The ARF: Is Social Media the New Marketing Research? - Lynne d Johnson - MediaBizBloggers

Welcome Lynne d Johnson our newest MediaBizBloggerConsumer behavior has significantly changed over the past five years Technological tools primarily on the social web and on mobile phones have given consumers more power in becoming a partner in creating the brand narrative than ever before It no longer matters what you tell consumers your product can do in an ad What matters today is what their peers or the average user say a peer representative tell them your product can do And for the most part marketing gets thatMarketing as an industry is moving swiftly to embrace social media as an integral part of the marketing mix Integrated marketing services provider Alterian recently found in its seventh annual study that out of 1068 marketing professionals worldwide 66 will be investing in social media marketing SMM in 2010 Of those 40 said they would be shifting more than a fifth of their traditional direct marketing budget towards funding their SMM activitiesCustomer service and customer relationship management get the importance of social media and is adapting it rapidly Think of the BestBuy Twelpforce on Twitter or Comcastcares on Twitter or even CocaCola or Us Weekly practicing CRM on Facebook or Clorox39s green blog quotShades of Green JournalquotSocial media isn39t going away anytime soon and it39s becoming more central to how consumers talk about and interact with brands According to a study 20 of tweets mention brands and brands like CocaCola have millions of fans on FacebookThat39s exactly where using social media as a listening tool in the market research area has become critical Yet at the ARF we39re finding that market researchers are more willing to cite the challenges of listening1 what are we listening for2 who are we listening to3 where does listening belong4 where is the statistical rigor5 how do we allocate resources to listeningrather than talk about its benefits And it39s as ARF President Bob Barocci notes one today39s purest forms of market researchThat39s one of the reasons we published the ARF Listening Playbook where we definite listening as a means for tapping into the naturally occurring conversations and behavioral signals in social media and search to hear changes and vocabulary and to sense the next big thingBrands can use listening to1 discover new customers2 develop new products3 give the consumer a voice4 take brand pulse5 understand shifts in consumer perspectivesBut that39s not all With phone surveys going out the door and the dawn of online surveys and panels and market research online communities MROC being upon us it39s important to learn how to integrate the natural flow of unguided honest conversations into the traditional world of research Listening tools that track online buzz or perform sentiment analysis can help us capture fact and opinion just as we would with surveys or in private communities We of course have to understand social media better to make this sort of market research for usThe only way for us to get there to overcome all of the challenges is to move beyond the point of just toe tipping It39s time to jump in and really see how the water feels This week at our Industry Leader Forum event in San Francisco we39ll be learning how brands like Kraft vitaminwater and Toyota dived in to develop successful listening strategies that significantly impacted their brands Check back next week for a reportLynne d Johnson is SVP Social Media for the Advertising Research Foundation She can be reached at lynnethearforg and on Twitter lynneluvah

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The ARF: Is Social Media the New Marketing Research? - Lynne d Johnson - MediaBizBloggers

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