Jeff Brooks (Donor Power Blog) had an interesting post a few days ago about the perils of using focus groups to inform marketing decisions. As Jeff rightly points out, “it’s not that people lie, it’s just that they don’t actually know what they think, so they try to help you out by making up answers.” I certainly agree that focus groups are problematic. Focus group questions are structured and the nature of the interaction is direct and personal, which skews results exactly as Jeff describes.

Of course, no research method (or testing protocol) is perfect, but the great big world of Web 2.0 provides some interesting new options. At RedBoots, we often turn to Buzz Monitoring, the process of monitoring what people say and do online without being prompted, to gain insight and understand how people talk about and advocate for issues and how information and ideas spread. Buzz Monitoring can provide powerful information. For example:

• What causes are getting the biggest share of the current conversation (read: interest) about the environment?
• Are conversations about global warming focusing more on the Bush administration, voluntary targets, or international treaties?
• Are people concerned about [pick a topic: mercury in fish, genetically modified foods, avian flu, etc.]? If so, what are the solutions that are most recommended or most often discussed?
• Is the conversation about obesity/diabetes/heart disease [pick a health topic] growing or waning in the months following our public education campaign?

As marketers, it is tempting to believe that we can “peg” donors (or customers, constituents, advocates, etc.) by measuring hard response to our “one to many” communications. The reality is that what happens outside of an organization’s direct communication with “the target audience” can be just as informative (if not more so) than response to an email, a direct mail piece, a click through on a paid search listing, etc.

So…the next time you hear someone talking about the ROI of social media, stop for a moment and think about some of the powerful, indirect applications of the social media phenomenon. Social media is more than a marketing tactic, and certainly more than a direct marketing tactic. The content created by Internet users (conversations with one another, video, blog posts, etc.) is a gold mine of information and insight into the world that lies beyond our contrived, direct interactions with “the target audience”.

Filed under: Non-Profits, Social Marketing on Thursday, August 30th, 2007 by Nan Dawkins |
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