Quirk's - Qualitatively Speaking: Going social with qualitative research

For 25 years Quirk's Marketing Research Review has been providing practical applications in marketing research. The company's mission is to be the marketing research information source for those that conduct, coordinate and purchase research product and services.

Quirks posted a very interesting article titled:

"Qualitatively Speaking: Going social with qualitative research"

OutsideIn Strategies has a broad array of strategic research methodologies including on-line and social media applications. Katie Sweeney, Founder and Principal of OutsideIn, commented on the Quirk's article:

"This is a spot-on article on how social media can be leveraged in strategic research.  OutsideIn Strategies is really excited to include this latest tool in our arsenal of qualitative methodologies to efficiently deliver valuable insights as a precursor or add on to more traditional approaches."

Some interesting excerpts from the Quirk's article include:

• Qualitative researchers use a trained eye to look beyond the obvious and pinpoint trends and translate statements into insights. That knowledge is harvested from online forums, such as social media posts and comments, and key pieces of actionable information are identified from the millions of conversations that occur publicly every day.

• Many qualitative researchers who use social media agree that it provides unparalleled opportunities for insight. At the same time, it is commonly viewed as one piece of a larger approach. There are numerous ways that social media analysis can accompany, supplement or guide traditional research efforts...Social media analysis can often be used as the first phase of a mixed methodology. When starting with a broad category, mining posts and comments on social media channels can help pinpoint areas that consumers care about the most.

• Just as social media is changing the way brands market to consumers, it’s also changing the way consumers expect to interact with a brand. More and more people are welcoming brands into their lives via social media platforms. Some consumers expect to experience a brand online and expect that brand to hear their opinions via online channels.

• One benefit of social media research is observing consumers in their natural environment. People who are familiar with the product/service chat candidly about what they like, what they don’t like and what they expect from a brand...Taking it further, understanding how consumers talk about a product or understanding what they expect delivers invaluable direction on how to market a product.

• Just as social media is changing the way brands market to consumers, it’s also changing the way consumers expect to interact with a brand. More and more people are welcoming brands into their lives via social media platforms. Some consumers expect to experience a brand online and expect that brand to hear their opinions via online channels.

• That firsthand glimpse of how consumers talk about a product reveals another distinct benefit: alternative product uses...Or, in some situations, it’s less about usage and more about audience. Social media research can reveal groups of people outside the target audience who are using the product...In addition, social media research can supplement traditional new-product development research. It can be used to discover what people are saying about competitive products or unmet needs in the marketplace.

Social Measurement update from Scot Wheeler of IMedia Connection

Very interesting series of Blogs by Scot Wheeler of iMedia Connection:

• The Path to Meaningful Social Measurement
• The Four Principles of Social ROI Measurement
• The ROI of Social Media ROI

Highlights include:

Current approaches to social media measurement come in two forms:

1. Content-based monitoring or “listening” evaluates the content of conversations to assess current perceptions, and guide future engagement.
2. Context-based “social graph” analysis evaluates relationships and interactions within and across the social graph to assess networks and their capability to drive business objectives.

Web analytics has an established competency in building a data-driven management culture and providing business insights from digital data. Thus, it is a natural candidate to advance organizations from the raw volume or “count” metrics such as “Followers”, “Likes”, “Views” etc. to give managers integrated performance insights from ratios such as “comments/post”, “comments/page likes”, “links followed/re-tweet” and “conversions/social click-through”, which will be even more valuable when used in conjunction with the content analysis mentioned above.

Finally, as new solutions begin to align social media profile, content and relationship data with existing CRM databases, the web analytics function transformed into 'Marketing Science' has a clear role in developing digital strategy and performance insights from these combined data-sets.

Many disciplines have faced significant challenges with emerging technologies, methodologies and organizational readiness to bring social media measurement to its current state. Web analytics must now help advance the cause by bringing its competencies, experiences, requirements and standards to bear on the next generation of tools and approaches.

20|20 Research CEO, Jim Bryson delivers new eBook.

20|20 Research has provided qualitative support services since the 1960's. Their new eBook, Mixed Methodologies 101: How to combine research methods to achieve deeper insights, outlines the process—soup to nuts—for three popular hybrid research designs:

1. Quantitative to Qualitative:
2. Online Qualitative Research to Online Qualitative Research
3. Online Qualitative Research to In-Person

Download the eBook, Mixed Methodologies 101: How to combine research methods to achieve deeper insights.

Tom Fishburne on Mobile Marketing with #QRCodes

Tom Fishburne is quite clever. Having just made the personal switch to the iPhone from the Blackberry, it is a good time to highlight his work on Quick Response codes.

Some marketers are calling 2011 “The Year of the QR Code”, predicting that mobile tagging will become mainstream. Those little black and white tags are popping up everywhere: in billboards, magazine ads, and even tombstones.

QR (or quick response) codes carry the potential of connecting the offline world to the online world, giving a call to action to just about anything. And they use technology that is now in everyone’s pockets.

Full Story @ TomFishburne Gallery

Engaging Bloggers 101 - Don't give them fake food or numbers

According to Wikipedia, "a blog   is a type of website or part of a website. Blogs are usually maintained by an individual with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or video. Entries are commonly displayed in reverse-chronological order. Blog can also be used as a verb, meaning to maintain or add content to a blog."

The following is an excerpt from Sysomos, a social media analytics firm, on Blogging guidelines:

We’re living in a world in which newsrooms are shrinking while bloggers are filling the content void, along with people “reporting” on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, etc. Either ConAgra got some very bad advice, they don’t understand bloggers, or they just screwed up.

As the world changes very slowly towards online networks,

1. Treat bloggers the same way you would treat a reporter. Some bloggers have large audiences and some have a small readership but most bloggers are serious and passionate about what they write about. In that way, they are just as credible as a reporter.

2. Do your homework. Not every blogger is the same. Some are serious, some are crazy, some write a lot, some offer thought-provoking columns, some rant, some want to make money, and some do it for fun. The key consideration for companies getting a good handle on the blogging ecosystem, and then identifying the bloggers that matter most to them. After that, they should embrace rule #1.

3. Provide bloggers with the same kind of resources and access as reporters. In other words, bring them inside the tent rather than on the outside looking in. Keep in mind, it doesn’t have to be all of them. Just like not every reporter will get an interview with the CEO or an invite to a press conference, bloggers should be treated the same way. While many bloggers aren’t looking to make money from blogging, their “compensation” can simply be a recognition of their efforts.

4. Don’t be afraid of bloggers. It is surprising to hear corporate executives still talk about how blogging is the Wild West and how bloggers are unruly gunslingers that can’t be managed or trusted. If you do your homework and treat bloggers with respect, they’ll probably respect you right back.

5. Recognize that bloggers can help your company just as much as you can help them. They can help you spread the word, provide feedback, evangelize and solid editorial coverage. If bloggers are treated as a potential asset, it increases the chance of them providing a good return on investment.

6. Remember most bloggers don’t make money from blogging. The compensation consists of other things: respect, vanity, access, recognition, invitations, etc.