Twitter: @TomWoodnutt Tomwoodnutt@gmail.com

Fishing for Insight in a Sea of Social Media

This is a presentation about why and how I believe researchers should listen to what people say online…

The power of mutuality

The Clown Fish and Sea Anemone live in harmony and have a symbiotic and mutualistic relationship based on sharing and reciprocity.

I believe today’s brands need to build more mutualistic relationships

with people, by giving them the products, services, content, experiences and utility that they need and value. In return people will give their

loyalty, social promotion, data openness and insight.

Listening to what people say and seeing what has social currency online, is an essential input for building more mutualistic relationships….

If a fish were a conversation…

Then what does that make researchers?

…then researchers are fishermen

Sailing the seas for conversations that

will inspire insights….

…and gourmet chefs

Serving insights that help inspire healthy business decisions

Traditional research can satisfy…

Traditional methods like panel based surveys and group

discussions are valuable because they give you CONTROL to ask the questions that you and the client

want…

…but it can also lack ‘real-world’ flavour

The questions you ask are on the client’s terms and not necessarily

on people’s agenda

And the world has gone digital

People spend so much of their time online. Researchers are

supposed to understand people. It is essential to listen to what

they say, to be able to do this…

Yet many researchers still reject new tools

Many researchers are addicted

to the familiarity of

traditional methods and

legacy revenues

Which poses a threat to the research industry

This means that untrained, non-

specialists without any regard for research ethics or quality of

analysis will instead operate in new spaces

like social media research

Today’s researchers should embrace social media

Because it is: 1. Naturalistic Free from any research effects

2. Contemporary Essential to inform social media strategies

3. Accessible Readily available online

4. Contextual Adding a layer of social context to insights

AND….it’s in ‘real-time’…

Just to clarify, this is a ‘reel’ pun.

Thanks.

Companies like Gatorade have teams dedicated to listening to what people say about them.

This is where market research

needs to get to…

This assumes conversations exist

- March 2010 - more than 10 billion tweets since launch1 - July 2010 - more than 20 billion tweets

SOURCE: 1 – Claudine Beaumont, ‘Twitter hits 10 billionth tweer’, Telegraph (March 5th 2010)

…. there does seem to be a few out there….

Not just brand-specific conversations

• Clients over-estimate people’s actual interest in interacting with them in social media (by a factor of three1).

Source: 1 - From Social Media to Social Customer Relationship Management’, IBM Global Services, Carolyn Heller Baird and Gautam Parasnis (2011)

What people say in general – without any brand mention – can be more informative….

Listening should be ‘ethical’

I do not believe we should listen to conversations within private networks like facebook, or by getting into password protected forums by creating false accounts….

….But I do believe that someone’s tweet or comment on a blog is a knowingly public act. And to listen to them, is an act of empowerment rather than violation.

Manual searches are a start

To listen, you could just cast a single line out by searching in google or twitter…..but that will only get your so far.

Free aggregation tools also help

Or you could use aggregation tools and alert systems to catch more relevant conversations

Bespoke software maximises chances of success

To get the most value, I believe you need specialist partners….

The right partner depends on budget and needs…

Free-Tools

• Added value • Light

exploration

Dashboards

• Ad hoc studies • Rigorous

exploration

Consultants

• Project retainer • Rigorous

measurement

But different partners do vary

Source: 1 – Interaction London Monitoring Tools Review (July, 2010)

They produce different results. …real value is not in the numbers….but in using tools to help interpret emotion and meaning qualitatively

Aggregated sentiment is limited

• It is not necessarily

nationally representative since individuals self select

Source: (Ying, Feinberg and Wedel 2006)

• And there are venue effects

meaning different platforms tend to foster different types of sentiment

Source: (Schwiedel, Moe and Boudreaux 2011)

Sentiment scores are a bit like ‘fish fingers’: A bland amalgamation which lacks flavour. (You would never come out of a group discussion with a percentage of positive sentiment)….

Be different, and let others obsess with sentiment…

I believe researchers should move away from sentiment and instead focus on nuance, context and qualitative meanings…

Listening tools help you spot patterns

Tools like Sysomos help you quickly crunch hundreds of conversations to see which themes regularly arise…

This helps you work out which ones to focus on, and allows you to refine your searches to explore them in more detail

…and uncover social narratives

The tools help you Identify how brand conversations and relevant meme’s spread like stories across channels and throughout networks

To create social currency you must first understand it

Social Media Research means you can identify what themes, memes and content are most likely to inspire conversation

This is a lot more manual than automated…

Which requires patience and resolve

…It’s a case of trial and error to spot the themes that matter strategically

And familiar traditional qualitative skills

And familiar qualitative techniques

…it’s fundamentally about using qualitative skill to be go from conversation

to insight and recommendation…

In-house and agency teams aren’t necessarily best placed

Source: 1 – eConsultancy Online Measurement and Strategy Report (2011)

The hectic and stormy worlds of agencies and clients mean they

cannot commit the time and may not have the skills to get real value

from social media research…… …..but although researchers are

well placed, they barely feature in this space….

Researchers are well placed to find value (and should charge)

For researchers to get proper value from social media research, they have

to charge a premium for their time (and the software)…..

But it’s hard to charge without evidence of the value…

Pilot Fish * *

A couple of pilots help

Cast the net out further

And stake-holder workshops to get into the organisation

There are so many interested parties (from marketing, to insight, CRM, PR

and digital teams….) that it’s essential to get all stakeholders on board….

Why not just listen?

If researchers ignore the value in social media, they will be less able to understand and represent what people

think, feel and do…..and their role as primary providers of insight may get gobbled up….... why not just listen?