While recently attending the AMSRS Summer School there was much discussion about what needs to change and where the industry was headed in the future.  Ray Poynter’s blog post has a great summary of outtakes from Summer School, but there was one point that was made that I believe is fundamental to the future of our industry that needs to constantly be addressed – engagement of participants.

As an industry we seem to forget that it is part of our job to ensure we engage those we ask to participate in our research.  For the most part, people are not obliged to participate in research, they voluteer to do so.  While I agree that most people genuinely want to offer their opinions and be heard, it is the way in which we make them do this that can be the problem.  Answering a 30 minute online survey, full of grid questions is by no means engaging. And without any feedback mechanisms, too often people feel their views are not heard.

While as an industry we have moved on from the use of the term ‘respondents’ to ‘participants’, I am not sure we have fully embraced the idea that we have to work harder to engage participants in what we do.  At Summer School when I broached this subject, I was met with the response – ‘we are not in the entertainment industry!’   No we are not, but we are in an industry that relies on engagement!  And for most part we have taken the easy way out, procuring engagement via monetary incentives.   But now even that is getting harder.

So what does that mean for researchers?

- It means we need to change the way we do things.
- We should be looking for new and engaging ways to collect information.
- We should be experimenting with things that we may not be comfortable with.
- We should be looking for more natural (and I would argue more authentic) ways to engage the public in what we do.

In my experience, participant engagement is possible and rewarding.  In fact, it can even be fun (dare it say it!).  And making participation enjoyable doesn’t undermine the legitimacy of it.

Feedback from participants involvement in Latitude’s online research communities shows just how much engagement is indeed possible:

“I had no idea how much fun this could be and have given facebook the flick this week as I just don’t have time for it right now! It is great to come back and see what people have added to your discussions and see what new ones have begun.”

“This has been a fantastic experience. It is so nice to know that what we are saying seems to count and that the right people are taking notice to make (client) better than it already is. I’ve had heaps of fun and would love to participate in the future .”

“I’ve never experienced anything like it personally. The only thing I can compare it to is surveys that I regularly do but they rarely give you an option for free speech like this forum has. It was far more interactive and you could easily clarify our thoughts and suggestions by just asking. A survey couldn’t do this.  It was fun, informative and made me feel like a valued customer.”

I say it’s time the industry realised the bar has been raised and we need to aim higher.
What do you think?

Small Business people are a notoriously difficult group to involve in market research. They’re time poor and naturally committed first and foremost to running their businesses, not participating in focus groups or completing surveys. So, running an online research community amongst small business owners is not without its challenges. Unlike consumer communities where everyone seems eager to talk any time, small businesses need to find spare time, and more often than not it’s rare.

With this in mind, it’s probably worthwhile understanding a couple of the key differences when it comes to managing a small business online research community.

1. Recruitment is will always be a challenge irrespective methodology, however, significantly more time is required to populate a small business community compared with a consumer community. The main obstacle to overcome is converting screened small business respondents into active community members. They need to have a clear understanding of what is required of them in terms of time and contribution, to maximize the value of each member of the community.

2. Response times and participation rates in discussions are relatively lower than in consumer communities. Typically, the majority of responses to a discussion in a consumer community come within a day of posting the topic. In comparison, small business communities may take up to week for most members to respond. They’re less likely to login everyday and there can be distinct patterns in when people login – for instance early morning or after business hours.

3. With less time on their hands, small business people may be more selective about the types of discussions they participate in. The discussions topics need to have a high degree of relevance to them individually and be quick and easy to respond to.

4. Individual ‘storytelling’ is a good way to engage small business people in conversations. Their backgrounds and businesses might be unique, but there are often similarities in experiences and the challenges of running a small business – the sharing of which creates affinity amongst members.

5. Some small business people may be less familiar with online research and/or participating in social media, if they’ve always been busy running their businesses. More time may be required for individuals to get into the swing of the process and feel comfortable with engaging with unknown others online.

On that last point, there’s a great blog series from Matt Rhodes at FreshNetworks on Social Media for Small Business, as well as some practical tips from Craig Reardon on how to participate in Social Media.

In the meantime, we’re going to keep talking to small business people online, in their time.

Here’s 6 guidelines to help you maximise the output of your online research community …

1. Be specific and targeted. Communities that do not have a clear purpose or are so broad that members don’t share interests and needs, fail because they lack passion, purpose and involvement. Tightly define the community as much as possible.

2. Prepare. 6, 8 or 12 weeks may seem like plenty of time to cover the topic areas, but those weeks slip away very quickly. Make sure key issues are outlined before the community starts so that no time is wasted once the community warms up.

3. Leave room for flexibility. Don’t prepare too much. Unexpected events and issues inevitably occur during the course of the community and it’s an ideal time to explore them. Allow for some spontaneity.

4. Login Daily. Share the results internally and encourage your users to devote time to reading comments regularly. It’s a golden opportunity to eaves drop on consumer conversations as they occur with very little prompting. The insights can be reported on one page, but those who log in to the community on a regular basis and read comments themselves, first hand, will inevitably have a richer, deeper appreciation and understanding of the outputs when they are reported.

5. Think outside the norm. Be open to using the community in different ways to traditional market research – for idea generation, sending members on tasks/missions etc.

6. Talk directly to them. Where relevant, show the community you are listening by posting up blogs (in branded communities), acknowledge their opinions, how you’ll use the information, thank them for participation etc. It humanises the organisation.

What has your experience been?

As we rush to embrace social media, networking and new communications technologies, I’m sometimes left wondering whether, as researchers, we have the potential for losing sight of what really matters.

Sure, being able to have conversations online, anytime with people who are ready and eager to chat is an exhilarating step forward for the research industry, but not if we’re relegated to becoming conversation managers, rather than researchers. Call me old fashioned, but being good with the technology and a confident online conversationalist, doesn’t translate into being a strategic researcher.

Our clients don’t necessarily have the time or skills required to turn respondent discussions into knowledge, so it’s still our responsibility to take the ‘talk’ from our online research communities and analyse it for meaning. We must navigate our way through the words to find the hidden gems and bring them to the surface.  Otherwise it becomes a volume game – and more responses doesn’t mean better outcomes.

It’s imperative that as qualitative researchers we continue to examine not just what people say, but why they say it.  This comes from understanding human behaviour and motivations, and providing context to the content.  The value of what we do comes from creating linkages between words and actions, or our clients’ activities and their customers’ reactions.

There’s already enough chatter on the internet each day that it’s easy to gloss over it all, without it really taking anything in.  You get a better view from above, and the same goes for online research – take a step back and get a sense of the bigger picture.

“We must end our traditional, one-dimensional attitude…we are at the start of something exciting-a model that can lead to a new kind of commerce”

Elisabeth Murdoch was referring to the future of television content when she delivered her keynote address at the National Association of Television Program Executives last week.

Her statement, however, translates across all industries. One-way corporate communications have lost the reign and as Tom Ewing argues “there’s nobody at the wheel anymore”.

Social media has taken word of mouth to a whole new playing field. It knows no geographic limitations, and a message can be delivered to the thousands if not millions, with the click of a mouse.

To lose control of your brand communications is daunting, especially if you find that consumers’ comments are not on the bright side. But, this is an opportunity to hear what people are thinking, and more importantly to respond. They say that brand loyalty actually increases after a negative customer experience with a company that has tried to resolve or ease the situation. Through a genuine response, people’s customs are valued.

It’s time to get creative, innovative, and smart. It means loosening our grip on outdated models of communications and as Murdoch put it “catching up with what our audience is doing”