« Will my customers take my corporate blog seriously? | Main | BlogStock 05 Postponement Does Not Mean The End of Blogging »
October 13, 2005Using Consumer Generated Media For Market Research
Jeffrey Feldman suggests that its important to pay attention to consumer generated media because in part that content may be what is appearing at the top of a search engine for a particular keyword your customers are searching for on the web. If your company has not published the content, and the content is about your product, your company doesn’t get to change the initial perception of the customer clicking on the link and reading the webpage.
Jeffrey states:
“Due to the interconnected nature of weblogs and message boards, and the way search engines determine link rank, CGM postings often have disproportionably high standings in search results. Combine this with the ever growing the number of people doing pre-purchase research on the internet, and suddenly CGM’s weight grows appreciably, and the whole concept of target market needs to be revaluated.�
If you can enter into a dialogue with the writer of that content, or if the content is published on a message board, you then have the opportunity to comment on the content. To find such content you have to use buzz measurement tools, Jeff’s company provides such tools, but you also have to be aware that it is worthwhile when and when not to respond.
Jeffrey said, Consumer Generated Media “analysis still can’t yet tell you if the prevailing opinion expressed online is representative of your target market, or only present in a different group.�
This is an area of blogging and marketing research I’ve been mulling around for sometime, see my earlier post on blogging market research. Asking the question how can a company use blogs for market research and product development when there are sampling issues with the data will help companies to understand both the benefits and limitations of such data.
Posted by johncass at October 13, 2005 3:28 PM
Trackback Pings
TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://tmpmt.backbonemedia.com/mt2/mt-tb.cgi/254
