My love of social media has waned, my belief that social media is an important tool for insights hasn’t. If you only use social media to hear brand mentions you’re missing the opportunity.

Consider focusing on “Ripples of Relevancy.” You do that by, first, looking for posts containing your brand or category. Then use those posts to uncover the concerns of customers that probably won’t contain your brand or category.

Through this iterative process you find DIY solutions, niche brands, and off-label uses of existing products. This could become the most important stimulus for product ideation you’ve ever had.