Ray Poynter from The Future Place provides an updated review of Social Media Research in this #NewMR webinar.

1. Social Media Research - 2015
Ray Poynter, UK, May 2015
Social Media Research – 2015
An updated review
Ray Poynter
The Future Place & NewMR
28 May 2015
#NewMR 2015
Corporate Sponsors
#NewMR 2015
Supporters
Schlesinger Associates
Keen as Mustard

2. Social Media Research - 2015
Ray Poynter, UK, May 2015
Agenda
The Promise
The Challenges
The Successes
The Future
Q & A

3. Social Media Research - 2015
Ray Poynter, UK, May 2015
The Promise – 10 Years Ago
Why listen to some of us
(e.g. surveys & focus
groups), when you can
listen to all of us? (i.e.
social media)
Shift from the brand’s
agenda to the customer’s
agenda
Social media research
forecast to replace MR
– Just like big data is now
going to replace MR
Treat everybody as an
individual, demographics
are out of date

4. Social Media Research - 2015
Ray Poynter, UK, May 2015
The Challenges
Observations
• SMR can answer questions not asked,
but can be weak on questions that are
being asked
• SMR tools being used less by client-
side insight teams
• But use by sales, marketing, PR etc.
increasing
• Considerable doubts about
‘Sentiment Analysis’
• What does SMR miss?

5. Social Media Research - 2015
Ray Poynter, UK, May 2015
https://www.visioncritical.com/social-customers/

6. Social Media Research - 2015
Ray Poynter, UK, May 2015
Google Flu Trends
http://www.google.org/flutrends/ May 2015

7. Social Media Research - 2015
Ray Poynter, UK, May 2015
Google Flu Trends - Japan

8. Social Media Research - 2015
Ray Poynter, UK, May 2015
Google Flu – the failures

9. Social Media Research - 2015
Ray Poynter, UK, May 2015
Flu Near You – a crowdsourced approach

10. Social Media Research - 2015
Ray Poynter, UK, May 2015
SMR and Gartner’s Hype Cycle
Peak of inflated expectations (2008)
Trough of disillusionment (2013)
Slope of enlightenment (now)
Plateau of productivity (soon)

11. Social Media Research - 2015
Ray Poynter, UK, May 2015
Predicting Tracking Results from SM
• TNS are leading the public
front on this one
• They have found that
SMR can predict tracking
scores about 8 weeks in
advance
– Making tracking a lot more
useful and cheaper
– Their model is based in
using SMR and surveys
– Hybrid human/machine
• SMR is not being used to
be representative, it is
used to be predictive
• TNS studied 61 brands
• R2 of 0.9 with tracking, up
to 8 weeks in advance
– SMR relates more closely
than attributes to brand
equity
– And to sales data
TNS Paper : http://bit.ly/NewMR_112

12. Social Media Research - 2015
Ray Poynter, UK, May 2015
BT Study
BT Case Study: http://bit.ly/NewMR_113
Net Easy – key metric for success
• DebateScape to trawl social media
• Focus & repetition allow automation
• Social used to resolve problems
• AND, as an input to key metrics
• Lowered costs of operation by $3 million a year

13. Social Media Research - 2015
Ray Poynter, UK, May 2015

14. Social Media Research - 2015
Ray Poynter, UK, May 2015
Twitter and Facebook Analytics
• Think of Facebook and Twitter as advertising
platforms – rather than as social networks
• Becoming leaders in Market Mix Models and
Predictive Analytics
• Tracking/attribution options beyond simple
tools such as cookies
• Experiments and models

15. Social Media Research - 2015
Ray Poynter, UK, May 2015
Big SMR Projects are Often
Better than Small Ones
For example:
– Tracking studies
– BT and services
– CRM and service
integration
– Market Mix Modelling
– Test and learn cycles
Because
– Predictive analytics are
expensive to set up, but
cheap to run
– The best text analytics =
machine learning with
human training – slow &
expensive to create, but
cheap and fast to run

16. Social Media Research - 2015
Ray Poynter, UK, May 2015
NewMR/GreenBook SM Project
Highlighting Success in SMR
• Data collection May 2015
• Using SMR to research the world of MR
• Reporting in June 2015
Participants Include:
• Valerie Esqueda, CultrDig
• Andrew Jeavons, Mass Cognition
• Daniel Fazekas, Bakamo Social
• Mary Aviles, Connect 4 Marketing
• Janet Gunner, MMR International
• Cyndi De Vries, Interact RDT
• Sue Bell, Susan Bell Research
• Preriit Souda, TNS
• Tim Burke, Affinio

17. Social Media Research - 2015
Ray Poynter, UK, May 2015
‘Traditional’ SMR Still Happening
• Kraft: Noticed trend on
‘Cut’, ‘Blood’ & ‘Salad
Dressing’ – a new bottle
was causing problems,
quickly identified and fixed,
thanks to SMR
• Starbucks:
MyStarbucksIdea: still
delivering 1000s of ideas
• Scottish Referendum: The
Drum correctly called a Yes
result from social media
listing
• Argos: UK retailer used
listening to help opening 53
new stores, identifying
issues and responding to
trends.
• ESPN: Partnered with TfL to
show football results on
London Underground
displays, monitored Twitter
to track interest in the
campaign

18. Social Media Research - 2015
Ray Poynter, UK, May 2015
The Near Future
Standalone SMR
– Systems will get better AND
cheaper, and easier to use
– Sentiment analysis will
improve
– The SM world will keep
changing, so re-calibration
essential
– Range extended to all
languages and scripts
Integration
– With survey and other
conventional research
– With panels, communities,
mobile, passive & big data –
more complex maths/stats
– With marketing and service
delivery
– Unlikely to be managed by
the insights team

19. Social Media Research - 2015
Ray Poynter, UK, May 2015
Big Picture
In terms of Gartners’ hype cycle:
– We’ve had Peak of Inflated Expectations & Trough of
Disillusionment
– We’re on the Slope of Enlightenment & on the way to
Plateau of Productivity
The key seems to be integration
– Integration with big data
– Integrations with other market research
– Integration with marketing and service delivery

20. Social Media Research - 2015
Ray Poynter, UK, May 2015
Thank You!

21. Social Media Research - 2015
Ray Poynter, UK, May 2015
Q & A
Ray Poynter
The Future Place
Sue York
Handbook of Mobile
Market Research
#NewMR 2015
Corporate Sponsors
#NewMR 2015
Supporters
Schlesinger Associates
Keen as Mustard