13

Market Research on
Social Media

Previously, I have given enough incidents in HR, lead generation and crowd-
sourcing chapters that prove social media platforms can help businesses do
some basic research using listening tools or by asking questions ins communi-
ties and seek consumer opinions. In this chapter we will explore how social
media is benefiting market research in detail.
A blog post made by Tamara Barbara, an analyst at Forrester, shares three
main trends in how market researchers are using social technologies;
•• Accessing consumers through social sample.
•• Embracing customers via social tools.
•• Listening to audience by mining the social web.
To further explore on this subject, I managed to do an interview with
Mr. Pravin Shekar who is a council member at ESOMAR | kreator-in-chief at
Krea (an India-centric panel research firm focusing on healthcare and youth).
The objective of the interview with this international speaker on market
research was to gain insights on how social media is used from market
research perspectives. According to him, the information gathered on social
media is more timely, accurate, and honest than the one received on ­surveys
these days. Having said that, he also believes social media gives market
research a new horizon completely. In the past, market research analysts
used to research on data to bring ­conclusions or host focus group interviews
and surveys, whereas social media has made things simpler. Communities
now allow people to ask questions and get responses from the people from
different parts of the globe in fractions of seconds. Responses = Perspec-
tives = Data = Deriving Conclusions or M ­ aking Assumptions. However,
he believes social media research is built on top of traditional research and
therefore a mix of tools and m
­ ethodologies are at play.

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While discussing further with Pravin on trends, I have received some insights
on how social media is used popularly in market research process.
1. Collecting Surveys: Social media has become a mode of collection
opinions—through platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn
Groups or LinkedIn InMails, research analysts or students doing disser-
tations have started sending online surveys across communities, individ-
uals, and groups. The process of reaching out to relevant people through
relevant community has now become easier. Various cloud tools such as
surveymonkey.com, Google Forms (in Google Drive), and Facebook and
LinkedIn polls have helped further market researchers.
2. Identifying Right Respondents: Social media has been used for finding
out, validating, and recruiting the right respondents to obtain insights.
When some employees from Beroe Inc. (a market intelligence company)
had participated in my social media workshop, they showcased how
they used LinkedIn Answers and Quora to get their country-based
research questions answered and the respondents who were identified
as relevant analysts, thought leaders in the space were employed to get
further insights.
3. Social Media Ethnography: A process that involves studying or
analyzing social media setting while being immersed in it, is now
­
­practiced by MR professionals to collect relevant and on-time data on
variety of ­topics. This could be made through observation or listening
or a­ nalyzing content and blog posts.
4. MROC (Market Research Online Communities): Researching on
existing online communities or developing a new one extensively to
­understand market has now become a process run by various market
research ­companies across the world. The post made by Tamara Barabar
on ­Forrester Blog also supported the concept of MROC. There are various
types of online research communities as explained in Figure 13.1.
There are about six different types of online research communities discussed
in a Vovici blog, which can be distributed in temporarily (for specific projects,
short period) and permanently (regularly engaged community), which are
sometimes closed or open communities.
•• Permanent
tt Insight Community—Highly interconnected communities of 300–500
members. Helpful for in-depth qualitative research. Data mined here
are highly insightful.
tt Community Panel—An adjunct to an online panel, where only some pan-
elists engage in discussions with one another. The community may be

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 Market Research on Social Media  ◆ 185

OPEN
Idea Jam

Community
Idea Jam Panel
CLOSED

Insight
OLFG BBFG Community

TEMPORARY PERMANENT

Figure 13.1:  Types of Online Research Communities.

Source:  Vovici | The size of each bubble reflects the relative size of the typical community of that type.

either public or private. Typical sizes range from 10,000 to 100,000

members, who have weak relationships with one another. Qualitative
insights raised within the community site can be tested for representa-
tiveness using surveys of the panel (assuming, of course, the panel
itself as representative of a target audience).
tt Idea Voting—People are not interconnected or relationship oriented on
these communities. Some members of the community posts some ideas
and other members validate it by voting it thus helping new ideas evolve
with mass support. This requires extensive vetting and prioritization.
•• Temporary
tt Idea Jam—Bringing offline community to online platform to discuss
on a particular topic. The Idea Jams are usually a three-day-long com-
munity built and dissolved once the ideas evolve. Usual purposes of
such community are brainstorming and planning.
tt BBFG—Bulletin Board Focus Groups last for 3–7 days or more than
that depends upon the depth of research. Around 30–50 participants
are involved in the community to discuss on a particular subject.
With time the relationship and interconnections among participants
happen.
tt OLFG—Online focus group chats are hosted for a few hours. U ­ sually
hosting happens only with the small size for few hours. It is quickly
formed involving a group of individuals. Interconnections and
­relationships are rarely possible here

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Different Research Reports Generated Using Social Media:

Essentially market research agencies or individual research analysts observe
or collect information into a database and mine millions of posts (tweets,
updates on Facebook and LinkedIn, opinions on blog, review sites, and more)
to understand the motivations behind people buying a product, responding
to a trend, sentiments behind experienced service or purchased product, and
demographic behavior from sex, age, and cultural perspectives. ­However,
social media is the easiest place to share opinions and hear the same; the
reports that are usually generated are as follows:
•• Brand-Monitoring Reports: Understand customer’s opinion about the
latest product or services or evaluate their opinions on competitors by
surveying online, listening on social media channels, and initiating con-
versations with MROC methodologies. The other name for this could be
sentimental analysis mostly done post-launch of a product or service.
•• Analyzing Market Trend Report: Many thought leaders, popular opin-
ion makers of industry, and individuals share their opinion on different
industry perspectives and they are heading to help marketers to analyze
current trends.
•• Mapping Customers and Vendors Report: Social media has been used
extensively by businesses to map their customers, track them, and con-
nect with them or run a virtual credibility check before they own them
as a client.
•• Figuring Out Unmet Needs: This process helps report deep and unan-
ticipated consumer insights about unmet needs and alternate uses for
products. Process involves a lot of behavioural studies of existing cus-
tomers and the defined target audience on social media with reference to
industry or products.

Advantages of Using Social Media for Market Research

1. There are no limitations on survey questions; the on-going engagements
in community help marketers learn almost everything in minds of target
audience at different time intervals (as and when required).
2. Hearing social media buzz helps marketers understand customers in
their own words. While hosting surveys or running a focus group, a mar-
keter might look at questions from a particular angle, whereas custom-
ers might have opinions from all the possible perspectives of product.
3. The insights received on social media are timely unlike the traditional
survey processes that take long time in due course of which the actual

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 Market Research on Social Media  ◆ 187

incidents might change. Insight on a new movie launch is available from

day one on Blogs and Twitter and public Facebook updates come direct
from theatre in fact from the premier launch show of the movie itself.
4. Surveys and questions limit the depth of research; you are to know what
you have asked for and you have to know what you need to ask in order
to get solutions. Social media listening has helped many brands discover
intelligence and opinions that could be directly incorporated in business
or that favors business value in a completely unusual way. For example,
The Blue Eno (a digestive soda powder) was used for digestion purpose;
usually only after looking at some cake recipes and discussion forums
online, I had realized that this could also be used for baking cakes—so
that is a two-purpose solution from a single product.
5. No limitation on size unlike panels and forums. Helps get larger per-
spective and opinions from the online discussions.
6. Market research on social media is cost effective. An organization with
effective listening tools and a full-fledged community can always ben-
efit from it by obtaining regular insights and save cost on involving a
market research agency or expensive tools.

References:

Forrester Blog:  http://blogs.forrester.com/tamara_barber/10-05-11-trends_

and_challenges_social_market_research
Voivici Blog: http://blog.vovici.com/blog/bid/33769/Online-Research-
Communities-by-Type

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