Marketers have done a great job by keeping up with the pace of social networks, as it has been truly moving at the speed of light. We have seen a number of campaigns failing and succeeding on social networks and all we hear about these campaigns are the tactics or techniques marketers used which impacted the output of these campaigns. Nevertheless, Marketers are still understanding the uses of social media and how they can implement a successful marketing strategy.
As a business, if you decide to launch a new product or want to improve your product, the most important factor is the feedback from users, what they want from the services or products you are offering and what their perception is when they hear your name. These are some of the major questions which need to be answered when launching a new product or when you decide to bring some improvement in the product which is already available in the market.
Today, we are going to discuss about using social media for collecting critical feedback which helps marketers to achieve the business objectives quickly. Yes! You read it right, social media can be used for collecting feedback and opinions other than posts, photo sharing, video sharing and inviting friends for playing Farmville.
We here at Cygnis Media, collected some thoughts (internally) and decided to list them here for you, so that you may have some idea on how to use social media when you are about to launch your new product or to improve your existing product. So, without further ado let us see the opinions of the marketing experts in Cygnis Media regarding the usage of social media for product launch or improvement:
Marketing Director of Cygnis Media provided the following thoughts for using social media to conduct market research:
Ask Questions:
I know it sounds simple, but this is one of the best ways: if you want to know. People are generous and are willing to help if you ask them to, ask your Facebook fans, reach out to your Twitter followers and blog followers by asking them about their thoughts for your new product or the improvements you are about to make to the existing product. When you receive responses, evaluate them and create a knowledge base on how your product or services would be received. You can also follow the respondents, and ask them further details or follow up questions and in the process you can build good relationships with your followers; which by the way is another advantage for your business.
Conduct Surveys & Polls:
These are more formalized and easy to conduct market research online. You can gather information from a huge audience at once using surveys and polls. Successful surveys and polls can be conducted by following these simple steps:
- Publish on all the social networks you use.
- The form should be simple and user friendly.
- Provide an incentive (fill out the survey and enter a chance to win something)
- Thank the users after they complete the survey.
- Encourage users to invite their friends to take the survey.
Observe:
Basic observation can be one of the simplest way to conduct market research. You just need to observe what your target audience is looking for on all the social networks i.e. Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Goggle+, Blogs etc. You can easily draft the data and use it for your research. It is not that hard if you are a keen observer and pay attention to details.
Focus Group:
Many of the social networks now have the functionality so that you can conduct your own research and development. For instance, Google+ circles can be used to create segments according to the industry or location, so that you can target the correct audience with your questions. When users know that they are a part of your focus group, they tend to help you out more as these participants feel special when you involve them in your decision making process.
We also approached the CTO of Cygnis Media to discuss about the practical approach to implement the market research on social media networks. He provided details for the top 3 social networks which we are listing here for you:
Practical Approach for Market Research on Facebook:
- Create a Facebook page and promote it.
- Queries should be responded in a particular time frame, better if done on the spot.
- Observe the conversations of users.
- Follow the pages which are related to your industry.
- Post surveys and ask fans to respond, and share it to their friends as well.
- Use Facebook Ads to promote your survey to the targeted audience.
- Use Facebook Insights to collect data about your fan base.
Practical Approach for Market Research on LinkedIn:
- Create a LinkedIn page and promote it.
- Use LinkedIn analytics to collect data about your followers.
- Reach out to the users, to whom you would like to ask questions.
- Post a survey and ask your connections to respond.
- Use LinkedIn Ads to promote your survey to the targeted audience.
- Search Q & A section for your keywords, to find out what is being said about you.
Practical Approach for Market Research on Twitter:
- Follow your clients and colleagues.
- Search for your brands keywords.
- Tweet a survey and ask your followers to respond.
- Retweet content, when you think the Tweet is relevant to your industry with a short comment.
- Observe Tweets for finding out what is being said.
CONCLUSION:
These are just the thoughts we have shared with you for conducting market research and survey using social networks. We would like you to share your creative ideas you have used while collecting critical feedback from the targeted audience and let us know how it worked out for you.
