We have prepared a short discussion document focused on social media and the role it plays in market research and market intelligence gathering.
You can download the document right away if you complete this short registration form.
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Typical SID Elements - Click to view larger graphic
Is brand and reputation management important to you? Do you need to be associated with a major issue? Do you need to be seen to be at the edge of the curve in terms of a social movement, an environmental debate, a new technology innovation?
In the old days, a bit of PR normally did the trick. A few media releases, and perhaps a white paper, possibly even a seminar or two, might be enough to convince people that you were on top of things.
However, nowadays, it may take a little more. With the advent of social media it takes much more added value, and rich contribution to debates and social conversations, to be heard.
Here at Quadriga Consulting we have been developing a new research product called Social Issue Dynamics (or SID for short).
What is SID?
SID is a public programme of research that embraces qualitative discussion around an issue or topic that is of interest to a brand owner. The difference is that we take the discussion public using web broadcasting. The result is that instead of an esoteric discussion just among members of a focus group, using the SID approach we extend the debate into international online social communities.
The qualitative discussion is just the starting point. A typical SID assignment contains the following key elements:
A SID programme allows our clients to be seen to be right at the heart of an issue or series of issues. SID takes the best elements of tried and tested qualitative reseach and explodes it into the social media domain – resulting in highly involved interaction from a much wider array of participants. Instead of research being a tactical and passive part of the marketing process it becomes the centre-piece of strategic audience involvement – resulting in long term engagement with key protagonists from various perspectives of the debate.
To get some idea of how a SID programme might look and feel you may wish to take the time to visit our Government 2010 micro-site. Government 2010 is a rolling programme of engagement focused on the issue of next generation government. Think of Government 2010 as Quadriga’s own public exemplar of a SID programme. It promotes us as the sponsor of issue-focused debate. It engages social media communities. It draws upon people with expert knowledge of various aspects of the Government 2.0 debate.
SIDs can be complex and large or modest and highly defined. But if you want to be seen to have your finger on the pulse of an important issue that might affect your business, contact us and ask us to build a SID programme for you.
The alternative may be that you are seen as a bit-part participant in a debate that may re-define your market.
YouGov are pleased to be partnering the first Government 2010 Event in London on October 22nd, 2009. Peter Kellner, President and Head of Political and Social research at YouGov, will be giving a keynote address.
The event will bring together parliamentarians, civil servants, technologists, bloggers and researchers to discuss and debate what we should do in response to the changes facing government and public service.
In his keynote address, Peter will use YouGov’s research data to show that so-called web 2.0 technologies are transforming the way people communicate, interact and entertain themselves. He will demonstrate how YouGov’s online survey tools, where respondents engage with web 2.0 technologies, produce consistently accurate results when predicting election outcomes.
He will argue that if government is to remain current and relevant it needs to open up to a society that is more information savvy than government itself. People of all ages are, increasingly, by-passing traditional media and creating their own. They are communicating via a myriad of new social networking tools. They have the ability to build better web based information portals than government itself.
For more information on the Government 2010 event, please click on the link below:
Social media is changing everything. Media and market fragmentation, changing patterns of media consumption and increasingly active, engaged consumers mean the old media reach models are in disarray.
STOP PRESS: SPEAKERS ANNOUNCED
This rapid social and technological change presents the marketing services industry with both challenges and opportunities: how can we help organisations engage in better conversation with their customers?
To help, FRONT, in conjunction with Quadriga Consulting, is launching a new initiative for marketing professionals: Conversations.
The Conversations concept is unique as it brings together great opportunities for networking with insight into the thinking of marketing professionals.
The format is as follows. Over 2 hours there will be five conversations of around 10 minutes each. Professionals who reflect various facets of the marketing communications mix will be interviewed by Quadriga Consulting MD, and author, Jeffrey Peel. These conversations will be video recorded and will be available online after the event. During the event there will be opportunities to mingle and chat with attendees and conversation participants.
Register Your Interest
The first event will take place in London on the 26th of March between 6.00pm and 8.00pm, at OneAldwych. The conversation line-up will be announced shortly. Attendance will be by invitation only, but please register your interest if you’d like to attend.
McCain Foods in the United States is asking parents across the United States what they think about school food. Working with social networking and blog research specialists Quadriga Consulting Ltd and itoi Research in London the firm is recruiting Mom bloggers from across the USA to participate in a discussion via the Internet.
As part of the exercise, a new blog has been created - that goes live today.
So, if you are a Mom blogger and resident in the United States, and want to take part please take the time to read the first 2 starter posts and comment. McCain Foods wants to hear your views.
By Jeffrey Peel – At last week’s Web 2.0 Expo in San Francisco there was, as expected, lots of discussion about social networking. The discussions didn’t just focus on the usual suspect social networking sites either. There was a lot of discussion about how so-called “micro-blogging” sites are becoming increasingly influential. Micro-blogging sites like Twitter allow for much more rapid one-to-many interactions and are now considered a key component of the social networking/blogosphere. In fact, I’d go even further and say that by the end of the conference on Friday I was all twittered out. And this morning I read that Twitter may just have closed a round of funding.
All this means that social networking is becoming more and more granular but it also means that the distinction between b2b networks and consumer networks is blurring. Twitter, in particular, is becoming a day to day interaction tool for the celebrity tech bloggers who were there in abundance last week (like Robert Scoble and Stowe Boyd). In fact Boyd has now come up with the idea of the Twitchpitch that mandates PR types who want to pitch a story to him have to use Twitter. When I ran into him at a drinks party last week he made clear that he didn’t care much for Facebook pitches either.
Therefore if you thought that all you had to do to get your B2B social networking strategy together was to have a Linked-In profile, I’m going to have to tell you that you need to think again. Complex social networking ecosystems allow people to pick and choose – and people will define themselves in the ecosystem according to their favourite tools (and none of us has time to use them all).
This, of course, means that there is an increasing role for marketing services companies. Social networking elements in the marketing mix are essential in order to elicit information on how markets are evolving. B2B networks are becoming the definitive communications media for channel owners, consultants, journalists and other ‘influencers’ in the tech space – not just celeb bloggers.
As Stowe Boyd said in a panel session last week, social networking is about people talking. And, when people talk, marketing people should always be interested.
By Jeffrey Peel – Often I’m asked how it is that as a company that started in research we ended up doing so much more.
The conclusion I have come to is that research and analysis firms have more interesting things to say because our thoughts, and perspectives, are based on market knowledge and understanding. While much of the work is client-confidential we, at the same time, build tacit knowledge that gives us some right to take a stand on issues. Admittedly we have to operate within a frame of reference – and in our case that ‘frame’ would be heavily influenced by information technology.
But, think about it for a minute, the fact is that just about every business these days is becoming a technology business. Even David Cameron in his latest election broadcast – just last week – made overt reference to the Internet as one of the most fundamental reasons for social change in the UK. After all, entire swathes of our population no longer watch television. Internet advertising is set to overtake TV advertising in the next two years. And where the web used to be the domain and stomping ground for big business, suddenly – with Web 2.0 technologies – it has become democratised. Even my own 11 year old daughter can now design her own Bebo ‘skin’.
The Internet is a super-medium. In the past all advertising was a tell-sell. Now it’s an interactive sell and it has become much more complex, interconnected and, obviously, viral. If brands offend they will be pilloried online in seconds.
The impact on marketing services is massive. Frankly, unless one is immersed in the world of interactive web technologies one will quickly lose touch. Indeed I recently went on an Internet-free, one week, beach holiday and felt I had lost touch a bit when I returned.
But, let’s face it, marketing services firms can’t have the luxury of being type-cast these days as one thing or the other. The Internet will inevitably make us all chameleons – admittedly with our own specialisms. Therefore as a researcher I will present my research – socialise it – using new communications media. I will also collect it in new ways making use of social networking communities and online data collection techniques. And my clients must be prepared to act on research by reaching out to these new global communities, search engines and news portals via more and more flexible and target-able media.
Partnership offers strong sector focused project management and access to international fieldwork resources…
London March 25, 2008– Quadriga Consulting Ltd and Blauw Research today announced a partnership that will allow IT and Telecoms firms a unique international project management resource for global research assignments.
Quadriga Consulting Ltd is well known as a tech-focused research-enabled consultancy practice. The company focuses on the IT and Telecoms sector with a range of clients from early stage, venture funded companies to international hardware and software firms. Quadriga has particular expertise in complex international qualitative and quantitative assignments focusing on enterprise software, telecommunications products/software, computer hardware and digital content segments.
According to Jeffrey Peel , MD of Quadriga Consulting, “this represents a major step forward for ICT players that need both specialist sector expertise and international data collection resources across multiple markets. Many so-called international agencies try to offer turnkey international research capability but typically that means farming data collection out to local agencies that have no overt sector understanding. What we offer is end-to-end management of the process, while never losing sight of the business and research objectives.”
Jonathan Wheeler, MD of Blauw UK, agrees, “the ICT sector is very demanding in terms of international capability. Many MR and marketing managers in tech firms get very frustrated that they can’t find agencies that can offer a full understanding of their product management challenges at the same time as offering an international data collection ability. We can offer both. The result is easier, more responsive project management and a focus on the findings rather than the process.”
We are delighted to announce that Ruth McNeil has joined the Board of Quadriga Consulting Ltd as a Non-Executive Director.
Ruth McNeil is a highly respected market researcher with particular experience in the business to business sector. She works for a range of private and public sector clients across a range of different subjects both in the UK and internationally. She is a non-Executive Director at Quadriga Consulting and works with us on international assignments based out of London. She runs her own research practice based in London.
For fifteen years Ruth worked at Research International as deputy managing director of RI Specialist Units (where Jeff Peel was also a Director) and was a main board director of RI. Ruth left Research International in August 2000 and has since worked with clients on practical business and services issues, strategic planning, branding research, customer relationship management, concept development, market optimisation and other areas.
Ruth plays an active role in the wider research industry, for two years having been one of the Market Research Society Awards Judges for the annual MRS conference. Ruth is a member of the BIG Conference Committee and the conference Programme Committee (BIG is the annual specialist Business to Business researchers conference). She convenes the MRS “International Research” training course and is a frequent speaker on market research issues at conferences in the UK and USA.
Ruth has a degree in Languages from Durham University and is a Fellow of the Market Research Society. She has also written an excellent book on B2B Market Research (see Books).
By Jeffrey Peel – Research Magazine, the holy grail for all things market research related, publishes an interesting round-up of interesting stats on a monthly basis. One statistic quoted in the most recent edition is that 25% of entertainment consumed by people will be created, edited and shared within their peer circle by 2012, rather than being generated by media owners – according to study by the Future Laboratory backed by Nokia.
This has obvious implications for all types of companies. At one level, companies need to start developing their own content. Web sites just don’t cut it any more…the challenge is to create “content with currency” – rather than depending on media owners to do all the work.
There are huge implications for PR processes.
Needless to say, we can help. We specialise in helping companies understand this brave new world of personal publishing, blogs, wikis and social networks. We can also help large organisations create better engagement processes with channels and end customers that bypass traditional media approaches.
Give us a call.
