Archive for the ‘social media’ tag
Link Dump: March 2 – 15 2013
Even The Pope Tweets! Image courtesy of USA TODAY
Welcome to uSamp’s bi-weekly link dump: A compilation of all things trending in Market Research, Mobile, Social Media, Gamification and more. We hope you’ll find this aggregation as informative and entertaining as we do. Let us know if there are items that you’d like to see included in the next link dump!
Market Research
Adapt to survive, warns latest Grit survey
US — Traditional researchers will have to move away from data collection if they are to survive in a world of social media monitoring, according to the latest survey on market research trends.
Shock of the New – an interview with Jane Frost
The MRS Annual Conference kicks off next week with sportsmen, artists, broadcasters and scientists on the agenda. But what does it all mean for research? Avery Dennison’s Edward Appleton asked MRS chief executive Jane Frost to explain all.
Social Media
The top 10 most irritating social media updates
A new survey has revealed the 10 most annoying types of social media update. How many are you guilty of?
Will Market Research Still Exist In 20 Years?
As published in GreenBook Blog
by Ben Leet, Sales Director, uSamp
Make no mistake, we are still at the beginning of a digital revolution. Much like the industrial revolution back in the 1700s and early 1800s when we believed steam power was the pinnacle of technological achievement, so today we are in that phase where we believe the Internet and mobile technology are the limits of human capability. Do I know what’s coming next? If I did, I would be a wealthy man, but I would nonetheless bet money that the digital revolution is still in its infancy, with many changes and challenges still ahead of us.
With new technology comes new applications, ideas, concepts. We in MR talk regularly about “mobile research”, “social media monitoring”, “big data”, and many others, as we seek to use these new tools for a commercial advantage, to offer something new, to convince a client that working with our company is good because we are innovative and forward thinking. However at this point it is worth mentioning that online research is no longer seen as innovative, it’s the norm for an ever increasing amount of our industry spend, which is why “online” is no longer an industry buzzword.
Quirks Article: Data Privacy and Social Media
by Dinaz Kachhi, Manager of Research Insights, uSamp
The following article originally appeared in Quirk’s June 2012 Newsletter.
“It was terribly dangerous to let your thoughts wander when you were in any public place or within range of a telescreen.” – George Orwell, 1984
We may be nearly 30 years past Orwell’s apocalypse but we are closer than ever to his Big Brother predictions. While readers may have once shuddered to think that the walls of privacy might crumble to reveal private thoughts publicly, the above quote seems but a mundane observation in an age where status updates and hashtags make public what was once private – or at least confined to a tight-knit circle. Security concerns are becoming more pronounced, as more and more people engage in social networks and as data breaches force them to think and interact differently.
The topic of privacy is especially important in the world of survey research. Our industry is built on the premise of getting inside people’s minds. We pride ourselves on being able to tap in to the private and make it public for market consumption. We are not only trying to gauge perceptions but also to understand how demographics impact online interactions.
To that end, uSamp conducted a study on social media usage across three groups (U.S. and U.K. general population and Hispanics) to compare, contrast and better understand of how social media usage and willingness to share information varies across and within these groups. The studies were completed over the course of six months. The U.S. and U.K. studies were conducted with 600 respondents each and the Hispanic study was conducted with n of 650, all drawn from uSamp’s online panel. The sample was controlled for age and gender.
The results outlined variation in usage of social media platforms by these groups, along with differences in measures taken to control privacy. Additionally, there were distinct trends in the types of activities performed and willingness to share information on social networks, demonstrating different patterns for each group.
INFOGRAPHIC: Hispanic Social Media Habits and Privacy Concerns Study
Hispanics embrace social media such as Facebook, YouTube and Google+ more than the general population. But when it comes to sharing personal information about themselves, Hispanics are more cautious, according to survey results announced today.
uSamp, a leader in providing targeted audiences for global consumer insights, engaged 650 members from its newly inaugurated Hispanic panel, SúperOpinión.com, to survey participants on their attitudes toward social media compared to the general population. Here are the findings:
Anti-Social Shopping: 83 Percent of UK Consumers Don’t Care What Friends Think
Only 1% of people have bought something via a social media site, but 30% have shopped via smartphone, the findings of a new U.K. study from uSamp have revealed.
The study of online shopping habits among 1,195 people was conducted by uSamp.™
Analysis of a Hashtag: What Twitter Means for Market Research
by Ben Leet, Sales Director, uSamp
Last week, while travelling home from work, a trivial tweet of mine was retweeted by a complete stranger. My initial reaction was one of annoyance; I didn’t really want complete strangers knowing that I was frustrated by my train service that day. But then I started to question myself… why had I put a hashtag into the tweet citing the train company by name if I didn’t want it to be found in the Twittersphere?
What even compelled me to tweet in the first place? Sure I was frustrated at the delays, and the probable untruths that were being used as explanations for these delays, but did that tweet improve the situation? And more importantly, did it make me feel better that I’d voiced my anger directly at the train company, who may or may not be paying attention to the random rant of a customer on Twitter?
INFOGRAPHIC: Why 13% Don’t Engage on Social Media Sites
More findings from the uSamp’s “Social Media Habits and Privacy Concerns Survey“: Read the rest of this entry »
INFOGRAPHIC: uSamp Datapoint Study Finds Gender Gap over Social Media Privacy
Most women using social media are just as willing to reveal personal information about their relationships, jobs, brand preferences and political and religious affiliations as men — but when it comes to details like phone numbers, location, and email or physical address that might put their personal security at risk, women are significantly more wary than men.
These are among the findings of the “Social Media Habits and Privacy Concerns Survey,” a new nationwide study conducted by uSamp, a leader in providing targeted audiences for global consumer insights and innovative SaaS technologies for audience engagement and business intelligence. Using SurveyBuilder™, its self-serve survey authoring platform with on-demand consumer audiences, uSamp surveyed nearly 600 adult men and women about the social media sites they frequent and the kind of information they share online.
What do you share on social media sites?
Will Social Media Kill Market Research?
by Ben Leet, Sales Director
It’s easy to sit and blame Mark Zuckerberg. After all, isn’t he the one that radically changed the way that humans interact with each other, creating this frenzy around two buzzwords: “social media”?
However Facebook hasn’t changed the way human beings think, interact or communicate–it’s simply given us a tool to do this more efficiently than we could have done before. Read the rest of this entry »
Sensitivity to Sample: Why Customization and Variety are Key to Sample Quality
by Lisa Wilding-Brown, VP Panel Operations
Lisa Wilding-Brown has over a decade of experience in the market research industry. Wilding-Brown is responsible for panel development & management at uSamp — in particular publisher management/recruiting, member engagement, profiling and rewards. Before joining uSamp in 2009, Lisa served as the Panel Loyalty & Retention Manager at Harris Interactive. Wilding-Brown was instrumental in the development and management of the Harris Poll Online, one of the first online market research panels in the industry and spearheaded the development of over 40 specialty panels, which increased targeting capabilities significantly. Wilding-Brown is a graduate of the State University of New York at Geneseo with a BA in both Communication & International Relations.
In a previous post, uSamp CEO, Matt Dusig wrote about sample burn and asked us to consider panelists as people. Matt’s blog entry resonated with many across the industry including yours truly. All too often, we refer to panelists as sample, but in reality these samples are our neighbors, colleagues, friends and family. As a professional who has been building and managing online research panels for over a decade, I have had a front-row seat to the many challenges of online research panel building. The demands in our space have changed dramatically over the years.
While it is more convenient and cost-effective to obtain low-incidence populations online vs. traditional methodologies such as phone, the inventory of online research opportunities has becoming increasingly difficult as a result. The proliferation of online panels coupled with the abundance of social media channels has generated a fiercely competitive and over-stimulating environment for the average online user. Throw a world recession into the mix and you have an interesting dichotomy of new growth and economic anxiety. Somewhere along the way, the countless pressures of our industry have put the squeeze on our most precious resource: the people who participate in our research.
