Photo credit: chelle from morguefile.com

Social media research has stepped out of the shadows and into the limelight. Phrases like sentiment analysis, content analysis, text analysis, microblogs,  and web 2.0 have begun to clog up our already over-flowing research dictionaries and caused us to question this strange beast. How can market researchers possibly make sense of it given that it is completely different than anything we’ve seen before?

Let’s consider a few points:

• If you have uploaded survey data into SPSS, you already know how to upload social media research data into SPSS
• If you have used survey data sets with numeric and string variables, you already know what a social media research data set looks like
• If you have selected variables, grouped cases, and run SPSS crosstabs with survey data, you already know how to do those things with social media research data
• If you have built a frequency bar chart or tracking line chart using survey data, you already know how to do it for social media research data
• If you have read survey verbatims before, you already know what you’re looking for in social media research verbatims
• If you have drawn conclusions from survey data before….. why haven’t you transferred your expertise to social media research yet?

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Bet you didn’t know you’re already an expert in analyzing social media data.

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Other blogs that might interest you:
10 things you need to know about social media research
Annie Pettit Discusses Social Media Research at the ARF Audience Measurement conference
Social Media Research: Conversition’s Presentation at MRA Boston
Conversition on Facebook

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