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Market Research in the Groundswell #MRA_AC

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Josh Bernoff, the senior vice president of idea development with Forrester (a bit like being the Chief Imagineer of industry analysts), presented the keynote address at the 2010 Marketing Research Association annual conference.

Josh is one of the authors of the bestseller Groundswell. He defines a groundswell as "a social trend in which people use technologies to get the things they need from each other, rather than from traditional institutions like corporations." The tools may come and go, but "the social trend is constant as the tools change."

These social tools can generate great market research insights. "Of course," said Josh, "I know the kind of people you are. You are going to say that ‘the data here is not representative'. Actually, knowing the kind of people you, you are going to say that ‘the data here are not representative'!"

"Projecting to the total population is a perilous thing but this is an excellent place to hear what is going on." Which brought Josh to his first rule of social-media market research: "Social applications are typically better at generating hypotheses than at testing them."

In his presentation, Josh answered three key questions:

1. Who participates in social apps? 83% of online users participate in social activities, and the younger you are, the more likely you are to be active. Check out the Social Technographics ladder, which has rungs for Inactives, Spectators, Joiners, Collectors, Critics, Conversationalists and Creators. While three years of research back up these technographics, the Conversationalist category is new and reflects people updating their status on Twitter or another social networking site. More people have taken a step up the ladder, with Inactives having declined from 44% in 2007 to 18% in 2009. The percent who are creators hasn't changed much: "Social media participation will become universal but not everyone is a creator." For now, "social participation is variable: marketers must analyze their customers before moving forward." (Case study: PTC.)
2. How can market research use social applications? Here Josh referenced the work of Forrester analyst Tamara Barber, "How can Market Researchers Get Social?". The three ways MR are using social applications:
1. Accessing sample - recruit people from social and then use traditional tools
2. Listening - eavesdrop on what people are saying, which is very revealing but can be very misleading
3. Embracing - creating communities for market research insights
3. What are the dynamics of peer influence? Josh's new book is Empowered, about "what to do in an environment where any individual can affect a brand profoundly".  He looks at influence impressions: the number of posts a person makes times the number of friends they have. In his peer influence analysis, he identifies 500 billion impressions, where Nielsen Online estimates there are 2 trillion online ad impressions. So word of mouth makes up 20% of these online impressions. For status updates, Facebook has 62% share, followed by MySpace at 18% and Twitter at 10%. For influence posts, ratings and reviews have 32% share, discussion forums 29%, blog comments 24% share, beating out blog posts themselves, at 16% share. "Peer influence is concentrated: 6% of online adults create 80% of influence impressions." With peer influence, you can treat word of mouth as a channel. 

Empowered: Unleash Your Employees, Energize Your Customers, and Transform Your Business will be available August 31 in September.