In 2012 we are reaching a tipping point where marketing strategies are finally moving from traditional broadcast to content-led social media engagement. So the question I pose is, What role can researchers play in helping brands succeed in this brave new world?
Here are 3 areas where as an industry we can add real value to the new social marketing process:
Return on Engagement Specialists
The rules for this new model of marketing are still being written and this has led to a position where many digital agencies are still marking their own homework. With the larger investments being made in this space by brands, research agencies are well positioned to play the role of objective analytics partner. As researchers we should be offering clients advice on developing KPIs for their social media activity, helping them to design the right measurement framework, and making sure they select the right tools for social data collection. Beyond simple measurement, researchers also have the opportunity to help clients develop return-on-engagement models that demonstrate the link between behavioural data and the impact on the things that clients really want to measure, e.g. consumption.
Fanbase Analysts
Many companies are learning to listen to the conversations related to their brands and competitors. However, there’s more to social media research than tracking conversations by keywords. Brands are social entities. People establish connections with them (cognitive, emotional, functional) and these connections foster further connections to other people. As brands build audiences online, it is increasingly important to understand and map audiences and the content and passions that connect them. When brands understand their social audience they can design content and strategies to engage them more effectively. Research agencies will have an increasingly important role in helping brands segment their social media audiences and give strategic advice on strategies to engage them.
Content Co-creators
Generating content that people want to share is a difficult business for brands as the traditional advertising creative process is disconnected from the communities they want to engage with.
To create social ideas that have the potential to be loved and shared by people in communities it is important to involve them in the creative process. This is why co-creation as a methodology of developing and refining content will become increasingly common over the next few years. Involving consumers in the production and creative development of content via MROC and co-creation sessions is a process that plays to the strengths of community researchers and those planners with great facilitation and social media expertise.
So you have heard that market research is changing and that the digital revolution is creating a wave of emerging roles that sound pretty interesting – so how do you land your dream next gen mrx role?
“Beast of a Job Interview, after Walter Crane”
By Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com on Flickr
Google yourself … see if you are easy to find, if you’re seriously hunting for a job you should be regularly checking and maintaining your online persona. It should be complete, relevant and consistent across different sites. A key tip here is not to talk just about what you’ve done on your profile…tell people where you want to be and specifically the type of mrx role you are looking for e.g. social media analyst.
Follow companies… do some homework and make a list of those companies that look like they could be a fit for your talents and make sure you engage with them in social media by following them on Twitter, Linkedin, Facebook etc. This will allow you to understand if the company culture is for you and more importantly will give you an insight into the type of thinking it produces. You can use this information when approach a company direct or of course when preparing for an interview.
Have a POV… what makes people stand out from the crowd when you meet them aside from personal chemistry, is those who have a point of view on the world. If you are serious about a nextgen job you should be engaging in debate around the mrx industry. There are lots of ways of doing this by attending conferences, via Linkedin groups, Twitter, or perhaps the ultimate expression is writing a blog where you can share your thoughts and start to create your own following. More engaged you become the more visible you will be as someone who people should take seriously and hire for an important role.
Showcase your skills… c.v.’s are fine and you should always prepare a concise and clear c.v one on no more than 2 sides of A4. A c.v. alone is not enough; you can stand out more by showcasing your work in a portfolio, showing the evidence of what you can do it much better than telling when it comes to landing a role.
Don’t be afraid to go direct… of course you should work with good recruitment agencies that have a network of MRX clients. However nothing beats going direct to a company and finding a way of working with them. It maybe that you can apply direct via their website or linkedin, but simply offering to intern or freelance can get you a foot in the door even when there is no job advertised. This really does work so don’t be afraid and give it a go!
Speaking of which… take a look at the current roles we are currently recruiting for at Face.
1. Learn how to tell better stories
We all know a good and engaging story when we hear it and our clients are no different! 2012 should be the year in which we take the art of MR storytelling seriously. Let’s ban the 100 slide reportage debrief and develop the skills of our teams to communicate findings in more engaging ways. Spend 10% more time on thinking about how we tell the story using imagery; video, graphics and customer voices will make a huge difference to the reputation of the MRX industry.
2. Ask less questions and listen more
As researchers we like asking questions. If we are totally honest, most of us think we know the answers before we run our surveys and are simply testing our hypotheses. Today, we live in the age of social media data – consumers globally are talking about every aspect of their lives 24/7. We no longer need to second guess and ask as many questions about what consumers think and feel with so much data available. We just need to develop the skills of our teams to listen and interpret more.
3. Stop using the word respondent
We have all done this. But is it not time to stop using this word to describe people who we work with in research projects. In 2012 we must encourage our teams to develop collaborative skills so that we can see consumers as people who we can co-create value with rather than as lab rats to carry out tests on.
4. Have more fun
The MRX industry has a pretty dull image and we need to ask ourselves why. A large part is because we need to try harder to be creative and have fun with our clients. We should be encouraging our teams to spend time experimenting, by piloting new ideas with clients. In a world where things are changing so fast, this is not only essential but fun.
5. Don’t just embrace change – drive change
Above all in 2012 I think there should be an acceptance amongst researchers that the pace of change we are seeing in technology is just going to speed up and that the old certainties of Quant and Qual research are over. It is only then that we can help shape the skills of our teams to adapt to the challenges of a world where so much data is available and where consumers expect to collaborate with brands.
1. Hubs
The value of data is only fully leveraged when multiple data sets are connected. Connecting the data allows us to understand the context of the dataset and turn figures into stories and insights. MROCs will evolve to become Hubs for consumer understanding by enabling clients to overlay other data streams, such as sales
2. Co-creation
The more experience clients have with MROC, the more they will understand that the power of these communities goes beyond gamification of online research tasks. By segmenting consumers by their ability and skill to co-create we will see more consumers being invited to work closely with brands to crack strategic brand challenges.
3. Real-time
MROCs will increasingly be connecting to the social media profiles of their members, thereby giving clients access to selected areas of their real-time social data. Such data might include their status updates, their musical preferences, their Likes, the people they follow on Twitter. This will mean as researchers we will use MROC to ask fewer questions and concentrate more on actual behaviours.
4. Mobile
As smart phone penetration increases, MROC members will be able to use apps to post pictures, videos, soundbytes, status updates, respond to polls, engage in discussions and generally participate in tasks on the go. This mobile interface will enable a richer contribution from members and a deeper and more seamless connection between what they do in their daily life and what they do in MROC.
5. Smarter
Automated analytics tools will enable researchers to gain faster and deeper understanding of MROC data. This will include natural language processing software to run semantic analysis of the contents and cluster consumer feedback by topics. Machine learning will also start to be overlaid to enable more effective categorization of textual, visual and audio content. Real-time interactive visualizations via dashboard will also be adopted to spot patterns quickly and guide in-depth analysis of content.
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