Knowledgeistics

Archive for the ‘market research’ Category

Not all companies are in the same boat when thinking about SMMR, and for many senior managers the discussion starts like this: “Are we doing this? Wait -what is this? What can it do?

Social media is no longer new. SMMR enthusiasts has been working hard to keep up with all the information and tools showing up, and growing exponentially, overnight. As your team (and I strongly recommend a team) thinks through SMMR and the benefits it could bring to your company, I’ve tried to put together a list of possible usages that could prove handy.

Following basic marketing principles, SMMR techniques can be divided into two camps (Secondary and Primary). Of course, some techniques will have elements of both as you’ll soon find out. Like most strategic decisions, many companies will benefit from an integrated strategy that utilizes tools from both, but it really comes down to the specific goals, project and budget.

Secondary (Passive) Research

As opposed to Primary (Active) Research methods, these techniques use data already present online, and the trick lies in collecting it and analyzing it. Collecting the data or Data Mining has become easier over time as many tools has surfaced, but analyzing social media data can provide many challenges. Here are some of the communication channels you can use to learn more about a topic.

• What’s popular? With the recent addition of Insights, Google Trends has become more useful than even before for research, expanding from just a novelty to a advanced filters driven technique to find out how people are looking for information – including specific and related keywords. These tools can help segment the information by geographies and time periods, compare search terms and more.
• Ear on the Chatter: The web’s latest star, Twitter’s vast amounts of up-to-the-minute banter can be easily collected using search built-in search tools (not to mention the number of independent websites offering tools to help collect and filter Twitter data). Especially relevant for recent topics, Twitter can help you quickly find out what the community thinks about a topic. Other tools allow you do the same for other popular social media sites including facebook, myspace, youtube etc.
• The emerging experts: Web 2.0 has made it easier than ever before of individuals (and groups) to share their opinions and thoughts establishing their expertise on certain topics – through blogs. While a majority of blogs are run for personal use by non-experts, popular ones have followings that can rival traditional publications such as newspapers and magazines. Many sites, including Technorati provide easy way to find out how certain topics are being mentioned in the blogosphere. For those who want to keep a regular eye on specific keywords, Google Alerts will do the job and alert you on new mentions in websites and blogs.

This is, of course, an incomplete list, but should help you think of the type of information you can collect from the diverse social media community.

Primary (Active) Research

Online research is not new, with hundreds of websites offering the ability to conduct web-based surveys. Though less common, online focus groups and interviews have often replaced their in-person counterparts. But the newest opportunity lies in tapping into these new, always connected channels to do research. Of course, there is the possibility of error due to observer effect, but as opposed to Passive Research, specific questions can be addressed and it’s easier to make sure you talk to ensure you’re talking to the right demographic.

• Tapping current features: Most social media websites offer ways for companies to easily converse with their customers. Unfortunately, this requires forming some kind of relationship with them, whether it is belonging to facebook groups or generating Twitter followers. This can be very difficult, but once established you can easily ask short questions to your consumers and get quick answers.
• Looking ahead: Old dog, new trick: Of course, most market researchers have many follow-up questions and it can be hard to hold a continuous discussion in the above-mentioned method. This leaves room for researchers to use Social Media sites as a way to screen and recruit respondents for more thorough research techniques such as surveys, interviews, focus groups and ethnographic research.

Another undeveloped opportunity lies in forming research panels that can be communicated to via the social media websites and channels, making it possible to control demographics and still conduct fast, cost effective research (I know of very few efforts working on this).

This list is not comprehensive – but hopefully it will get you thinking about all the possibilities out there and if they are actually the right one for you. Have other ideas? Lets hear it in the comments.

Quantitative metrics are key to understanding one’s market. Now, more than ever, marketers have access to a wealth of data to help make decisions. However, I’m going to argue that this new resource is often emphasized at the expense of qualitative knowledge, which is instrumental to creating effective strategy.

Today in the New York Times, they covered the efforts of big firms like M.R.I. to better quantify the impact of advertisements in magazines. A small detail stuck out as I read. Ad revenues at magazines are not falling as fast as they are at newspapers. One obvious explanation for this is that magazines come with built-in psychographic and demographic targeting. Want to reach snowboarders? Why not try Transworld Snowboarding?

The underlying message of the article was also pretty clear. Quantitative metrics are indispensable for marketers and advertisers. Online advertising and marketing offer quantitative analysis undreamed-of before the advent of the Internet. Print advertising offers metrics that have resisted improvement for decades- ergo, print advertising loses.

At Compete, Stephen DiMarco underscores this point by drawing a line between marketing undertaken on the basis of intuition, “Powerball Marketing” and marketing informed by substantial statistical analysis, “Moneyball Marketing”. His key points, roughly paraphrased, are that:

1) Desired outcomes of marketing campaigns should be specifically quantified

2) Advanced quantitative measures should primarily guide marketing initiatives

On point 1, I agree with Stephen wholeheartedly. All projects need clear-cut objectives, and woe to the firm that allocates hard money to soft, unquantified “improvements” or “increases”.

On point 2, I have to disagree, in part. Success in marketing-by-numbers can’t explain the persistence of magazine ad revenues over newspapers’, given that both media lack robust quantitative measures. Online marketing and market research provides a veritable fire hose of consumer data to the savvy marketer. This leads to a tendency to ignore or discount qualitative knowledge, despite its necessity, as demonstrated by those plucky glossies.

Quantitative data can accurately describe consumer behavior, and be used to predict it to some extent. Qualitative data is valuable when the quantitative data you have doesn’t provide the ability to rationally explain a behavior, or make rational strategic decisions. When the beliefs, attitudes and motivations of one’s customer or consumer are well-understood, it’s possible to make good decisions when quant data can’t do it for you.

For example, if your analytics show that conversion rates have fallen off sharply after introducing a new tagline, the most the numbers can do is identify that the tagline is the problem. With a robust qualitative dataset, and a good understanding of the beliefs, motivations, and other relevant pyschographic factors expressed in that dataset, you’ll be able to identify the unintentional use of a new slang word used to describe terrible body odor in the tagline. The quantitative data would allow you to replace the tagline and fix the problem. The qualitative data would allow you to replace the tagline, as well as spin the faux-pas, make a knowing joke with your consumer, and salvage brand image.

Part of a marketer’s job is to understand their customer or consumer. Clickstream data, correlates of conversion rates, or even surveys won’t really illuminate human beliefs, attitudes, or motivations. SMMR provides a unique opportunity to collect, oftentimes, both quantitative and qualitative knowledge simultaneously. It’s important for marketers to remember that both types of information are essential. Remember: Pizza and beer separately are great, but together they make a balanced meal.

Verify user demographics -- one tweet only

Slate today has a story on the topic of “orphaned tweets” — user accounts that consist of one tweet only.  While Swansburg and Singer-Vine take the article in a hilarious direction by classifying the various kinds of orphaned tweets, the article points to a critical statistic relevant to managers considering social media market research.

A major Harvard study reveals that 10% of Twitter users are responsible for 90% of the site’s traffic.   Add to this an older Nielson study revealing that Twitter has a month-over-month retention rate of just over 40% and the prognosis for creating a wide societal groundswell on twitter is bleak.

This creates an imposing challenge for those looking to create valid demographic samples from Twitter.  One of the most popular objections to SMMR is that it is disproportionately limited to certain demographics.

The relevant question is whether this difficulty will be limited to Twitter or if it creates  problems for the idea of SMMR itself.  My answer has been that it is indeed possible to capture more diverse demographics, but there are three additional considerations.

1. Twitter might not be the best vehicle for capturing insight. Given the low insight available in 140 characters and the difficulty understanding demographics, other social media sites may be more appropriate for market research.  However, if Twitter continues to grow and gains mainstream traction, it’s search functionality will make it an invaluable tool.

2. Use SMMR before target demographics are finalized. Smart market research practitioners will integrate social media market research into their research plans in a way that leverages it’s advantages — casting the widest possible net for insights.  This knowledge should help inform the thinking as you progress to tighter demographics.

Properly understood, social media’s difficulty in expensively isolating demographics is in fact an advantage.

SMMR demos: more than the NPR set

One of the objections I will often hear while discussing social media market research goes like this.  “I understand the potential of SMMR to capture huge amounts of actionable insights, but won’t those insights all be generated by certain non-representative demographics (e.g. younger, coastal, urban)?”  This is definitely a relevant question and a serious concern.

Scott Monty, head of social media for Ford, has part of the answer.  Money statistic: there are 16.5 million moms participating in the blogosphere.  Granted, work needs to be done to further segment the demographic further, but rest assured the percentage of nearly all demos using social media is growing.