Social Media in Market Research

I read about social media marketing, and have some experiments going.  I recruit part time telephone interviewers for a small market research firm.  My experiments involve using my personal Facebook page and Google+ page.  I have also placed ads on local college job boards.

I still have more experimenting and learning to do.  My goals going into it were to avoid spending money on advertising in the local newspaper or online forums.  I also wanted to avoid advertising on Craigslist.  The volume of the responses through the college job boards, Facebook and Google+ has been much less than the responses we have seen from Craigslist ads, but the quality of the applicants has been much higher.

I am usually quite skeptical of coincidence.  That is why it surprises me that some of the people who have applied for jobs over the summer have been people who did not respond to any advertisement.  One person worked for us three years ago, one person ten years ago and another person worked at the firm 18 years ago, before my time.  Another person lives in the neighborhood and wants to practice his interviewing skills as part of his education in the social sciences.  Perhaps these people heard through the grapevine that we were hiring.  They heard that I sent emails and posted ads from other people.  Perhaps it is coincidence.

All of this gives me the impression that any kind of effective social media marketing will be an adjunct to word of mouth advertising.  Facebook and Google+ can make the process more convenient, but having something that people want and a good reputation are what gets people to pick up the phone or come in the door.

This leads me to believe that the same principals apply to conducting research via social media;  Facebook and Google+ may make the process more convenient, but someone will still have to make sure that a sample is representative of a population and phone calls will still have to be made to ask people to participate in surveys.  The survey might be on a Facebook page, but interviewers will need to call people to direct them to that page.  The chat function may be used to clarify responses to open-ended questions.  That part may be fun.