Knowledgeistics

Posts Tagged ‘social media’

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.

Although this post has little to do with the MR part of SMMR (Social Media Market Research), I came across a very creative use of a modern social media tool for marketing and decided to share.

The example is from the webcomic Questionable Content’s usage of Twitter. QC follows the lives of a group of friends in a manner similar to TV sitcoms. While it is common for authors, artists and other creative folks to have their own Twitter accounts, QC creator Jeph Jacques took a different path and made separate Twitter accounts for his fictional characters instead.

The result is that his audience is no longer limited to “experiencing” the characters’ banter in the comparatively traditional medium of his comics, but can now subscribe to them in the way most Twitter-folks are following their friends and family. They can now read the characters’ random thoughts and virtual conversations, adding a whole new dimension to the characters (making them a lot more “real”) and further strengthening the comic’s relationship with its audience.

Many companies and firms are currently using Twitter to pass news and updates about their products, but I can definitely see them extracting value from this strategy to create a very different online presence. Imagine Geico (or the Cave Men from Geico’s commercials) or Burger King’s mascot having their own pages where they posts random thoughts and share a quirky, funny and more human side with followers. Different from typical marketing efforts, this one is not intended to simply pass on directed messages about promotions and new initiatives, but instead have a lasting communication using humor and entertainment in ways similar to viral marketing. And of course, there is no reason why once these channels are made they cannot be used for passing on those messages about promotions and other deals periodically.

Furthermore, as Twitter and its supporting tools upgrade, it may become possible to easily list out the demographics and psychographics of your audience and use that for market research. And that, is how I’m tying all this back to SMMR.

One of the still rather underutilized tools of the modern web and its vibrant social community is the ability to monitor what people are talking about. Unfortunately, like many tools it has its limitations and lots of room for more value-added services to take data and convert it to information and knowledge, finally leading to insights. Nevertheless, these new channels present a very cost effective manner of collecting consumer thoughts and opinion.

At the risk of repeating myself (and stating the obvious for some), many popular online communication mediums have built in search-and-monitoring features. Although not leveraged significantly for research, these channels provide an inexpensive way to get some of your market research questions answered, or at the very least learn what people think (or if they even care) about your particular topic of interest.

Let’s start with Twitter. Unless you live under a rock, you’ve noticed the increasing buzz it’s been getting lately as people post their thoughts in 140 characters or less. Ridiculed for many reasons, including the relevance of people’s posts, Twitter has nevertheless grown and started capturing the attention of the corporate world. And something that has really called to marketing folks, especially market researchers is the built in search feature.

The easiest way to illustrate this is with an example. Recently, NBC announced the possible cancellation of the Monday night series Chuck. Now I don’t know much about Chuck but it’s a great and very timely topic for the example.

I searched for Chuck, and here’s what I found.

Some useless content, but also some interesting tidbits. Obviously, some people are concerned about the cancellation (check out the second screenshot). Still others are talking about Subway and Chuck. Now I’m not sure what that’s about – could be a show-related promotion, or could be a user tradition. Either way, could be useful to learn more with additional targeted searches. In the hands of any experienced googler, Twitter can be a powerful and unique way to find out more about your audience.

Another very interesting return is the “XYZ more results since you started searching”. In the seconds it took me to read some of the main comments, there were 16 more comments. Right now the page lists 63 more comments. Wow, this is creating a lot of buzz. While I agree quantity does not signal quality – it would be folly to overlook such a metric. Imagine the uses for monitoring the response to tonight’s episode, or a new ad campaign? Twitter itself, lists some of the trending topics – top ones being related to Swine Flu.

Like most tools, this one is open to interpretation – and its value really only depends on how well someone leverages it. But combined with good analysis, researchers can find out more reading a few pages of twitter posts (selectively) than the transcripts for a focus group. Sure, twitter lacks the ability to control the conversation and answer specific questions, but it is ideal for early stages exploratory research. And who says you can’t start conducting market research with Twitter if you build your own programs? 140 word answers to a survey question – sounds promising for a start.