In my travels as a social media research evangelist, I’ve heard much admiration for the methodology. So in no particular order, here is the top 10 list of things people love about it.
- You get historical data even after you realize you forgot to measure something
- You can see results almost instantly
- You can track results daily for the same price as weekly or monthly tracking
- It gives you data on hundreds or thousands more variables than a 20 minute survey
- You can discover how people REALLY talk about your brand
- You can listen to people who may have never participated in traditional forms of market research
- Sample sizes can be in the millions
- You can conduct research all around the world while wearing your pajamas
- You can have it qual or quant or qualiquant
- It informs more traditional methods of research
Have I missed any of your top loves of social media research? Let me know!
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Great list. #5 is the one that excites me the most – people don’t hold back in giving opinions (whether good or bad) – things are framed in their own words rather than in research-speak.
Another one which I would add:
Opinions can often be given at the time of product use (to be fair, this is shared with other forms of research eg mobile). No asking people to think about any time they’ve eaten a chocolate bar in the last 3 months and how they felt at the time. No, I go and buy a chocolate bar, I eat it, I love it, I’ve got a few minutes of idle time so I’ll go and post about it on Twitter or Facebook RIGHT NOW while I’m still chewing. If you’re looking at alcohol brands you can even see what people are saying when they’re drunk (or hungover)!
On that note, i like how wordpress lets me reply and and post with one click instead of two clicks. Would i feel like saying that a week from now on a survey? Probably not.