SOCIAL MEDIA

• Overview
• Advantages
• Web Monitoring
• Proof

The World is Online

The unprecedented growth of the Internet in general, and social media in particular, is giving market researchers a powerful new source of information to better understand their customers and targets. By the end of 2009, according to a report by Forrester Research, more than 85% of online consumers in the United States will be reading social media content. Based on current trends, each year 156 million people will Tweet, 200 million people will use Facebook, and 133 blogs will be active.

Ignore the “Cloud Conversations” At Your Own Peril

In order to gain the most continuous and comprehensive view of the market, today’s market researchers must incorporate web monitoring and social media mining into their toolbox. When social media are ignored, researchers miss out on millions of ideas, issues, opinions and trends that are expressed every single day. So, the real question is not “if” but rather “how” you should incorporate social media into your marketing research.

Plug Into the Web…Plug the Web Into Your Research

Social media monitoring is best used as a listening tool that is combined with existing market research methods to uncover ideas and trends, accelerate learning, and expand the quality and depth of insights. Using advanced technology for capturing and processing social media mentions, market researchers can continuously spot trends, gauge positive and negative sentiment, and quantitatively validate and segment the trends and sentiments. Using this approach, social media immediately provides real value in a wide variety of research applications including trend tracking, concept tests, awareness and usage, customer satisfaction and more.