Greenbook covers Social Media and Qualitative Research

Greenbook has had a numbers of articles on the trending of Qualitative Research to digital and social media platforms. Here is their latest article:

"Why (and How) the Growth of Social Media has Created Opportunities for Market Research"

The article by Paul Rubenstein of Accelerant Research social media usage has developed and become widespread very quickly. Social media marketing has reacted to this trend showing its own growth on a similar trajectory. What are the opportunities for online methodology in qualitative research? It is a long article with a strong bias towards online research, and the highlights include:

Social media marketing has reacted to this trend showing its own growth on a similar trajectory.  Research indicates that spending on social media and conversational marketing will outpace that of traditional marketing by 2012, according to a study conducted by TWI Surveys, Inc. on behalf of the Society for New Communications Research.  Forrester, too, echoes this claim in its own research findings in a recent study.

The Opportunity for Online Methodology in Qualitative Research

Now compare these blogging activities to those involved in qualitative research in which a moderator poses questions to study participants and receives answers to those questions from them.  A discussion ensues between the moderator and participant fueled by a series of questions and responses between parties.  Sometimes the moderator shows participants some “things” and has them provide their attitudes and opinions. Other times the moderator might require the participants to provide “things” to be seen, heard, and/or discussed.  Thus, there is parity between the typical activities involved in blogging and in qualitative research, and nowadays, the personal computer and Internet can facilitate the activities involved in qualitative research.

Imagine a shift from the traditional, face-to-face (F2F) methodology, which has dominated qualitative research for decades, to the Internet.  This shift should be a safe one given people’s general comfort level communicating within this medium.  But, would some part of the human condition be lost in the process?

Strengths and Weaknesses of In-person Qualitative Research

However, these tried-and-true qualitative methods, while effective for what they are designed to produce, do have their inherent flaws.  They are artificial and contrived because they require the respondent to be removed from the actual consumer behavior during interviewing, i.e., data are collected in a de-contextualized setting.  As such, this common byproduct of standard qualitative research designs attenuates the researcher’s ability to gather data in a natural setting.

The distinct advantages of the online method of qualitative research over in-person include:

• Computer-mediated interactions foster candidness, thoughtfulness, and essay-type responses
• Time is used efficiently and more data are collected
• Biasing effects due to the physical presence of others are eliminated
• Data can be collected in a naturalistic setting and at the time of the event under study
• Multi-media and text-based data are collected and integrated
• Data is better organized and easily sortable for subgroup analyses
• Automatic transcription
• Logistics are minimized
• Less expensive
• No travel, no time out of the office

There are still many limitations from not seeing your consumer live, but it is an interesting analysis of the direction if not the final direction of the qualitative research market.