Tapping social media to predict the next big thing

Last year, I read an article that listed the health problems that stem from sitting too much – from obesity to cancer — and advocated standing desks as a fix. A light bulb went off in my mind: I have a bad back, and sitting all day makes it worse. But when I started searching for standing desks, they all looked too big, complicated and expensive. So I thought maybe I could make one of my own — and maybe I could even sell the thing.

But would anyone buy it?

If you’re an entrepreneur, how do you quickly and easily gauge demand for your new product? What’s the best way to feel out the market before investing thousands of dollars in equipment, materials and office space? The smart kids have been using Google for years to suss out product demand. But as I found while bringing my standing desk idea to life this year, an integrated approach that also incorporates newer social media tools may be the best way to tell whether you’ve got a winner on your hands.

What should I sell?

My first stop was Google Trends, which shows the volume of searches for particular keywords over time. Search interest for “standing desk” has been steadily rising since 2005 — a great sign. I could also see where people were searching for standing desks, mainly in the U.S., New Zealand, Canada and Australia, and popular related search queries, including “standing desk IKEA” and “adjustable standing desk.”

For more granular data, I turned to Pinterest, an invaluable resource for exploring product and design ideas. I typed in “standing desks” and the results were enlightening. The most popular pinned images — with thousands of “pins” each — were for cheap DIY desks, many cobbled together using IKEA materials. There was also a big emphasis on ergonomics and adjustability. Whatever desk I made, I realized, would have to be inexpensive and adjustable, with a DIY feel.

Finally, I also used a Twitter-monitoring site called Topsy, which goes beyond the standard keyword searches to show overall sentiment behind Tweets (from positive to negative), as well as who is tweeting. I discovered that there were nearly 8,000 Tweets sent about “standing desks” over the last month, with an overall sentiment of 82/100, very high. The most-shared tweets were mainly “hacks” for making your own standing desk, and I even noticed that influencer Guy Kawasaki was getting on the standing desk bandwagon.

But are there really buyers out there?

It was time to test the waters. I didn’t have a final prototype yet, but I wanted a sense of how many people would be interested and at what price point. So I built a very basic website called a landing page (Tools like Lander makes this easy). I included an image of my newly designed standing desk — made from lightweight cardboard — and a buy button. The proposed price: around $30. Visitors who clicked the buy button could sign up to be notified as soon as the desk was released.