Social media, such as Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and LinkedIn, give opportunities to marketing researchers to understand their customers and potential customers like never before. Companies can ask themselves, “Who are our fans? What can they teach us about our brand?” Answers to these questions first require building dialogue and customer communities about a company or brand.
Much social media marketing research is different from traditional survey research. Rather than a product manager asking a research team to determine X, Y, and Z, and then having the researchers conduct the survey and provide the requested feedback, social media research is more interactive, via a few questions and observations over time. By analyzing social media exchanges about a product or service, researchers can learn what factors customers use to determine value, as well as the way they speak about the product, service, or brand.
Dr. Pepper spent years building its 8.5-million-strong fan base on Facebook. Now, careful tracking and testing with those Facebook users who say they “like” the soft drink helps the brand figure out how to hone its marketing messages. It sends out two messages daily on its Facebook fan page, and then listens to the fan’s reactions. Using tools from Facebook, Dr. Pepper can measure how many times a message is viewed, how many times it is shared with other Facebook users, and what fan responses say.
Much social media marketing research is different from traditional survey research. Rather than a product manager asking a research team to determine X, Y, and Z, and then having the researchers conduct the survey and provide the requested feedback, social media research is more interactive, via a few questions and observations over time. By analyzing social media exchanges about a product or service, researchers can learn what factors customers use to determine value, as well as the way they speak about the product, service, or brand.
Dr. Pepper spent years building its 8.5-million-strong fan base on Facebook. Now, careful tracking and testing with those Facebook users who say they “like” the soft drink helps the brand figure out how to hone its marketing messages. It sends out two messages daily on its Facebook fan page, and then listens to the fan’s reactions. Using tools from Facebook, Dr. Pepper can measure how many times a message is viewed, how many times it is shared with other Facebook users, and what fan responses say.
“We mine the data to understand what is appreciated, and what is not,” says Robert Stone, director of interactive media services for Dr. Pepper Snapple Group.43 For example, the company learned that diehard Dr. Pepper fans like edgy one-liners. One of the best performing messages: “If liking you is wrong, we don’t want to be right.” And they dislike messages that focus on prices and special offers. “It just isn’t relevant to their passion about the brand,” Mr. Stone says.
Conduction a Facebook Focus Group
The National Cattlemen’s Beef Association (NCBA) was interested in understanding beef consumption habits of millennials (those between the ages of 13 and 30). A group of respondents were recruited who not only met the age criteria to be considered a millennial but also met certain demographic and psychographic screening criteria specific to this study: eat beef at least twice a month; have some level of involvement in meal planning and/or prep; use Facebook regularly (at least twice a week) and have at least 25 friends on Facebook; can answer a series of attitudinal questions about current and future life plans; and are part of a representative mix of gender, age, and marital status.
Participants were recruited the same was they would for any other online focus group or IDI with one exception. After qualifying and agreeing to take part in the study, participants were asked to visit a Facebook page the researchers set up for the group, become its friend, and then return to the survey and answer some additional questions to verify that they had indeed visited the site. The latter measure was added to ensure that they were comfortable navigating on Facebook.
Conduction a Facebook Focus Group
The National Cattlemen’s Beef Association (NCBA) was interested in understanding beef consumption habits of millennials (those between the ages of 13 and 30). A group of respondents were recruited who not only met the age criteria to be considered a millennial but also met certain demographic and psychographic screening criteria specific to this study: eat beef at least twice a month; have some level of involvement in meal planning and/or prep; use Facebook regularly (at least twice a week) and have at least 25 friends on Facebook; can answer a series of attitudinal questions about current and future life plans; and are part of a representative mix of gender, age, and marital status.
Participants were recruited the same was they would for any other online focus group or IDI with one exception. After qualifying and agreeing to take part in the study, participants were asked to visit a Facebook page the researchers set up for the group, become its friend, and then return to the survey and answer some additional questions to verify that they had indeed visited the site. The latter measure was added to ensure that they were comfortable navigating on Facebook.
One of the concerns with using Facebook as the platform was a general lack of security associated with using an open social networking site. To remedy this, once the group was fully recruited, the researchers simply changed the settings of the page to the highest level of privacy (by invite only). Participants would need to be engaged in this discussion for six weeks. The researchers knew that a study of that length could lead to participant burnout, so they initiated processes to minimize the impact:
▪ A new topic was posted about two to three times per week. This reduced the need for the participants to come to the group every day and avoided inundating them with daily messages.
▪ The moderator of the discussion was a millennial himself who understood the principles of moderating and knew how to engage the group in a fun and unintimidating way. He was talking to his peers on Facebook, something he does regularly anyway.
▪ The moderator validated the opinions of the participants. He added his commentary to their responses and occasionally would try out a new idea that was developed based on their answers. These millennials knew they were being listened to because the discussion was built around what they had said previously.
▪ Random prize drawings were held throughout the six weeks of the discussion. In addition to the honorarium they received for taking part in the discussion, participants would occasionally be offered a chance to win a gift card for giving the best idea, sharing recipes and cooking ideas, or just being selected at random among those who participated that day.
The aim was to have 60 millennials fully participate in the discussion. Some drop-off was expected, particularly given the length of time and the season in which this session was conducted (it began mid-November and ran right up to the week of Christmas). A total of 227 millennials qualified and agreed to take part in the group. Of this, 119 friended the group (52 percent) and, of those, 66 were actively engaged (55 percent). These were 27 topics posted, with 1,545 total responses by the participants. This equates to about 57 responses per topic and about 22 responses per participant.47 The National Cattlemen’s Beef Association obtained valuable insights on how to improve packaging, distribution, in-store promotions, and social media marketing. The focus group allowed for a rich, colorful, and dynamic dialogue between participants and the moderator.
Conducting Surveys
For researchers wanting to conduct traditional survey research, social media can be used as a respondent recruiting tool. Persons who “like” a product or service or members of web communities, can be sent an email with a link to an external site where the person can take theweb survey.
There are many apps available for administering social media surveys. Survey Monkey’s app enables the researcher to embed a survey on Facebook. A survey can be created by using a Survey Monkey template, or one can choose from the Survey Monkey Question Bank. Survey Monkey’s advice is to make the survey short, offer incentives, and make it fun. That is, be friendly and show some personality.
Facebook also offers tools for conducting surveys at http://apps.facebook.com/opinionpolls. For example, to ask a question or questions to a group, you click ASK QUESTION at the top of a group. Next, you enter a question and add poll options if you wish. Then click POST to share it with the group. TwitPolls lets Twitter users ask questions of their followers and receive tallied results at the cost of the user-determined survey time frame. The app allows brands and companies to gather real-time feedback from their followers without forcing followers to leave the Twitter environment. All social media have apps for survey research. The researcher must decide which social media will provide the survey population of interest and which app offers the tools needed to best extract the type of decision-making information needed.
▪ A new topic was posted about two to three times per week. This reduced the need for the participants to come to the group every day and avoided inundating them with daily messages.
▪ The moderator of the discussion was a millennial himself who understood the principles of moderating and knew how to engage the group in a fun and unintimidating way. He was talking to his peers on Facebook, something he does regularly anyway.
▪ The moderator validated the opinions of the participants. He added his commentary to their responses and occasionally would try out a new idea that was developed based on their answers. These millennials knew they were being listened to because the discussion was built around what they had said previously.
▪ Random prize drawings were held throughout the six weeks of the discussion. In addition to the honorarium they received for taking part in the discussion, participants would occasionally be offered a chance to win a gift card for giving the best idea, sharing recipes and cooking ideas, or just being selected at random among those who participated that day.
The aim was to have 60 millennials fully participate in the discussion. Some drop-off was expected, particularly given the length of time and the season in which this session was conducted (it began mid-November and ran right up to the week of Christmas). A total of 227 millennials qualified and agreed to take part in the group. Of this, 119 friended the group (52 percent) and, of those, 66 were actively engaged (55 percent). These were 27 topics posted, with 1,545 total responses by the participants. This equates to about 57 responses per topic and about 22 responses per participant.47 The National Cattlemen’s Beef Association obtained valuable insights on how to improve packaging, distribution, in-store promotions, and social media marketing. The focus group allowed for a rich, colorful, and dynamic dialogue between participants and the moderator.
Conducting Surveys
For researchers wanting to conduct traditional survey research, social media can be used as a respondent recruiting tool. Persons who “like” a product or service or members of web communities, can be sent an email with a link to an external site where the person can take theweb survey.
There are many apps available for administering social media surveys. Survey Monkey’s app enables the researcher to embed a survey on Facebook. A survey can be created by using a Survey Monkey template, or one can choose from the Survey Monkey Question Bank. Survey Monkey’s advice is to make the survey short, offer incentives, and make it fun. That is, be friendly and show some personality.
Facebook also offers tools for conducting surveys at http://apps.facebook.com/opinionpolls. For example, to ask a question or questions to a group, you click ASK QUESTION at the top of a group. Next, you enter a question and add poll options if you wish. Then click POST to share it with the group. TwitPolls lets Twitter users ask questions of their followers and receive tallied results at the cost of the user-determined survey time frame. The app allows brands and companies to gather real-time feedback from their followers without forcing followers to leave the Twitter environment. All social media have apps for survey research. The researcher must decide which social media will provide the survey population of interest and which app offers the tools needed to best extract the type of decision-making information needed.
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