Lets Face it - is facebook the new buzzword in research circles?

In the past couple of months I have encountered facebook –quite literally - wherever I have turned my face! I have seen it land up in my inbox as invites from friends, pop up in conversations with colleagues, featured on blog posts and finally yesterday I was sent an article on - what sites like face book and myspace mean for research?

In the midst of all this I caught on to the facebook bandwagon just to see what it was all about!

From the little time that I have spent on facebook here is what I’ve observed…

What are people there for?

Small conversations that may not be of any consequence. Things like Wassup with you? Saw ur pics…really liked them or Am off to SL…see you guys in a week.

Grant McCracken has a good post on this – How social networks work . He refers to these as ‘phatic conversations’

This is communication with little hard, informational content, but lots of emotional and social content. Phatic communications doesn't get much said, but it has social effects so powerful, it gets lots done

It seems like a place for dipping in and out rather than immersing oneself deeply. Immersing would involve investment of a lot more energy and time. Perhaps email / IM would be a relatively more immersive style of communication.

My conjecture is – that’s what keeps the regularity of such conversations going and these networks thriving. Dropping in a one-liner on someone’s facebook wall is far less taxing than sitting down to write an email which would warrant some thought, structure and purpose.

So what does it mean for research?

Research has traditionally warranted an immersive approach to conversations. Lengthy & purposeful.

Online research and the use of discussion boards brought some change to this format. That was all about recruiting a panel and having short, non immersive, regular conversations with a set of people. Those were still purposeful conversations

What then is the difference between using a social networking site for research as opposed to using a discussion forum? The way I see it is that participants who are part of a discussion board have been brought there / have come on their own volition - for a specific purpose vis-à-vis people on social networking sites who are already hanging around there.

The difference is also that people at social networking sites are hanging around there and primarily engaging in Phatic conversations – the everyday emotional fillers. The kind of conversations marketers / researchers are likely to have on such platforms would not be quite like that. Even if they are limited to the small non immersive format – they are still going to be purposeful and rational – and therefore not likely to fulfill the need that people are there for.

The closest example I could think of was lunch time conversations that I would have with my female colleagues about inane things, interjected by our boss who’d spoil the party by constantly talking something work related. Even if it was something as small as just throwing up a question – it would be met out with disgusting looks – since that was not the right time and place to talk about such affairs.

What could be the way of tapping into social networking sites?

To start with it would require being sensitive to why people are on that channel. Use it to create that initial contact – open up a channel of communication….perhaps even understanding the way a target group thinks. I would be weary of using the platform literally to conduct research

Your thoughts?

Mining blogs: pertinent chat

The article originally appeared in AQR's In Brief Jan 2007 issue.

________________________________________________________________

Listening, conversing and communicating, three aspects of qualitative research, were examined by speakers from AQR at this year’s QRCA conference***. If our work involves listening to consumer reality, interpreting it and communicating it to the marketer ­ is there an emerging part of this reality that we as researchers are not tuned into?

Historically, communication between marketers and consumers has been a closed end loop. On the one hand, marketers have sent out messages to consumers. On the other, they’ve sought feedback from them through traditional research. This modus operandi was effective until the ‘Internet juggernaut’ appeared.

Now, consumers can not only speak their mind but also broadcast their opinions. The deluge of marketing messages ­ combined with low consumer trust ­ has led to people relying on one another’s opinions to make sense of the muddle, prompting conversations between them. These chats are to be found on blogs/consumer sites and have so far escaped the information loop.

- Not being privy to these conversations is to remain oblivious to a vital part of the consumer’s world. But that is not the only reason to tap into blogs.
- Opinions on blogs are unsolicited and, therefore, likely to result from experience or strong beliefs. Anonymity only adds to the authenticity.
- Blogs are updated frequently, almost as soon as bloggers have something to say, making them an immensely valuable medium for tracking trends, buzzwords and initial reactions to a launch.
- Blog conversations leave behind a trail of links, useful for understanding how information flows and how opinions are shaped and influenced.
- Blogs help in exploratory research to understand consumer language, develop working hypotheses and fine tune information needs.
-Tracking blogs over time can help acquire a deeper understanding of a target segment since a blogger shares his opinions on many issues and that gives ‘context’ to the information gathered.

Blog mining as a technique is evolving so there is no definitive approach to be prescribed. Here, however, are a few pointers for those embarking on research involving blogs:

- Shortlist a sample of bloggers based on their authority on your subject using blog search engines like Google Blog Search and Technorati.
- Define the time frame: while looking for post-launch reactions allow for a lag of 5-7 days for consumers to explore product features/form opinions.
- Bloggers don’t always post unique opinions. Some just link to one another. Allow for a buffer in your sample for data duplication.
- Blogs are living evolving thoughts. Sometimes issues that are simple to start with acquire dimensions as readers comment. Remember to follow the thread and budget for a bit of time since some trails can lead you on a long trek.

Consumers are opening up a bit more of their world to us. It’s time we took notice.

______________________________________________________________

*** The webcast and many others can be heard on the QRCA website.
The AQR library has an excellent collection of articles on qualitative research


Blog Mining,Blogs and qualitative research,online qualitative research,

On Blogfest reflections and Qual Research

So the party's over and what a riot it has been! Over 40 posts put up by 9 Bloggers who took time out to write about bathrooms for just about a week. It has been exhausting as all of us admit, but it has also been interesting to read so many diverse perspectives in such a short span of time. And it has proved to be an excellent forum for ideation - thoughts developed as we went along the way and one thing led to another to build the momentum. Thanks to Susan and Stephanie who sparked this all off and all the rest who joined in.

As i recover from all the weeks activity, I wonder how effective this is as a medium to get quick and focussed consumer feedback. I had written sometime back about reasons that make blogs a serious market research tool. If we look at 'consumer-speak' as companies would find it on blogs, though information of this kind is spontaneous, unsolicited and less likely to be fraught with postured responses and that is what makes it valuable. the content may / may not be the blogger's most recent thoughts about a subject, the blogger may not have spoken about what exactly the marketer is looking for and more than anything such information is dispersed. Though it is possible to search and find people who have blogged about a subject the exercise may be too tedious and time consuming. Reasons like these and many more may discourage marketers from looking at blogs for consumer research.

The solution at hand: A blogfest.

Essentially recruit a panel of bloggers (and like traditional research, you need not keep market research professionals out of it in the fear that it may skew responses since researchers are consumers too and sometimes the more picky ones thanks to all the research they do). The more diverse the panel, the better. Rope in people from the field of communications, product design, advertising, research, marketing or just a bunch of creative college kids. They do not have to be all consumers of your product as long as they are aware of what is being spoken about and have a perspective to offer.

Agree on a time frame that suits most people.

Give them time to plan their posts, gather material. If it helps give them homework activity - having to visit the supermarket to familiarise themselves with your brands, category or go observe people at the local McDonalds or Starbucks. Whatever it is - make it fun!

Orient them to the topic. Give them some sort of a background, share with them the questions that your product team has been grappling with, your marketing objectives etc.

....And have them start blogging posting each day / several times a day and cross linking to each other to show development of thoughts. Encourage people to post pictures, quote real life experiences, upload audio-video clips...what ever they need to do to get their point across.

It would help to have a quick online meeting in the chat room some days before the fest, to exchange thoughts and just to avoid repetitive posts. You could also stop mid - week to review what's been happening and ideas / topics that need more fleshing out / have not been taken up by anyone.

If you see the excitement fizzling out, you could throw in activities around the theme to energize the crowd !

And at the end of it - I'm sure you'd have a ton of rich information you'd have gathered that you can work with - and a bunch of exhausted yet happy bloggers!

research method,qualitative research,blogs and market research,blogfest,

9 reasons that make blogs a serious market research tool

1.That consumers do express opinions about their experiences surrounding products on blogs

2.That other consumers read these opinions and to a certain extent trust these messages more than they would trust marketing messages since these come from an independent source and not the marketer

3.That opinions on blogs are unsolicited, spontaneous expressions by the user and there is a greater likelihood of finding the truth here - about what users think about your brand – than you would find in a focus group

4.That the immediacy of this medium is unbeatable. Blogs tend to be updated frequently…once in a few days, sometimes even several times in a day and there is a greater likelihood of finding immediate responses here than you would if you’d commission a research project

5.That once an opinion is expressed on a blog, it spreads very very quickly

6.People are more honest about their beliefs and opinions on this platform since the medium lends itself to protecting the identity of the blogger many a times. There is a greater likelihood of finding brutal criticism against your brand / product that you would not find within the contrived research setting

7.That information found on a blog about your product / brand - is not information in a vacuum. You can freely read the bloggers opinions / beliefs about other issues expressed on his / her blog to draw conclusions about what the person values in the larger context – without causing him the inconvenience of incessant interrogation.

8.That even if you will not read this information…may be your competitor will

9.That it’s there…up for grabs…easily and freely accessible and searchable!

Some food for thought….

Opinions on blogs are a gold mine of information since this medium has not been exploited enough yet and therefore it gives access to unedited, spontaneous thoughts (almost like a blogger’s stream of consciousness). As marketers start looking at blogs more seriously and bloggers become aware of this, would there be a tendency to post postured and socially correct responses even on this medium. Would the feeling of ‘being watched’ come in the way of a spontaneous expression of though!

And what about the intellectual property on such an opinion? Could marketers ‘freely’ and ‘without permission’ use information available on blogs to their commercial advantage?

research method, qualitative research, blogs and market research,

Online Research - To do or not to do - that is the ?

I have had another brush with online qualitative research. This time it has gone beyond the two dimensional and asynchronous experiments using a discussion board into ‘real time’ and synchronous interaction with users. In the capture of information and emotion, the interviews turned out to be far weaker than I had imagined. This had little to do with the technology being used. All the basic elements were in place – both the respondent and moderator were connected to the internet via broadband at a reasonably high speed since the connection did allow a voice and video transfer. Yet I found something amiss and that was the magic or the ‘intimacy of a person-to-person interaction.’

I have always strongly believed that this element (the creation of an intimate and unthreatening environment) is one of the two critical aspects to good qual research, the other being the decision on the research method to be used.

The difference between online and offline is, I reckon, like the difference between meeting a friend in person and talking vis-à-vis talking over the phone or talking using a webcam. I am assuming one would on most days prefer a meeting in flesh and blood over a virtual one unless of course distance separates them and there is no choice but to meet in the virtual world. Now I know that talking to a researcher can in no way be compared to the feeling of bonding with a friend but the difference between the two interactions is one of degree and not of type. In both these instances, the virtual meeting seems fainter in terms of exchange of emotion, there is a restlessness to move on since many extraneous factors get in the way and the interaction is feeble where it comes to the expression of non verbal cues and para-language – the last two factors help us ‘make sense’ of what we hear. For instance, the sentence ‘could you send me the documents please, I am waiting’ could be a plea or an assertion depending on the tone and the manner in which the person spoke, along with his or her facial gestures. Though online interviews do capture tone and manner of speech to a certain extent, that is assuming there is no lag in voice transfer, the richness of non verbal cues get lost in frozen images that refresh every once in a few minutes. The presence of a time lag cannot be ruled out altogether and it only adds to fatigue for both people in the conversation. Besides, the fact that one has to constantly speak – pause – hear – pause – speak which can get difficult to keep track of, it breaks down the flow of energy that is created with the natural build up of a conversation. As an observer of an online interview, I found that the moderator was finding it difficult to keep the respondent engaged.

It is relatively easier to keep the respondent engaged and involved in a real world context, since in real life two people sitting face to face often tend to mirror the reactions or body movements of one another. Very often at a restaurant, you’d often find yourself picking up a glass of water, after the person sitting opposite you has done so or vice versa, though till that point, you did not feel the urge. Similarly it is easy to get a person’s attention in an interview by altering your posture – sitting upright or looking eye to eye can often shake the boredom or fatigue that respondents may face.

This lack of control extends beyond the respondent, even to the research environment. Face to face research often happens in a contrived environment and it is almost second nature for a researcher to draw the curtains (to block of excess light) or shut the windows to keep the noise at bay – in her preparation for the discussions. In the virtual interviews, I observed that one had little control over the presence of others in the room, excessive lights that obscured the video transfer, and the clack-clack of the keyboard as the respondent exchanged a line or a smile with his online friends as he aired his views. This has been a classic debate with many researchers whether it is easier on the respondent to be spoken to in the comfort of his own home environment. Though the usual one way mirror research facility is contrived, it scores points, since there is only so much that you can tell a respondent in his home – without sounding rude or completely putting him off.

Warts and all, online research techniques have made some headway, in fact I would not be wrong if I say that it’s becoming the next big buzz word in the research circles. But that’s where precisely the problem lies – when a ‘method’ starts to gain importance and overrides other elements in the research design. For me qual research, has always been, a discipline for understanding the world in which people live and the closer the research method is in reflecting this reality, the better is the understanding. So, online techniques should be like any other, used judiciously. While trying to explore public opinion about a company or a product, reading blogs or discussion boards or other online content about them is like taking advantage of the information that is ‘already there’ and putting it to use. But when the online medium is pressed into service where conventional research techniques could have been used, comparisons about its efficacy are bound to happen.

Categories: Online Research_
qualitative research,online research,