By Eric Bourgeois, Reseach Analyst
There are a lot of good reasons to participate in social media conversations. It's a great way to keep tabs on what customers and prospects think of your brand. It gives your audience a two-way communications channel -- another way to talk to you, and another way for you to listen to them -- all in real-time.
However, I'd like to take the opportunity to caution that Twitter, Facebook, blogs, LinkedIn, etc. should be used as a complement to market research, not as a replacement for it. Although these communities certainly can be influential -- and they must be engaged -- they should not be used as a stand-alone source for market research data.
No question that social media can augment or even enhance traditional qualitative research -- much like focus groups can. When funds are tight, social media can even replace focus groups as a qualitative tool. It keeps dialogue open both ways, and can help to develop survey questions for future research. But as the most effective market research practice, social media can neither compete with nor replace the sound methodology of a well-designed quantitative survey.
Why? Consider data quality, data reliability and the fact that a survey can give you a representative sample with statistical weighting. Social media cannot yet provide any of these. Analyzing tweets, for example, as positive/negative/neutral can provide valuable directional or anecdotal information -- but like focus groups, this type of analysis shouldn't be used in isolation as the basis for making critical decisions.
Certainly there will be continued advancement in social media tools in the future, and they are likely to align even more effectively with market research. We're already starting to see some of these tools being developed. But, for now, view social media as a welcome addition to your arsenal of marketing tools -- but not as a replacement for core market research.
