Introduction

Social media has gained considerable human relevance. User-created content,

citizen journalism and online social interactions (e.g. conversation,

collaboration, participation, sharing, connecting) are embedded into the daily lives

of consumers. With the different semantic waves of the web, the entire market

research process and industry has undergone clear changes.

Market research has changed from asking questions to having

conversations with consumers. Online Research Communities have proven to be

a viable environment to engage with consumers as well as marketing executives in

a connected and participatory way. What makes research communities unique is

that they assemble consumers to interact in an asynchronous longitudinal

setting by applying social media techniques. Companies outsource tasks to a

crowd (e.g. product and service creation and testing) in an open call in order to

bring consumers inside organizations all the way up to the boardroom. Research

communities bring true consumer connect between marketers and their target

groups as they use interactive tools to tap into social interactions between people,

and allow a more equal relationship between researchers, brands and participants.

Just like any information technology they bring

automational, informational and

transformational value (Day 1994; Grover et al.

1996; Mooney et al. 1996). They may bring

automational effects because, for example,

communities allow quickly tapping into a sample of

consumers on a specific topic that presents itself,

which makes getting the answer to a specific

question more efficient. The informational value

emerges from the fact that the inherent quality of

consumer understanding we get is of better quality.

Consumer input is multimedia, embedded in

people’s life context as well more reflected and

reasoned. Transformational outcomes of research

communities lay in the fact that research

communities allow to perform tasks which were

previously not possible without the asynchronous

technology and engagement over time. Examples

are in combining research communities with mobile

technologies as well as integration in social

networks.

Why are research communities so hot today?

And still there is a friction between the ability and

desire to conduct research communities in our

industry. The status of online research communities

today is comparable to teenagers and their first

sexual experience. Everyone says they are doing

it, everyone wants to do it … but in the end no-

one really knows how to do it well. This situation

is reflected in the Greenbook Research Industry

Trends 2013. 45% of researchers indicate they have

plans to use online communities in the future

(ranking 1st out of 17 emerging technologies), while

40% of clients claim the lack of knowledge is still a

limitation for them. (GRIT 2013)

Hence, there is a need for an overview and some

concrete tips on how to run online research

communities.

Online Research Communities: types

& applications

When positioning online research communities in the

social media research space we should distinguish them

from the natural communities and social networks where

content and conversations self-generate between

consumers. Researchers can tap into these for

knowledge via social media nethnography methods

like social media listening, scraping and ethnographical,

qualitative observation.

Online research communities assemble consumers

purposefully though; consumers who wish to engage

and co-create with brands. Communities are upon

invitation-only and with a marketing and research

motivation. These private research communities focus on

a specific product category, brand or customer segment.

Online research communities allow marketers to

observe, facilitate and join conversations between

consumers. Consumers enjoy this more participatory

research approach and the interaction re-introduces the

social context often missing from other research

approaches that conceive the consumer as subordinate

and approach them in a top-down isolated fashion.

Positioning Online

Research Communities

In terms of taxonomy there are

several labels and definitions for

research communities used in

practice today, which may lead to

some confusion and some may even

debate whether all of the labels

classify as real communities. The

labels range from online research

communities, over market research

online communities (MROCs), bulletin

boards, blogs, community panels, on-

going communities, etc. (see table 1).

What they do share is that they are all some sort of asynchronous discussion platforms but they vary in terms of

duration (short term and ad hoc to on-going), intensity of moderation (longer lasting communities are less intense or

community panels are even just a form of access panels), direction of conversations and the number of research

techniques used (ranging from synchronous online discussion groups, surveys, diary blogs, one-on-one interviews).

As mentioned, research communities can vary in terms

duration and intensity. But when do you need a short

versus a long term community? As often is the case in

research it depends on the management and research

objectives marketers have. Research communities can be

used throughout the marketing mix for understanding,

developing, implementing or optimizing marketing offers (see

figure 1). For consumer insight, for example, communities

are used at the fuzzy front end of product innovation or for

consumer immersion. In a development marketing phase

new value propositions are developed for product concepts,

brands or activation campaigns. Implementation communities

are organized when products or services are about to be

launched and need market testing, e.g. for beta-testing or in

home user tests. Finally research communities can be used

for gathering feedback on customer experience and

satisfaction processes.

It’s not about technology, let’s bring

the consumer into the boardroom

Often times the focus these days is on technology and tools while what the

common ground real communities should share is engagement. Unlike internet

access panels, participants in a research community talk to each other

as well as to researchers and marketers. Consumers exchange ideas in

their own consumer language and raise questions and answers which

researchers sometimes did not even ask. In other words, the social context

and interaction is important and provides a holistic understanding. This

can only be achieved by means of creating engagement at different levels,

however.

First, there is a need for natural engagement which implies that consumers

have to identify with the topic or the brand under investigation. A second form

of engagement that is needed is method engagement. This implies that

researchers should propose questions in a fun and challenging way to increase

participation and quality of input (e.g. gamification, infotainment, challenges).

Finally, research communities need to create impact engagement which

implies to create impact at the client management side.

1 Engaging with participants - natural &

method engagement

Many practitioners focus on the absolute number of people they connect with in research communities. While

important we argue that sample size is subordinate. What is really important is the number of interactions

per discussion thread which can only be created through engagement with consumers. Setting up an online

research community is technically easy, but in order to make interactions useful and effective, researchers

need adequate processes for (Schillewaert et al.2011):

Natural engagement:

Purposeful sampling. Researchers are

advised to create natural engagement by

sampling brand fans or consumers who

show an interest in the topic when recruiting

for research communities. True these

consumers are “biased”, but at least they

reflect an illustrative consumer reality and

generate in-depth discussion.

Small is beautiful and better short and intense. Depending

on the research objective research communities can last a

couple of weeks or months or be on-going – they can have 50 or

a several hundreds of participants – it depends. But one needs to

be aware that longer and larger communities need higher

engagement and require more resources. Lurking can increase

with too many participants or an over-whelming number of posts.

A paradox? Not really. When participants see too much

information they disconnect because they are convinced their

opinion has already been voiced and adds less or no value.

Adapt the context and

environment to the target

group. For example, let participants

choose colors and the name of the

community or put topics and

questions on the discussion

agenda. Foresee a social corner

(next to the actual discussion

space) where participants can

interact “off topic”. If needed

moderators should guide

participants to such a social corner.

In doing so the community is for and

by members.

Build the community. Once

participants are screened and

recruited, “kick off” sessions are

important to build engagement on a

social as well as informational level.

Such sessions discuss the research

agenda and objectives, the client is

presented and participants get

acquainted.

Engage as many

stakeholders as possible. Engaging members of the

marketing team, senior

management or a well known

expert from the industry or

academia to participate in the

discussion spurs activity

levels tremendously.

Method engagement (1):

Method engagement:

Moderators should develop the C-factor –

the “C” of community manager. Good

moderators have good writing skills, are

creative and apply “social media” in human

interaction. Moderators need to be aware that

community discussions can last for too long

and moderators need to pay attention to

steering interaction. There is an important role

for researchers and community moderators in

building identification with the community,

keeping up the engagement with the topic to

keep the discussion going while not letting

members over-socialize and drift away from

the researchers‟ agenda. Too strong social

relations among members of a research

community can be counterproductive as they

lead to irrelevant discussions.

What we ‘do’ to people is as important as what

we ‘ask’ them. Give participants tasks to perform

and play games with them which generate insights.

We can make people generate information for us by

introducing more fun elements and creativity. In his

book Brain Rules (2008), Dr Medina posits that we

often ignore how the brain works, and so do we

researchers. If we would apply some of his 12 rules to

how researchers can generate information, we could

get more productive. As an example, there are five

rules that are particularly relevant for market research:

(1) „exercise boosts brain power‟ (rule #1); (2) „we do

not pay attention to boring things‟ (rule #4); (3)

„stimulate more of the senses‟ (rule #9); (4) „vision

trumps all other senses‟ (rule #10); and „we are

powerful and natural explorers‟ (rule #12). In doing so

researchers play on the engagement and brand

relation of participants. Allow participants to do what

they like, surprise them with something special and

check out their reaction.

Method engagement (2):

2 Engaging with internal stakeholders –

impact engagement

If we are completely honest, a lot of the research that is commissioned does not have the necessary

impact. Unfortunately, research has commoditized as clients search for „more and cheaper‟, not true

transformation or added value. Still, the core of market research should be to bring the voice and

ideas of consumers inside organizations all the way up to the boardroom. Because of their very

nature online research communities allow to do this, but researchers need to create internal engagement

and change management. Market research studies are not only about formal presentations, knowledge

management and communication programmes. The informal „hall talk‟ is an equally powerful way to have

managers use and share intelligence. The most powerful is when research is a conversation starter

and generates lively stories about customers. This can be done in three phases:

Phase 1: Engage the internal audience via positive disruption. Create a friction in

terms of contrasting management knowledge with actual market situations via e.g. games and

quizzes with managers. Let executives participate in a consumer quiz to learn about consumer

findings. By answering questions about consumers they receive social status (e.g. a badge),

achieve different game levels and unlock extra information when progressing – at least something

worth talking about..

Phase 2: Inspire executives by allowing them to observe, facilitate and even join the

consumer conversations in the community. Allow executives to participate in the community.

Phase 3: Activate managers to increase their usage of market research studies in their

daily job by means of using creative and inspiring sessions and organize internal news streams and

infotainment (e.g. via twitter updates, newsletters, infographics, mood boards).

By creating internal engagement executives’ knowledge will increase, they will

converse about the study at the water cooler and will continue to observe consumers

beyond the mere report (De Ruyck et al., 2011).

Conclusion

Market research is in a state of limbo. Research communities can help to bring the

consumer into the boardroom by means of creative intelligence generation methods,

making sure research is a conversation starter to stimulate management responsiveness.

We need „enacting‟ research communities that create ENgagement and ACTivation

among clients as well as participants, through gamification, stories and experiences.

References

Day, G. (1994). The capabilities of market driven organizations. Journal of Marketing, 58, 4

(October), pp. 37–52.

De Ruyck, T., Knoops, S., Schillewaert, N., Coenen, G. and S. Rodrigues (2011), Engage,

Inspire, Act, ESOMAR Congress, Amsterdam.

GRIT (2011). http://www.greenbook.org/PDFs/GRIT-S11-Full.pdf

Grover, V., Teng, J., Segars, A.H. & Fiedler, K. (1998). The influence of information

technology diffusion and business process change on perceived productivity: the IS

executive‟s perspective. Information and Management, 34, 3, pp. 141–159.

Medina, J. (2008) Brain Rules. Pear Press.

Mooney, J.G., Gurbaxani, V. & Kraemer, K.L. (1996). A process oriented framework for

assessing the business value of information technology. The DATABASE for Advances in

Information Systems, 27, 2, pp. 68–81.

Schillewaert, N., De Ruyck, T., Ludwig. S. and M. Mann (2011). The Darkside to

Crowdsourcing in Online Research Communities, CASRO Journal, pp. 5 – 9,

http://issuu.com/casro/docs/casro-2011_journal

Want to know more about

research communities?

tom@insites-consulting.com

+32 9 269 14 07

Tom De Ruyck Head of Research Communities