Researchers Trust the Internet, but Not Social Media Data
Malcom De Leo of NetBase rounded out the presentations from Net Gain 6.0. The title of his talk was “Understanding Sentiment Analysis: Methodology and Relevance to Market Research.” And, to be fair, he did outline what sentiment analysis is and how NetBase does it. But, in my opinion, his greater contribution to the conference was his rallying cry to get on board with social media.
Malcom began by asking: how many attendees trust social media as a data source for market research?
Answer: 5 out of close to 100 people.
Yet, how many attendees go on the Internet to read reviews and do product research when we want to buy a new tech product? Ah, this is the cultural conundrum we face with social media in market research, he said. We use social media in our private lives for decision-making, but the industry at large is wary of using the data for business decisions.
Some of the requisite social media stats to consider:
- Today there are 200M tweets each day, 750 million Facebook users and 100 million reviews online.
- Furthermore, 53% of people on Twitter recommend companies or products in their tweets.
- And social network usage grows year-after-year for all age groups.
But the market research industry largely holds fast to the belief that this data is not representative of their consumer target. For, Malcolm, there is no such thing as bad data. Data is just data.
In the world of market research we’re used to picking panelists, and putting them in a room and talking to them and writing surveys and trying to remove the bias, but there is always bias there. With social media, the data is just there for the taking. People are telling us the why’s of their behavior without us even having to ask them.
Social media is changing how we understand consumers. We now live in a consumer-to-business world. And the proof can be seen in examples of major brands that have changed course due to social media feedback.
Instead of worrying whether it’s quantitative or qualitative, get comfortable with living in a quali-quant world. Market researchers need to take part in leading the charge around social media listening at their companies. Researchers who are not on board with social media market research are simply going to be left behind at a time when companies are taking up listening in different pockets of the organization, with or without market research being on board.
Change is inevitable. How will you take advantage of it?
See also our other coverage of Net Gain 6.0:
