A Look Back at TMRE: Ingredients for Success when using MROCs

In the upcoming weeks, we'll be featuring insights from The Market Research Event 2012 attendees.

In today's update, Dave Gustafson shares his notes on Day 1 Track 2
Social Media Listening Track, "It's More than Just Buzz: How to Leverage Social MR and SM Listening to Gain Insights" with Caroline Klompmaker, Global Insights Business Lead, Burt's Bees Div of Clorox.

Caroline defined the Burt's Bees MROC as 'a marketing formula of influencers and passionate fans.' At Burt's Bees, they try to be creative ' e.g., they host public events for bloggers, they have developed a MROC from their opt-in e-mail list ('The Hive'), etc.

She defined social media as Internet-based tools and platforms that provide enhanced interactions. She suggested it is important with MROCs to emphasize active participation and collaboration. In addition, from an interpretation standpoint, there is a need to understand biases/skews with social data, and the need for a structured approach in order to gain insights (because there is so much data/information).

Engagement with their online community occurs via a variety of approaches -- discussion forums, highly-visual surveys, highlights and clicks, photo sharing, digital journals and collages. Caroline noted 'it is all about keeping the community active and engaged.'

Relative to traditional research, there are some definite pros/benefits from social media listening: large sample, timeliness/immediacy, ease/access to information, and cost effectiveness.

However, there are also cons/things to be aware of when using results from social-based approaches: skewed sample (digital), the information is publicly-shared, and the 'group think' phenomenon.

Caroline' advice/ingredients for success when using MROCs include the following suggestions:
1) ensure the insights fit within your research plan,
2) cultivate an internal knowledge base of social and its applications,
3) seek a champion/nurture internal support,
4) be cognizant of the MROC terms/specifications (e.g., size, frequency of interactions, etc.),
and 5) leverage vendor support.

As Marketers, how can we put social market research and social media listening into the appropriate context? How does your MROC compare?

Dave Gustafson is a career market researcher based in the
Philadelphia area. In addition to owning and running his own boutique
market research firm, he is the Chief Advisor at Spych Market Analytics,
LLC. Dave can be reached at dave@SpychResearch.com

Wish to submit your insights for inclusion in this series? Email submissions to Michelle LeBlanc at mleblanc@iirusa.com