Social media provides marketers with immediate, massive customer feedback and insights into trends. It allows searching social networks and forums, engaging customers by asking questions, and monitoring competitors. Emerging tools enable behavioral targeting, niche social platforms, social sharing where customers directly impact products, and social assistance tools like relationship management, automation, and analytics.

1. WHY SOCIAL MEDIA FOR
MARKET RESEARCH?

2. Immediate, Real Time Commentary

3. Massive Customer Feedback

4. Trends

5. TOOLS

6. SEARCH
Reputation Monitoring
Keyword Search
Mentions

7. TYPES OF SEARCH TOOLS

8. FriendFeed – searches through whatever social media sources its members have
added.
Technorati – searches through the blogosphere, but not other social media.
Google Blog Search – also searches through the blogosphere.
BlogPulse – also searches through the blogosphere.
Twitter Search – provides results only from Twitter.
OneRiot – searches just the URLs shared on Twitter.
Dipity – searches through social media sites and displays the results against a
timeline.
Social Mention – searches through social media sites and includes statistics of the
keyword: strength, sentiment, passion & reach.
Samepoint – searches through social media sites and includes how negative or
positive that source is on the topic.
BoardTracker – searches through popular forums
Omgili – searches for discussions of your keyword on popular forums, mailing
lists, answer boards, blogs, and even reviews on ecommerce sites.
Google Alerts – sends an email each time a new page based on your keyword is
indexed.

9. ASK
Engagement
Community
Better Than A Focus Group!
Crowdsourcing

10. FYI.....
Craft Your Questions Carefully
Be careful not to come across too commercial or promotional
whenever talking to the public.
If you are in doubt, start by asking how people solve the
particular problem in your business

11. TYPES OF E-FORUM TOOLS

12. Yahoo! Answers (YHOO) – questions are categorized and social incentives are
offered to encourage people to provide answers.
Aardvark – uses your extended social network to answer your questions, which
may or may not be your target audience.
Forums – there are forums for almost every topic and industry out there; look
for a few popular & active forums aimed at your target market and post your
questions there.
Google Groups – look for a few popular & active groups aimed at your target
market and post your questions there.
Blog – start a blog and ask your questions there, though without cultivating a
meaningful following, replies may not be forthcoming.
Twitter – create an account and ask your questions there, though without
cultivating a meaningful following, replies may not be forthcoming.
Facebook – start a group or fan page for your business and ask your questions
there, though without cultivating a meaningful membership, replies may not be
forthcoming.

13. TRENDS
Detect a growing trend
Ride the Wave
Identify New Opportunities

14. TYPES OF TREND SEARCH
TOOLS

15. Google Trends – displays the keyword search volume and news articles over
time, including search volume within geographic regions, cities, and languages.
bing xRank – displays the keyword search volume over time, including related
keyword phrases, news, videos, and images.
Trendrr – searches through a range of social media sites and displays the
keyword search volume on each over time.
BlogPulse – searches through the blogosphere and displays uses of the keyword
over time.
Trendpedia – searches through the blogosphere and displays uses of the keyword
over time.
Hashtags – searches through Twitter’s hashtags and displays uses of the hashtag (if
it exists) over time.

16. COMPETITIVE RESEARCH
Identify Your Competitors
Understand Their Business
Get “Insider” Information

17. TYPES OF COMPETITIVE
RESEARCH TOOLS

18. LinkedIn – provides employee listings (current, former, & new), related companies
(acquisitions & subsidiaries), general company information (location of
employees, number of employees, stock charts, etc), employee demographics
(recent promotions, common job titles, common career paths, top universities,
median age, gender percentages, etc), and job listings.
Jigsaw – provides employee listings (name, position, contact information, etc) and
employee statistics (number of employees in different divisions & positions).
CrunchBase – provides general company information (using wiki software), key
employee profiles (current & former), company acquisitions (acquired company,
date, & amount if known), company investments (company invested in & date),
dates of significant company events, traffic analysis of company website, and list of
news articles from TechCrunch, Techmeme, and other sources.
Glassdoor – provides ratings & reviews of companies made by members of this
site, salary information based on job titles, information about interviews with
various companies, and job listings.

19. WHAT’S NEXT FOR SOCIAL
MEDIA?

20. Niche Platforms
Behavioral Targeting
Social Sharing
Social “Assistance” Tools

21. WHAT IS SOCIAL SHARING?
Customers are now directly involved with your product and can
make an impact!

24. TYPES OF “SOCIAL
ASSISTANCE” TOOLS

25. Social Relationship Management
Social Automation
Social Analytics

26. Contact:
awalker@prview.com
Panorama Public Relations