track during production development.

Also when customers feel being heard, people are more encouraged providing ideas and feedback. As the company grows, an army of loyal brand advocates are proactively marketing the brand and products.

Lessons for Others

When used with caution, social media can definitely bring value to product development process. It is important to invest time and effort on social media with key customer group, crowdsource with accuracy and take action based on customer feedbacks. Not only can social media reduce time and cost in product development, but also enable companies to be more innovative and build stronger customer relationships.

If you have concerns as to the accuracy of anything posted on this site, please send your concerns to Peter Carr, Program Director, Social Media for Business Performance.

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