Page. Pay. Promote. Puzzled?

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You've probably noticed it by now if you're a Facebook page owner or admin/manager: 
The word promote at the bottom right of your Facebook posts. What the heck is that? Something new: You can pay Facebook to promote an individual post. 


Here’s what it looks like when you click on the word "promote", using my Groovy Reflections page:

The post I took this from, without any promotion, reached 885 people. Thanks Facebook for now including those statistics with the posts: It IS important to know what resounds with the fan base. However, Mr. Zuckerberg, why would I want to pay $5 to reach 1,000 when the posts has nearly achieved that with no promotion? 


For the Groovy Reflections page the fees range from $5 to $30. The pricing presented appears to be dependent on the number of fans you have.  My MODern Marketing 4 U page only offers $5 and $10 promotions since I have far fewer fans there. 


And furthermore, why would if I pay $30 to reach 5,300 people? There were 4,698 fans when I snipped this example from Facebook so that's more than the number of fans for the page. Ah, of course, this stems from fans liking and commenting on your post; then their friends see it too, thus casting a wider net. Okay. Makes sense.


And if you do use the promote feature, what happens? The post you chose to promote will be labeled as sponsored in the news feed. This is different from ads that show up on the right side of the page.  


Facebook, in their help section on this subject, state that any given posts won’t reach all of your fans. Must be that killer algorhythm doing its thing again. Someday, perhaps we’ll understand why Facebook decides who sees what and how many see it. Yes, it’s frustrating to say the least.  


So, in essence, Facebook restrains the audience for your posts and then charges you to reach more of your own audience? 

Wow. I could say this is a bright idea because there will be page owners eager to pay up for instant results.


Now, why would anyone use this service? Perhaps if you wanted to increase sales of your products and run a quick fire sale, here's a way where you could extend that reach instantly. Could be worthwhile if there’s a high volume of product that needs to be moved quickly.  


It could be used for market research perhaps, a quick poll or short survey where there’s a timely topic and you need data NOW so you can be the first to write about it. The respondents would be luck of the draw unless you put a filter in the survey so you can weed it down to just the folks you really want to pose questions to. However, now we’re talking about a longer survey, which means more folks may bail out, and you’re working against the theory of “quick”.


Sigh.


Facebook continues to be an enigma. Will be interesting to learn if this new feature is a success. Will it bring in fresh revenue and be hailed as innovative by the new stockholders? They're likely waiting for something to make the numbers jump up; that is, if they haven't bailed already and licked their wounds. 


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Shirley Ellis of Name Game fame sang about puzzles too: 

Data, Social Media, and You.

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How do YOU pronounce it? Day-ta or Dat-a?

What actually IS it? Encarta defines it as information, often in the form of facts or figures obtained from experiments or surveys, used as a basis for making calculations or drawing conclusions.

Surveys? Experiments? How does this apply to social media? And, you thought I was going to talk about ROI, didn’t you?

Ah, questionnaires. Good old fashioned quantitative market research; an excellent way to get some insight from your fans, followers or circlers. And plenty of free sources to use. But beware of bias and improper wording; I’ve seen lots of poorly written surveys in my time!
Find a market research professional, tell them what it is you’d like to learn from your clients, and let them do the rest. Great data starts from the best preparation, from defining the issue, including determining the possible actions that will be taken as a result of the findings, creating the questionnaire, testing, fielding, processing, analyzing and reporting.

What do you want to learn from your fans on Facebook for example? Some ideas include:

• Demographics, beyond the location, age group and gender that Facebook provides to page owners
• Gather ideas on what they’d like to see on your page
• Test out a new product concept
• Their opinions on a particular subject; perhaps something that you’d like to blog about at a later date
• Greater detail on their interests (psychographics in market research speak)
• How they feel about some of your current products and likelihood to buy
• What charity they’d like to see you make a donation to

And the other half of that definition, experiment?  How about trying something new with your posts? For example, my other endeavor, Groovy Reflections, offers products, namely hand tie-dyed t-shirts sporting the brand logo. Personally, I don’t enjoy getting in people’s faces touting these offerings.

So, instead, I’ll post something that’s more on the “softer side”, such as giving away a shirt instead (have been doing this every 500 new fans).  Discussion about the free shirt will be lively and some of the more curious folks may inquire more about the products while others will explore quietly on the website. It's both engaging and creating awareness.

Not exactly a focus group facility!

It’s not as good as having a focus group, but you’ll get some qualitative feedback. DO remember that this is a very informal way to gather information and it’s not representative of the population at large that has an interest in your brand or business.

Focus Groups, either in person or on-line would provide some concrete data on the respondents as well as their individual responses in conversation based on a well-planned out guide contain the question you’d like to have the respondents discuss.

Data is powerful if gathered wisely! Do learn from it to make your social media efforts even more successful!

For more data (ha!) on data, say hello on my Facebook or Google+ pages or tweet me.

This is "D" of the Blogging A to Z Challenge. Don't forget your A, B, C's!

Far Out! Voice-Activated Market Research Software from NGMR

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I recently had the honor of beta testing a perhaps slightly unusual market research tool that takes efficient, easy and fun to a whole other level. It was quite exciting to spend a month evaluating and reporting on this next step forward in the world of Market Research.

And yes, I have seen a few cross-tab analysis packages in the past (have even formally trained users in one), but this one gets top awards in my book for two reasons:

•    It’s voice-activated
•    The target user audience is boomers

That's right, voice-activated. And, while you still have to choose which attributes you’d like to run, it's not necessary to click on anything to make the selections; just SAY them. So for example, you could say “column comma age 35 to 54 comma percent”, and the chosen attribute would automatically be retained as your column data. Do the same for your rows, and conditions. When you’re done with your selections, simply say “run”, and the data is automatically placed in an excel spreadsheet, ready to analyze.

Customization is available. For example, after running a query, the software will then ask you if you would like to save the query. If so, say “yes” and it automatically stores it with a logical name. Note: If it's an already existing query that was run, you will be asked if you want to save it with the same name, a new name, or continue to work with the query. And, when they software asks these questions, it can be verbally, as a pop up on the screen, or both; you can program the software to suit your preferences.

So while there is still some use of keyboard and mouse, it is very limited.

But wait! I mentioned that the software was aimed towards Boomers. You can choose how you would like the software to speak to you. “Fillmore Style” contains expressions such as “far out” and “that was such a groovy choice”. “Surfer style” contains jargon such as “cowabunga” and “dude”, while “Puff the Magic Dragon Style” is geared towards all the folkies. But perhaps the most unusual one is “Carnaby Street” where even Mary Quant (not quantitative) is mentioned when one is wrapping up a session with the software.

I highly recommend this software for its ease of use. It DID take a while for it to understand my Jersey accent, so there is a bit of teasing and training involved. And initially, it is good to have attribute lists printed out for your databases or to visit the lists within the software, which ever option you are more comfortable with. I personally liked having a few pages spread out in front of me, which meant that I didn’t have to use the keyboard or mouse at all.

And oh how smart this software is! I could be talking with someone on the phone or in person, and unless I say the name of the software first, it will ignore everything that I am speaking out loud. All I had to do was say “GroovyTab” before a command, and say it again when I finished my commands. And I could go right back to my conversation.

Some great news! If my review has tickled your interest, the company is currently looking for more beta testers, so if you'd like to give it a whirl, leave a comment here, and I’ll make sure they get your message.

The NGMR Top-5-Hot vs. Top-5-Not

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Okay. I’ve been asked to offer up my opinion and tell you what I think are the top 5 hot things in Market Research and what the top 5 not so hot things are.

But those who know me already know that I find it hard to follow the rules. To be forced to come up with ten things means I’ll probably have to write about things that I’m not 100% feeling from the heart.

So I won’t.

I WILL tell you the numero uno item that popped into my mind. It’s a little thing called social media. Let’s face it. It is changing the life of market researchers.

What’s the big difference? We don’t have to gather the data via a survey or a focus group and go through the tedious task of finding those people who are qualified to be a part of a study. We don’t have to code, clean and edit questionnaires, nor process the data in a cross-tab package. We don’t have to fly around the country spending endless late nights munching M&M’s behind a one-way mirror.

We have to do something that’s perhaps one of the hardest things for any human to do. Listen. What? Yes, we have listened in the past, but this is different. It’s sitting out there, on the internet. Right now. All we need to do is reach in and grab it. And it’s so easy to do so via a number of tools, or just running searches.

It’s not quantitative. It’s not exactly qualitative either but closer to it. It’s really a third area of market research. Drawbacks? Yes, indeed. The biggest drawback is that not much is none about the folks that are chattering out there, so it’s unknown if those people are truly the audience you want to hear from. But chances are if they are talking about a specific product or service, that they have either used that product or service or have considered it.

The big advantage to this newfangled social media research thang? Timeliness!  Perhaps the second biggest advantage: cost; down down down. And yes, it’s still data collection so time is involved.

So, if that’s the big news, what’s the not? Doesn’t something have to fall by the wayside? As our society travels more and more towards becoming a paperless society (yes, we are a long way off from that for sure), some things must yield. When was the last time you conducted a survey by mailing it? Surveys went digital. While it’s terrific to be easily able to survey online, unfortunately, anyone can do it. For free. Which poses a problem of sorts to market researchers as we fight for credibility (okay, it’s always been an issue, however, now everyone can be an “instant” researcher). This is a subject that requires a separate post, so don’t even get me started.

For now, I’d like to again focus on the one HOT item that is scorching my fingertips as I type this. Social Media Research. If you’re not in, jump in and start playing. Experiment on your own and run searches in Twitter and Facebook. Pick a timely subject (no, skip Charlie Sheen). See what you get! Eye popping, great information, up to the minute, honest, brutal at times, mostly useful feedback….and actionable.

Will “traditional” market research go away. No. Some clients will require something more concrete. Others will be more than pleased when you deliver a combination of both. Think about surprising your client with social media research, enhancing and perhaps further substantiating what traditional market research provides.

Evolution in Market Research is exciting…and good! And excuse me for not listing 10 items. I'm exhausted after writing about this one.

How do I LOVE something on Facebook? An idea.

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“I don’t just like it, I LOVE it!!!” In addition to clicking “like”, someone posted comment this on one of my Facebook pages the other day. Got me thinking; wouldn’t it be nice to have degrees of like on Facebook? Hmmm…now there’s a true blend of Market Research and Social Media.

Imagine this. There’s one of your favorite songs of all time. You eagerly click on the little arrow and play it. And play it again. And again. And all you can do is “like” it. Why not have the opportunity to rate it a 10 (based on a scale of 1 to 10 with 10 being you absolutely heart heart heart it and 1 being I wouldn’t listen to it if it was the only song available to me on a desert island). What would having a “like” rating scale tell us?

On a Facebook page it would give a better indication of how truly passionate people are (or not so passionate) about the sort of posts you’re putting out there. And, it would be instant feedback. So, if something’s going right, you’ll know. On the other hand, if you’re bombing miserably, you’ll know that too. That’s actually a good thing, because then you tweak your strategy right away and try something else.

A rating scale would provide more meaningful quantitative information (as opposed to a count of likes) in additional to the qualitative comments. Granted, sample size could be small but at the very least could be viewed as directional. Sometimes, I received over 30 likes for any given post (out of just over 1,800 “likers” currently) on one of my Facebook pages. Not bad. And there could be up to 10 comments in addition to those likes. Let’s me know right away that this post is a success. I may tuck that information away and use that very same post again or something similar in the near future.

But it’s about more than one post; several post likes can be viewed collectively too. Posting a number of items that are related and getting a positive reaction to each (let’s say five posts with over 100 likes) could tell us that we’ve struck a positive chord. Do keep in mind that there are likely to be multiple likes among those posts, indicating that the overall subject matter is resonating.

Degrees of like would tell us if a post is a runaway success with many 9’s and 10’s or merely an “eh, it’s okay” with a multitude of 5’s and 6’s.

This methodology could be telling for personal profiles too. If you’re constantly telling your friends that you’re dining at McDonalds this evening, maybe you’ll learn that your friends are rather lukewarm to this information. But when you post really cute photos of your dog or kids, it’s hitting your friends on all 8 cylinders with the good old emotional tug. How do you know this? All your relatives rated it a 10, and most of your childhood friends were in the 8 to 10 range. Meanwhile, those 15 comments brought the story on home.

So, how ‘bout it Facebook? Can you do a little enhancement for those of us who get excited by numbers?