This document discusses how social media can be used for consumer insights in marketing research. It describes what types of data can be monitored on social media, including conversations, photos, videos and more. There are two main types of marketing research using social media: primary research involving direct data collection, and secondary research using existing internal or public data. Qualitative and quantitative research methods for analyzing social media data are also outlined. The document cautions about potential errors and biases when conducting social media research.

1. Social Media for
Consumer Insights
Allison, Danielle, Stephanie

2. Social Media in Research
-By definition, social media research is the application of
scientific marketing research principles to the collection
and analysis of social media data such that valid and
reliable results are produced
-Since every decision marketers make is based on what
they know about the target audience, marketers need to
know the answers to questions about consumer
personalities and past experiences, motives and fears,
responses to campaigns, brand loyalties, and media usages

3. What can researchers monitor?
-Anything that is publicly available in the social media space.
This includes:
-Conversations in social networks and forums
-Blog posts and comments
-Product reviews, photos shared in sites such as Flickr
-Videos shared on sites such as YouTube
-Social bookmarks and comments
-Microblog posts

4. What can researchers monitor?
There are two types of marketing research to help marketers:
Primary research:
-Information is collected for the research purposes at hand
-Primary data can help marketers to understand consumers in
the market, including psychological makeup, spending and
media consumption patterns, and responsiveness to message
appeals and offers
-Primary research is conducted by observation, focus groups,
and in-depth interviews

5. What can researchers monitor?
Secondary research:
-Information is already collected and available for use
-It may be internal, published publicly, or available through
syndicated sources
-Information might include data on background on the market,
industry, competitors, and the brand’s history
After data is collected, it is analyzed using qualitative research.

6. Qualitative Social Media Research
Two types of research involved:
Observational Research:
-Involves recording behavior or the residual evidence of behavior
-The goal is to listen and respond, more so than to pursue systematic research
-This method is very useful for social listening. The following are some of the
top tools to use for social media listening:
-Technorati -Google blog search -Google Trends
-Blog pulse -Twitter search -Trendrr
-OneRiot -Kosmix -TalkDigger
-Hashtags -Trendpedia -Google Alerts

7. Qualitative Social Media Research
Ethnographic Research (Netnography):
-Adapts ethnographic research techniques to study the communities
that emerge online
-Used when marketers want to know how “real” consumers use
their products
-This method is useful when wanting a deep understanding of a
specific community or target audience.
-Can get information through online forums such as chat rooms,
message boards, and social networking groups to study the attitudes
and behaviors of the market involved

8. The Dark Side of Social Media
-Before r
researchers conduct a study, they need to get informed
consent from all participants
-In the social media environment, many people share their
personal information, so researchers feel they do not need to seek
permission to analyze the content
-Some researchers engage in social media communities so that
they can access data and even start conversations with people on
the topic they are researching (social media’s version of “man-on-the-
street interviews")

9. The Dark Side of Social Media
As a start toward developing guidelines for social media researchers, one
blogger proposed a set of rules which include:
-If content is posted to a public domain, it can be used by the researcher
-If content is posted in a “gated community”, researchers should announce
their presence and request cooperation.
-Processing of personally identifiable data should require informed consent
-All data should be made anonymous
-Take steps to ensure that no harm is done

10. Quantitative Social Media Research
Monitoring and Tracking
-Social media monitoring is one of the most popular approaches to social media
research
-It works with the aid of software that searches keywords and crawls the web
for information (eg. Google)
-Monitoring explains what was said, when, by whom, and how many times
-Researchers collect this information and then set up a research design so that
their hypotheses can be tested out properly

11. Quantitative Social Media Research
Sentiment Analysis
-A sentiment refers to how people think of feel about an object such as a
brand or a political candidate
-Collecting and analyzing sentiment data can provide an alternative to
attitudinal surveys of consumers if people are talking about what you need to
know in social spaces
-It is sometimes called “opinion mining”, which means to analyze the
content to determine the attitude of the writer
-When people feel a certain way they are likely to choose certain words that
tend to relate to an emotion. From these words, the researcher will create a
“word-phrase dictionary” to code the date

12. Quantitative Social Media Research
Content Analysis
-An analysis approach used to identify the presence of concepts and themes
within qualitative data sets
-For example, a researcher might test a hypothesis that TV commercials
reinforce traditional sex-role attitudes by sampling a large number of ads that
aired during a certain period of time and comparing the occupations that male
versus female actors portrayed
-To conduct a content analysis, the text is broken down into categories--word,
word sense, phrase, sentence, and theme--and then examined further for
interpretation

13. Caution! Errors and Biases
Every study has a certain amount of error that
cannot be precisely specified
- Researches goal is to minimize
- Coverage Error
- Sampling Error
- Nonresponse Bias

14. Coverage Error
1st source of potential error
- Failure to cover components of population
- Tweets are largely public content
- Fail to specify places people hang out
- GameTalk forum not included as a group

15. Sampling Error
Result of collecting data from only a subset
- Heightens chance of results being wrong
- Example: Sampled female gamers in 50s
Two situations causes concerns
- Echo Effect
- Participation Effect

16. Echo Effect and Participation Effect
Echo Effect AKA → Online Echo: refers to the
duplication in conversation volume that tends to
occur in social media spaces
Example: Twitter
- How should retweets and reposts be counted in a study?
- How should researchers handle these issues in the
collection of data?

17. Nonresponse Bias
The potential that those units that were not included in the final
sample are significantly different from those that were
- People who are willing to take a 30 minute phone survey
may differ from those that don’t
Why are we concerned?
- Specified population based on communities customers are
likely to use
- Ultimate Interest = attitude and behaviors of peoples, not
sites

18. Sampling Weights
Issues can be managed after data collected using →
Sampling Weights: adjustment factors applied to adjust for
differences in probability of selection between cases in a
sample
- Example: Less than 9% Internet users are Twitter users
but generates up to 60% of SM monitoring tool monitor
To get a more accurate picture → Sample relatively fewer
tweets than other kind of posts

19. Sample of Social Media Monitoring Providers
- Radian 6
- Broad coverage of SM channels
- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8i6Exg3Urg0&list
=PLC252F7845BE744AE&index=7
- ScoutLabs
- Affordable = $250/Month
- Sysomos
- NetBase

20. Example of Primary Research
Firefly MB
- global qualitative research
company
- Paritpants → 15 countires
- message boards, Facebook,
Twitter and Craigslist

21. Case Study: Dove Real Beauty
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r79Q6gAQ
hao

22. Group Activity
Now it’s YOUR turn!
1. Come up with a campaign that would
impact people’s lives. You can include a
pre-existing brand if you would like.
2. Who is your target audience?
3. What social media would you use to
promote the campaign?