There is no question but the research validity question

Tuesday, May 17th, 2011

As a budding field, social media research is a magnet for questions from both experts and novices alike. People are curious about the processes and methodologies used to accomplish the various aspects of the research. Some of the more common questions we field on a regular basis are as follows:

• What sentiment analysis system do you use?
• How do you carry out the text analysis process?
• What is your method for identifying and eliminating spam?

In fact, each of these questions is one and the same. They have nothing to do with sentiment, text analysis, or spam.  They have nothing to do with processes or methods or systems. In fact, they have everything to do with validity.

Validity refers to truth. Is the sentiment scored accurately? Is the text analyzed accurately? Is the spam identified accurately? Is the entire process valid? Among all the pieces of the puzzle, this is the one question that must be answered.

Unfortunately, there is no single method that automatically identifies a sentiment analysis, text analysis, or spam detection system as being the most valid one. You simply have to evaluate a large, representative sample of data and determine the answer for yourself.  Are your results valid?

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Also see
The Sharks and Icebergs of Social Media Measurement
5 Ways to Fool An Automated Sentiment Analysis System
A Formula for Perfect Sentiment Analysis

Research Live: E-Rewards to buy social media researcher Conversition

Monday, May 16th, 2011

E-Rewards to buy social media researcher Conversition

11 May 2011 | By Brian Tarran

US— E-Rewards, the parent company of online panel firm Research Now, has agreed a deal to acquire social media research agency Conversition Strategies.

The business was founded in early 2009 by two former Ipsos executives, Jean Davis and Tessie Ting, and its primary product is the EvoListen platform, which collects data from social media sites, cleans and filters it and applies scientific sampling and weighting to report the results, formatted into quantitative data sets.

Read the rest of the Research Live announcement here.

Forrester’s Take on the E-Rewards Acquisition

Monday, May 16th, 2011

Roxana Strohmenger of Forrester shared some of her thoughts on what Conversition + e-Rewards means. An excerpt of her article follows.

Our Take: What e-Reward’s Acquisition Of Conversition Means For The Market Research Industry

Posted by Roxana Strohmenger on May 11, 2011

Late last night the market research vendor landscape became a little more consolidated with the announcement that e-Rewards reached an agreement to acquire Conversition Strategies. This is not the first, nor probably the last, move that e-Rewards will take in growing a versatile offering in the market research industry. In 2009, e-Rewards, acquired UK-based online panel provider Research Now, which allowed it to become an online panel provider with global reach. And in 2010 e-Rewards acquired Peanut Labs, which enhanced its panel by offering a social media specialty sample that is recruited and surveyed through social and gaming networks. The acquisition of the Conversition platform EvoListen will allow e-Rewards’ clients to listen and analyze, in a market researcher’s terms, what consumers are saying on social media.

This announcement is significant for the market research industry because it:

• Reaffirms that social media is a source for consumer insights. Forrester’s Technographics® data shows that more than 80% of online US consumers regularly use social media. And this high level of engagement is not exclusive to developed markets. Even emerging markets like Brazil and China are voracious consumers of social media. In market research, we need to be where our consumers are, and now more than ever, social media is that channel. What sounds better, access to 6 to 8 million actively engaged online people globally, which is typically what you find with global online panel providers, or access to more than 600 million active online people? With that wide scope of access, it should be a no-brainer that social media is an important channel that we should be using to gather consumer insights.

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Read the rest of the article here.

The article also appears on RW Connect.

The Great Conjunction: Conversition discussion on the Greenbook Blog

Monday, May 16th, 2011

After the announcement that E-Rewards would be acquiring Conversition, the Greenbook blog posted an article discussing the possible implications for the research industry. An extract follows.
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The Great Conjunction: What the e-Rewards and Microsoft Acquisitions Mean

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One of my favorite movies as a kid (well, really it still is!) is the classic Jim Henson fantasy “The Dark Crystal”. Filled with pseudo-mystical profundities of various sorts, one central element was the race to have certain players in the drama in place before the stars aligned in the “Great Conjunction”, when magical things would happen. Well, we’re seeing our own version of the Great Conjunction occur now, exemplified by the e-Rewards acquisition of Conversition Strategies and the Microsoft purchase of Skype.

The Conversition acquisition positions e-Rewards to converge social media data with traditional research to form a compelling offering based on integrating these two complementary data sources. I am certain that they are also working on a mobile offering, and when they announce that they will have three of the primary channels of consumer insight collection together: The Great Conjunction for market research.

Read the rest of the article here.

Life beyond surveys: Research Live Interviews CEO Chris Havemann

Monday, May 16th, 2011

After last week’s announcement that E-Rewards would be acquiring Conversition, Research Live was quick to speak with our new CEO. An extract of the interview follows.
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Life beyond surveys

The acquisition of social media research firm Conversition might seem like something of a departure for online survey specialist E-Rewards, owner of Research Now and Peanut Labs, but CEO Chris Havemann says it fits perfectly with his vision of the group as a provider of digital data in a rapidly evolving industry.

This acquisition seems like something of a departure for E-Rewards. Conversition don’t do surveys, which have been your stock in trade for quite some time. Would you agree?
I wouldn’t say it’s a departure, it’s a complementary thing. Stepping back and looking at what the E-Rewards group does, we are in the business of providing data to drive insights. As the research industry evolves, it’s starting to think about the different sources of data it can tap into. There’s life beyond survey research, we know that. Behavioural research is a growing area and social media research is something that is still very early days, but we think our clients will want access to those forms of data.

Read the full interview here.

e-Rewards, Inc. Announces Agreement to Acquire Conversition Strategies

Tuesday, May 10th, 2011

Plano, TX – May 10, 2011 – e-Rewards, Inc., a global leader in digital data collection and reporting, today announced it has reached an agreement to acquire Conversition Strategies.

Founded in February 2009 by former IPSOS executives, Conversition is a pioneer in the Social Media Research industry, and was formed to capitalize on the emerging trend to perform market research within the social media channel. The primary product offered by Conversition is EvoListen^®. A patent-pending technology, EvoListen collects data sourced from online social media outlets, cleans and filters the data collected, utilizes scientific sampling and weighting to report the results, and then formats it into quantitative data sets.

“With over half a billion consumers worldwide engaging in social media platforms today, we believe social media listening will continue to become an increasingly important way for businesses to collect valuable insights around the needs and wants of their customers,” said Chris Havemann, President and Chief Executive Officer of e-Rewards. “Our acquisition of Conversition will allow us to further accelerate our social media strategy while enhancing the research capabilities we offer. We remain committed to equipping our clients with innovative products that help with the collection and analysis of digital data.”

Commenting on the announcement, Tessie Ting, Co-founder of Conversition said, “We are thrilled about combining the benefits of more traditional online survey research with those of social media research. Through this acquisition, e-Rewards will continue to strengthen its position as the leading global digital data collection provider with an expertise in social media research.”

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About e-Rewards, Inc.

e-Rewards, Inc. is a global leader in permission based digital data collection and reporting. With over 1000 employees worldwide, it operates a strong portfolio of brands including Research Now, e-Miles, and Peanut Labs. For more information, visit www.e-rewardsinc.com.

Press Contact:
Ashley Harlan
VP, Corporate Communications
+1 214-365-5000
aharlan@e-rewards.com

May The Fourth Be With You

Wednesday, May 4th, 2011

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Conversition Presents Mobile Mixed-Mode at MRA in Washington

Wednesday, April 27th, 2011

Mobile Mixed-Mode Research Workshop

Date: 06/06/2011
Time: 9:00 AM – 12:00 PM
Room: Palladian Ballroom

Technology has forever changed the way people live their lives and how businesses do business. Gone are the days of conducting a single mode, landline telephone survey to reach a representative sample. Using multiple data collection methods creates many challenges for marketing research. It also provides new opportunities for reaching and understanding different populations. With the advent of new technologies, researchers now have a wide range of options available to them. But what works and what doesn’t? How do we implement those new and still widely debated methods and provide reliable results?
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In this three hour immersion workshop, attendees will first get detailed explanations of four separate case studies that provide practical applications of online panels, cell phones, smart phones, SMS texting, IVR, social media, mobile web surveys, and tablets in actual mixed mode research studies.
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Attendees will then be challenged to put together an effective research plan using a variety of methods to collect opinions and sentiment from various “hard to reach” populations in less than ideal locations. This “hands on” session will provide participants with the knowledge of how to implement different data collection methods while understanding how each method augments and complements the others.
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Conversition at the MRIA In Kelowna BC

Thursday, April 21st, 2011

I have to admit – I’m pretty excited! Kelowna BC looks to be a gorgeous site for this year’s annual MRIA conference. Add to that a ton of great speakers and it doesn’t get much better. We were lucky enough to be selected to speak at the conference and look forward to sharing what we’ve learned since we presented at last year’s conference. We hope to see you on Monday May 30, at 2:30 in the Chilcotin room!
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Side by Side by Side: The Survey, Cell, SMR Study You’ve Been Waiting For

In 2010, we saw sample social media research results, and we learned about the pros, cons, ethical implications of the method. Now, it’s about time we saw some real examples of how SMR works in cooperation with other methodologies. This presentation will showcase a cooperative study using results from three different methodologies, online panel surveys (fielded by global online sampling and data collection company, Research Now), cell phone surveys, and social media research. We will see where the results are similar and where they differ. We will discover how the strengths of one method build on the weaknesses of another method. We will discover data fusion at its finest.

Chief Research Officer Conversition Strategies

Annie Pettit, PhD is the Chief Research Officer of Conversition Strategies, a boutique market research company that specializes in social media research.

She has more than 15 years of experience as an online market researcher and specializes in survey research, data quality, and social media market research. Annie is a member of the CASRO, MRA, and ESOMAR social media research committees. She was previously the VP of Online Panel Analytics at Ipsos where she created their proprietary survey panel data quality system.

Annie tweets at @LoveStats and maintains the LoveStats marketing research blog where she occasionally showcases her attempts at being a better baker and gardener.

Recherche sur les réseaux sociaux pour les personne #MRX

Tuesday, April 19th, 2011

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Related links

• Nintendo 3DS: Pilotwing vs Dead or Alive
• The Sharks and Icebergs of Social Media Measurement
• Quick and Dirty or Slow and Careful: Conversition’s #NewMR Presentation
• The #Klout of @Klout
• Snickers Bars and Breakfast: A social media case study