Market experts are not bored. Recently, we were approached for a comment by experts from the Marketing Research in Ukraine magazine. They asked us to talk in detail about modern social networks and how realistic it is to use them as a tool for marketing research. We invite you to read about what came out of it in the Q&A format.
1. Directions of marketing research in social networks
Social media is now one of the mainstream media in developed countries. Naturally, soo bjects of marketing would be interested to know more about the audience of social networks. What do you consider to be the most important areas of media research in social networks?
Speaking specifically about social media, there are three main areas of audience research:
1) Surveys. Cellular operators can find out what subscribers think about new tariffs by launching a small poll on Vkontakte or Twitter. This is convenient and allows you to get a fairly representative sample of audience opinions within a day.
Social media polls help to understand the sentiments of the target audience
2) Studying the statistics of the company’s group (public). Manufacturers’ publicks are most often subscribed to by interested people who want to know more about the company, to be the first to receive information about its products. Facebook’s internal analytics elements are fascinating. They allow administrators not only to see a portrait of the target audience, learn its interests, but also conveniently track the forms of content that they like the most. Vkontakte in this respect is a very dry and primitive tool.
Statistics aren’t always accurate, but they are always statistics
3) Data Analysis. Each social network has its own API for developers, based on which you can write data analysis scripts that can:
- read personal data from users’ pages;
- measure the number of reactions and comments under entries;
- extract the most discussed topics for a given period of time;
- rank authors by social engagement index, media persons by number of mentions, media citations in social media;
- find competitors’ products by similar topics and mentions.
To work with information, you need to either hire a programmer on staff and develop your own product, or buy ready-made solutions that are available on the Internet.
Read also: Analyzing the market of web studios in Ukraine, Russia and the CIS
2. Social networks as a tool for manipulating public opinion
If the role of social networks as media is increasing, their role as media carriers in communications is increasing. What do you think, first of all, is important to research in this direction?
As sources of reliable (and not so reliable) information, social networks are on a par with TV channels or radio. It is more convenient and habitual for people to watch news on their favorite social network than to turn on the TV.
There is a theory that current U.S. President Donald Trump won the election race through a well-constructed PR campaign on Facebook and Twitter. Hundreds of thousands of people gathered on Kiev’s Independence Square in November 2013 after calls in patriotic public forums. Millions of hryvnias are transferred to charity thanks to touching stories posted on Vkontakte pages.
When coworkers say social media is just for likes and kitties.
Marketers should pay more attention to these numbers, perhaps soon it will be possible to derive a kind of “formula for success”, which will describe the impact of posts on social networks on public opinion and popularity of products.
Read also: Vkontakte and FB target audience in Ukraine: similarities and differences
3. Main problems of marketing research in this area
Social media are now considered important media for building and maintaining brands? What do you think are the most relevant issues for marketing research in this area? ?
The main problems of marketing research can be distinguished as three.
1) The company chooses the wrong social network to communicate with the consumer. It is not a good idea to hunt for people over 40 and above average income in Vkontakte, just as it is not a good idea to look for schoolchildren or fans of the group “Mushrooms” in Odnoklassniki.
When I wanted to get a paying audience, but something went wrong.
So you get an awkward situation. A company releases a product and starts promoting it in the wrong place, investing a lot of money in it. Marketers analyze the results, grab their heads, and start trumpeting that “all these social networks of yours are a load of crap”.
2) Another important problem of marketing research in social networks is the lack of convenient ready-made tools for analysis. As mentioned above, the same Vkontakte or Odnoklassniki provide a very poor admin panel and a minimum of data on user behavior. Twitter, Facebook and Instagram are a little better adapted in this respect.
Instagram app for business in mobile edition
3) Distortion of the real picture. The dishonest working methods of some companies impose their imprint on the results of marketing research. Let’s imagine a Vkontakte group of 10,000 people. Cunning marketers have purchased bots that imitate the behavior of live users in the group, leave primitive comments, like the necessary records; and send reports to the management, saying “All is well! WE’RE GROWING!”.
An analyst from the outside takes numbers and builds a model and forecasts based on them. And then it turns out that all the figures were manipulated, and the real users in the group are no more than a couple hundred.
4. A successful case study of media research
Can you cite specific instances where social media marketing research has led to meaningful results?
One Russian cosmetics store keeps track of what music stars, movie stars or just famous people advertise on their social media pages. After each entry, demand for these products grows exponentially. As soon as retailers get a picture of mentions by product and brand, they purchase huge batches of the advertised product and collect super profits.
Stars are not at all shy about promoting products to their subscribers
Material on the topic: Target audience in Instagram: raw material for fashion retailers
The owner of this business noted in one of her interviews that the products that became popular due to beauty bloggers take about 25% of the turnover in money. Her marketing staff regularly monitors social media, especially Instagram, to keep an eye on hot new products and offer them to the market.
Thank you for your attention! If after reading this material you think that media research are important for brand development… you didn’t think so. Entrust this work to us – the marketing experts at KOLORO.
We want to hear your voice soon.
