The proliferation of social media data has added some complexities to market research. Most pertain to the proper capture of data, its accuracy, and the gaps that exist between online behavior and the private reality of users. At the same time, many businesses have turned to social media as a cost-effective and in-depth tool for insight into many aspects of market research, including customers, market and brand awareness.
The key for many businesses is how to utilize the real-time social media data in their market research methods, creating a campaign plan to deliver targeted, efficient and measurable results. The additional insights garnered from social media can provide marketers the added perspective they need to better appeal to their customers as well as deliver better results to their business or clients.
Here are three tips to leveraging social data:
Explore real-time social data. Research the industry, vertical or groups of your customers to uncover emerging trends and gain insight into what they care about. Uncover the motivations and what drives their decisions to better target your audience, build deeper relationships, and close more sales. This makes your research increasingly more specific.
The benefits of efficiency. In most cases utilizing social data in your research is a matter of minutes or hours, remarkably efficient compared to standard market research practices. Free tools exist for nearly every platform, allowing for many ways to test and explore what your target audiences will respond to the most. The social sphere is a perfect area to test out messages, types of content and campaign themes with minimal time or monetary commitment.
Gain perspective and engagement. The interactive nature of media data allows you to gain information through both engagement and simple observation. Checking the quick pulse of your segment or vertical through interaction, engagement and participation to obtain useful and accurate data, and you might discover additional insights than typical research methods. Leverage those insights to feed your customers timely information they care about, and over time the relationships will develop.