Just kidding ;-)   But now that I have your attention...

The title of this post refers to a recent request we received to build two 120 minute-long online research communities.  By no means is this post a criticism of this individual and their request (they acknowledged they were in a pinch and had no time at all to research the methodology - their client had merely asked for a community).  Of course, they were really looking for an online focus group so I suggested the names of a few vendors they could contact.  However, the conversation got me thinking...

Are we all hyping communities to death?

Calls like these make me worry that people are just looking for the word "community" in anything that they do because it's the hot new thing, and aren't stopping to think about what a community actually is, how the approach should be applied and what it's good for (and not so good for).  Don't get me wrong - companies like PluggedIN have benefitted quite a bit from all the attention given to communities the past few years so I'm not complaining, but having so much hype and confusion around the term isn't good for anyone in the long-term. 

I have a feeling the dust will settle eventually, but I worry about companies that end up with a bad taste for "communities" when in practice what they're really getting is what most qualitative market researchers would call an online focus group or bulletin board.

What is an online research community?

Of course, this also brings up the broader question of what a research community is, and that's where things get a bit trickier...  Going back a few years to Forrester's report "Will Web 2.0 Transform Market Research," a MROC is defined as "captive interactive groups of people online joined together by a common interest, which are systematically harvested for qualitative market research purposes."  Nothing in this definition explicitly states duration or size of the community, so I guess with a definition this broad an OLFG could be considered a form of MROC.

Jeffrey Henning (@jhenning) of Vovici put together a helpful chart with the variations of online research communities ("Online Research Communities by Type") according to whether they are temporary/permanent and open/closed.  The chart includes OLFGs, although Jeffrey acknowledges in the comments that he de-emphasized them on purpose...      

My take on it...

Having been involved in many OLFG, BBFGs, short-term MROCs and continuous MROCs over the years, I can only appeal to personal experience running each.  I can say "qualitatively" that even a short-term MROC (which I'm defining here as at least one month) has a very different feel (and value) than something that is a few hours or days long (like an OLFG or BBFG), but that's just my experience...

What's your take? 

Is the buzz around communities going to help or hurt in the long run?  How do you define a research community (or insight community, market research online community, online research community or whatever you prefer to call it)? 

In the spirit of every blogger's "predictions for 2010" posts, here are PluggedIN's predictions for where MROCs might be heading in 2010...

• Specialization in Custom MROCs - As the methodology is widely adopted across the industry, we'll start to see vendors carve their niche around a speciality.  For example, we might see more companies jumping on B2B MROCs as a focus, or creating methods around ideation/brainstorming specifically.  We have a feeling we won't see this specialization come out of "traditional" MROC vendors, but rather out of those who realize that the tools for building their own MROC approach are readily available, allowing them to use their existing focus in a nascent methodology. 
• Tighter Intergration of Social Media Monitoring and MROCs - At various MR conference this year, the hot topic was how to effectively capture sentiments on brands, products, etc... across the social media landscape.  Various vendors are rushing to address this now (or already have), specifically within the realm of market research.  However, the undertone in each of these conversations was the question of how market researchers can provide context for these responses and understand their implications for our clients specifically.  It's here that MROCs have the opportunity to shine for next year, as social media mining will become more prevalent, along with the need to make sense of these sentiments.  We took baby steps in this area earlier this year when we integrated Twitter and various other social media properties into the PluggedIN Platform, but look for much more from MROC vendors in the year to come... 
• Technology/Platform Prices Dropping - As with any technology, the cost of licensing MROC platforms will likely decrease this year.  While there are many general purpose community platforms out there, and relatively few market research-specific platforms, we think the industry will start to see more solutions custom designed around the needs of market researchers.  More competition for self service clients could drive the prices down across the board.
• Fortune 100 No Longer - It's telling when the analyst report that starts it all in motion (e.g., Brad Bortner's original report on "Will Web 2.0 Transform Market Research?") has the subtitle of "Yes - But High Cost Will Mean That Firms With Big Budgets Lead."  That was 2008, when a handful of firms dominated the space.  In 2010, we see more competition in the MROC space that will force larger vendors to either drop their prices for long-term community engagements, or figure out how to add more value to their approach.  Continuing with the trend we just mentioned (platform prices dropping), 2010 will finally start to see firms without big budgets moving into MROCs as their primary mode of obtaining in-depth qualitative insights in a cost effective manner.  
• MROCs Will Finally Divorce Themselves From Panels - For years now people have used the terms panel and community interchangeably...  In 2009 we started to see a clearly defined difference in the minds of end users, which is something we think will continue into 2010.  Panels are not communities and communities are not panels.  We think the industry has finally caught on, and it's time to figure out how to make the most of the MROC approach.

That's just our two cents after seeing how this niche in the MR industry has evolved over the last four years...  What do you think?  

--Matt & Ben     

Last week we posted some ideas about how to explore perceptual mapping in an online community setting to help people better articulate how they feel in qualitative research. We promised some additional ideas and variations, so here they are...

Winners Podium: For this activity, show an image of a winners podium and ask members to share who they think wins the gold, silver, and bronze in the appropriate category (e.g. most entertaining) and why...  

Family Portrait: Show an image of an extended family and ask members to share who they think each of the brands listed in this zany family are and why...  (e.g. the crazy uncle, the worldly cousin, the baby, the grandpa, the trustworthy son, the mom that holds it all together, the black sheep).

Target Practice: Include an image of a target and have members place competitive products on the target (where the bulls eye is the ideal) and explain why they put them in the respective spot.

- Ben

Tamara Barber of Forrester Research recently posted an interesting blog on "Research Panels vs. Research Communities - What's the difference?" that highlights something we've mentioned on the MROC Talk blog before, namely that there is a distinct difference between research panels and market research online communities. 

It's great to hear that other vendors and analysts covering the space are also onboard with the differences, as I think it will mean there is finally some clarification around the terms and ways these two methods are used in the industry...

What I particularly like about Tamara's post is her mention of the iterative nature of online research communities, and how that makes for a key difference between a research community and a research panel.  Research communities allow you to really explore a topic in-depth through numerous iterations around a similar theme.  This is one of the biggest benefits of an ongoing research community approach. 

If you get a chance, definitely check out the post and comments (particularly Diane Hessan's insightful comment about focusing on engagement over size).  A special "thank you" to Katie Harris for her mention of our blog in the comments :-)

If you're interested, you can also check out some of our previous posts on this topic below:

• When does a market research community become a research panel? 
  
• Research communities vs. research panels
• Rethinking qualitative research methods
• Qualitative versus quantitative feedback in online research communities

Market research needs to be more captivating

I think we can all agree that you can learn more about someone over a drink at a bar than you can if you take that same person into a focus group room and interview them for an hour. The environment and overall participant experience is so important, even though your questions may be the same.

Online qualitative needs to be more captivating

I think this has some definite implications for online qualitative research, especially as companies seek an extended relationship with respondents. The environment and member experience is so crucial because you want people to stick around for weeks/months rather than hours/minutes. Also, many people assume that because online is more convenient then it must be more engaging, but this is not entirely true. Some of the most technical bulletin board/forum software is also some of the least user-friendly and least entertaining for participants to use over the long term.

People don't love the research experience

Additionally, market research is not widely respected by the general population (speaking mostly for the US audience, here). Many don't like the thought of participating - and who would blame them? They associate market research with annoying phone calls, check box surveys, long batteries of open-ended questions (yes, even in qualitative forums)... It's telling when Facebook has a group called "I work in Market Research & no I don't stand in the street with a clipboard." There is a disconnect between how researchers and participants perceive the experience.  I think we all need to consider the participant experience more carefully and do all we can to make it less repetitive, more engaging, more entertaining, and genuinely more fun.

Market research online communities have a opportunity to change perceptions

One of the great things about online market research communities is that they provide a more engaging, less "clinical" experience for participants. We hear from our community members that they think the experience is fun and captivating, especially compared to conventional surveys, discussion forums, and other modes. Also, in research communities (whether 2 months or 2 years) your core members feel more vested in the goal of the research than they do with other modes. Having research participants that want to participate, are genuinely having a good time, and are vested in the direction of your research objectives is an ideal situation.

Perceptions won't change automatically

However, even with this more engaging tool we still need to be vigilant about the member experience. Part of this may be the look/feel of the community site, but more importantly it is about the way you incorporate the various tools (e.g., discussions, blogs, polls) and the type/mix of activities that you run that ultimately help make research more fun and captivating.  

Chime in if you have any specific exercises/activities on this. I know we have posted a few in the past.

- Ben

One of the questions we're sometimes asked is whether or not it makes sense to recruit members for an online research community from a set of specific geographic areas.  The thinking is that later on it would be possible to meet with them in a traditional in-person research setting... 

This isn't only possible, it's smart and cost efficient.  It also points out a few different ways that online and offline qualitative research methods can be combined.  Read on for some ideas on combining online and offline approaches, as well as reasons why it makes sense to combine them...

How can you combine traditional with online qualitative research methods?

Below are some ideas for combining online and offline research methods to get you thinking about unique ways to design your next research study...

1. Recruiting community members to meet for in-person focus groups or in-depth interviews - This is the combination I referred to earlier, which consists of recruiting members from a specific geographic region(s) to an online community, and asking them during the screening process if they would be willing to participate in in-person sessions.  
2. Recruiting in-person focus group or IDI participants into an online community - Of course, the opposite to the first example holds true...  You could run multi-city focus groups and invite participants to continue the conversation in an online community afterward.  
3. Website usability sessions with an online community - Website usability is typically done in an in-person setting, most often as an interview.  Imagine what it would be like if you could invite them to connect online afterwards and take a look at the improvements you made to the site experience based on your feedback, while collaborating in a community setting to further optimize the site...    
4. In-person advisory boards with an online community or bulletin board focus group - Some companies have customer advisory boards that meet in-person at regular intervals (e.g., quarterly).  Why not give your advisors a regular place to meet online in-between sessions?  Alternatively, you could invite them to bulletin board focus group sessions at the mid-point between sessions...
5. Ethnography with an online community - Last (and definitely not least) is the idea of combining in-person ethnography with an online community.  Imagine having participants share diaries, photos, videos and ideas in between visits from the researcher.  That could lead to additional conversations and insights that would not have been possible with traditional ethnography alone.  
   

Why combine traditional with online qualitative research methods?

Thinking of combining online and offline qualitative methods?  Here are a few reasons why you should seriously consider this for your next study:

1. Cost efficiency - One of the biggest reasons for combining modes is potential cost efficiencies.  For example, recruiting members for an in-person study directly from your online community could help you save money on recruiting.  You might also be able to cut down on the number of in-person sessions you do, as you will be gathering quite a bit of feedback online as well.  Finally, you could also cut the number of markets for your study (thereby saving on travel costs), since the online component will help you cover a wide geographic area.  
2. Connecting between events - Ever wanted to follow-up with probing questions for that really insightful focus group participant, but couldn't because the group ran out of time?  Imagine having a community for connecting between in-person events.  The online community would ensure that you could follow-up with questions after analyzing the results from the in-person sessions.  That type of connection can lead to additional insights and ideas that would not have been possible by traditional research methods alone.
3. Seeing who participants really are - One of the major complaints against online market research methods is that you don't get to see the facial reactions from participants or generally see who they are.  However, combining online and offline research methods allows you to get the best of both worlds - an ongoing conversation through the online methods combined with getting to see them in a traditional research setting.  This might also help you screen out any "professionals" that might be in the midst of your studies...
4. Making homework assignments easier - Focus group moderators sometimes use homework assignments before groups to get participants thinking about the topic before they arrive.  Imagine how a community or online study before the group could coordinate members.  Also imagine what that might do to participation rates.  I would guess that more people will make the effort to show up for a focus group if there has been an online component before the group occurs.
5. Building rapport and getting started quickly - By getting to know participants online before a focus group, you can build up a baseline understanding of their background and start to develop rapport with members before they even step foot in the focus group room.  This helps you hit the ground running in the conversation, instead of spending valuable time just getting past introductory material. 
   

These are just a few examples of how traditional and online qualitative methods can be merged to create efficiencies and additional insights that would not have been possible with one approach alone... 

What do you think? 

Have you had positive or negative experiences with merging methods?  In your experience, which approaches work best?  Comments are welcome! 

eMarketer posted an article today on "Why Now is Not a Good Time to Slash Your Market Research Budget."  In it, they indicate that anticipated spending on market research is likely to stay the same or decrease at many organizations, halting the trend of increased spending over the past 20 years.  The article also outlines a few reasons why a budget cut isn't the right path to take...

How will this impact researchers and the way budgets are spent?  Those facing tighters budget may consider turning to online qualitative research methodologies (and specifically online research communities) as a way of spending money more efficiently within the constraints of their new budgets. 

For example, consider a company that sets up a community to evaluate and follow the decision making process their target audience goes through over the course of a typical research and purchase cycle.  That kind of community could help uncover insights into where people are spending their time and money, what they pay attention to, purchase influencers, how they actually make their purchase, concerns they have during the process, etc...  This information could then help a company adapt their marketing strategy accordingly, saving significant money on ineffective methods that prospective customers are less likely to notice.

Of course, research communities and other forms of online qualitative research also help save money through:

• Decreased travel costs
• Lower rental charges and associated fees
• Lower recruiting costs (over time)
• Lower incentive and incentive management costs
  
• Increased geographic reach (leading to a reduced need for multi-city studies)
  

If you followed our blog from last week, you know that we think key developments and trends in qualitative research will heavily involve the reporting end of our business. As I was preparing this blog, I realized that in an ironic twist, a more interactive version of this blog was necessary. So fittingly we have prepared an "old school" and a "new school" version of this post:

Trends in qualitative reporting (New school)

Trends in qualitative reporting (Old school)

Understanding Lifestyle

Clients will always want a fairly detailed summary of findings from the topics we cover, but there is an opportunity to give them much more. Many clients want to know more about the backstory. They want to know details about an individual's lifestyle and how they think about the world around them. Being able to present this to clients as part of our solution will be key.

Speed

With continuous qualitative methods comes the need for more ongoing reporting mechanisms. Here at PluggedIN we talk a lot about how the ongoing nature of MROCs helps clients stay in touch. The scary truth of this is that our own reporting needs to be delivered with a speed and efficiency that allows clients to capitalize on this access.  Clients cannot wait "2 weeks after field" for a report to inform their decisions. They need insights quicker. Thinks days instead of weeks.

Get to the Point!

Gone are the days of a 100 page "slide-ument." Even if you impress your clients with the speed with which you can prepare this report, people do not have time nor attention span to sift through an insanely comprehensive report. As researchers, we need to be more simple and concise in our language. We also need to find ways to make details easier to decipher. Things like Top 10 lists, colors/icons to note key content, and other techniques will be appreciated.

Creative Delivery

We live in a multimedia world and to help clients pay more attention to what we are saying, we need to be more creative about the forms we communicate in. Things like Podcasts, video reports, Slideshare presentations, persona flash cards can all help to make our reports more engaging. These formats also allow us to communicate findings in things other than text (e.g. photos, music, narration). This also helps us better communicate lifestyle related insights (see point 1) which can't always be replicated in text.

Storytelling

Matt had a great post this week linking to a Slideshare about storytelling by Joyce Hostyn. It's a great example about how powerful storytelling can be to share ideas. The great thing about qualitative research is that we talk to real people and figure out who they are and why they do the things they do. We tell stories for a living. Finding better ways to share our stories will make our reports more engaging and grab more attention from our clients. 

True Collaboration

I think the biggest development in qualitative reporting has to do with what happens after a report is delivered. It's the conversations we have with fellow researchers and our clients that go beyond the findings we prepared. These conversations inform future research, give us a better sense of client needs, and help us understand the areas that our report delivered (or failed to deliver) on. This interaction forces us be better at our job and helps us inevitably give clients what they really need. Finding more efficient ways to have these conversations and opening them up to as many perspectives as possible will be a great development (if you can stand it!)

There has been quite a bit of buzz lately about the micro-blogging service Twitter.  Naturally, the buzz has brought about conversations on how Twitter can be used for a variety of business applications, including qualitative market research.  I see opportunities for Twitter as a qualitative research method, but think there are a few key drawbacks as well.  Below are some of the potential benefits and drawbacks of using Twitter for qualitative research...

The benefits of using Twitter for qualitative research

• It's free & easy - We'll start with one obvious benefit - Twitter is free and fairly easy to mine for information.  All kinds of third-party services exist to help see the latest trends, hot topics, etc...
• It's fast - If you have an active group of followers you can get answers to your questions quickly.
• It's "natural" - We've written before about mining existing communities for qualitative research purposes.  Twitter is really no different - it's an existing social network that can be mined for feedback in a "natural" setting.

The drawbacks of using Twitter for qualitative research

• 140 character limit - I don't know about other qualitative researchers out there, but I'd be pretty disappointed if someone constantly responded with 140 character responses in an online focus group or research community.  Twitter's limit of 140 characters per "tweet" doesn't exactly lead to the most insightful and articulate responses from a group of research participants... Granted, you can just post a few tweets as a response, but that kind of defeats the purpose of micro-blogging.
• Who are you talking to?  As with any research in existing communities, there is no established process for determining if the people you are talking to actually fit the profile of your target audience.  While you could actively recruit to find Twitter users who meet your criteria, it still would be tricky to ensure you're talking to the right people...
  
• It's "artificial" - While mining an existing community or social network (like Twitter) can be a "natural" and semi-ethnographic way to conduct research, it is still a bit contrived at the same time.  The Yellow Submarine blog has a good post about this...  Many people are tweeting with the goal of being perceived in a certain manner.  That kind of "posturing" doesn't help qualitative researchers... 

Ideas for how to use Twitter for qualitative research

I see less of an opportunity in using the actual Twitter service as a means of conducting research, and more of an opportunity to pull people's Twitter feeds into existing online qualitative research platforms.  For example, a company could setup an online research community and ask members to share their Twitter feeds.  That information could be pulled into the community and associated with their profile to get a different viewpoint on the respondent and what they are like...

What do you think?

These are just our two cents on Twitter for qualitative research...  What do you think?  Have you used Twitter for market research?  Were you satisfied with the results?  Comments are welcome!

One of the biggest misconceptions about online communities for market research is that they need to be an ongoing initiative (typically lasting at least six months)... 

The reality is that communities should be designed around your objectives, organization and available resources, which may or may not necessitate an ongoing community approach.  Here are a few useful questions to help you decide whether or not you need an ongoing research community, or a short-term, project-oriented community. 

Do you have the need?

An ongoing research community is going to help you in a few key ways.  First, it is going to give you a deeper understanding of your target audience by virtue of continually learning about them through community activities.  It is also going to give you the chance to efficiently and cost effectively address a wide range of topics over time.  Finally, an ongoing community will help you collaborate with your audience to develop new products, services, marketing materials, etc...

While these are certainly benefits of an ongoing research community, you may or may not actually need this level of understanding or have a variety of topic areas to explore...  For example, you may already have a deep understanding of your audience through other research studies, and are more interested in evaluating reactions to specific topics in-depth.  In that case, a shorter-term community may suit your needs. 

Do you have the right culture?

If your organization values qualitative research and is constantly looking for new perspectives into the lives of your target audience, then an ongoing community approach will probably work well.  A continuous community may also make sense if your organization has multiple internal stakeholders who are conducting qualitative research studies fairly consistently.  However, if your needs are more "finite," or you are looking for alternatives to other qualitative methods (like focus groups), then perhaps a short-term community may be a better solution.

Do you have the time and resources?

With a continuous community comes responsibility - both on the part of the researchers and the company sponsoring the community.  You will need to be committed to launching activities on at least a weekly basis, coordinating the distribution of the findings across your organization and collaborating with stakeholders to brainstorm topics to explore in the community.  As you can imagine, this takes time and resources to accomplish.  It may make sense to run a short-term community first to see how your organization adapts, and then plan for ongoing initiatives after that...   

What's the takeaway?

We hope this post doesn't dissuade anyone from considering an ongoing research community, as there are definitely scenarios where this approach makes the most sense. 

Rather, we're pointing out that research communities do not need to (and sometimes should not) last indefinitely.  There are highly effective and cost efficient ways of wrapping a community approach around a targeted set of objectives, perhaps by setting up a short-term (1-3 month) community and then evaluating your options after that to determine if an ongoing community makes sense for your organization...