How are market researchers using social media?

I happened to pick up the January issue of Research magazine today and found myself immersed in an article which discusses the relationship between social media and our industry. It tackled the interesting discussion of how useful social media can be when applied to market research and how market researcher perceive it.

 The article recognised certain benefits of using social media in research such as connecting with young audiences who are typically less responsive to traditional research methods. However, a selection of the verbatim comments were less positive about using this type of platform with opinions such as ‘unconvinced as of yet, appears to be just a clique of people talking to each other’. Others believe it is a great way to ‘gain a quick perspective on all sorts of different youths and markets’ and that there is a ‘need to be aware of the tools people are using in their lives and to understand options for communication because it is a way of constantly learning.’

Twitter appears to be one of the most popular, one person said ‘as a freelance researcher I find it a great way to connect with other researchers. It is like a surrogate office for me.’

A wordcloud produced by the article record respondent’s answers to the question: what comes to mind when you think of social media? The mainstream platforms of what people tend to think of as ‘social media’ were by far the most dominant words mentioned, with most mentioning either Facebook or Twitter. This could suggest that social media is more associated with networking sites than it is with forums and blogs. There was also a focus on professional networking within social media, with words such as ‘connections’, ‘interaction’ and ‘information’ cropping up as some of the most common. ‘Friends was less popular than ‘connections’ which could mean that social media for many researchers is a business intelligence tool that is used more for professional reasons than of a more personal nature.

However, the magazine did pick up on the fact that there was almost no mention of social media monitoring, web behavioural analytics or netography, which is what we would maybe have expected to see.