Twelve Tips from the World's Most Innovative Companies

If you could ask Google’s Johanna Wright for some business advice, she might suggest, “Constantly seek new ways to delight your users.”

According to Ms. Wright, Google adds “about 100 quality upgrades to the search engine each quarter” and notes that any time the company could be running between 50 and 200 experiments.

Here are some other tips from businesses featured in Fast Company's "The World's 50 Most Innovative Companies."

 

• Never lose sight of the customer experience. Empower employees to be creative in their goal to create addictive products.  “One of our core values is that everyone is the CEO of the thing that they do,” says Mark Pincus, Zynga founder and CEO of social gaming company (think Farmville).

• Be genuine and real (Andrew Mason, CEO, Groupon)

• Make the commonplace sexy (Groupon, Trader Joe’s).

• Recognize opportunities in trends (as in “sustainable” and Nissan’s Leaf)

• Redefine how you communicate (Twitter)  

• Use mobile to increase engagement says eBay’s VP of mobile platforms Steve Yankovich. “We want consumers to engage even when they don’t have a purchase in mind.”

• Use creative copy to get attention. DonorsChoose.org is headed by a Bronx science teacher who uses “catchy headlines” as part his fundraising efforts that have raised roughly $30-million for needed schools.

• Grow your user base (Facebook)

• Create communities among your fans (Reddit, Awl Network)

• Reward loyal customers (Foursaquare)

• Find creative ways to extend great campaigns. Over two days, Wieden + Kennedy  shot 200 videos of the Old Spice guy who responding to tweets in real time.

You can read about these companies and see the full list as it appeared in Fast Company here.

Inspired? Want to add your own ideas? Leave a comment.