Conversition Social Media Market Research » mra

Cell + Survey + SMR: A Social Media Mashup #MRIA2011 #MRA_AC #MRX

Conversition Team — Tue, 07 Jun 2011 04:03:07 +0000

I must start with a kind thank you to everyone who chose to come to the Conversition session, despite all of the other great sessions that were available at both the Washington MRA and Kelowna MRIA annual conferences.

As well, thank you so much to everyone who shared kind words with us afterward. It’s always nice to hear that people learned something and felt their time was wisely spent.

As requested by many of our attendees, below you will a longer version of the presentation. Please do feel free to get in touch with us if you have any questions at all. Enjoy!

Conversition Presents Mobile Mixed-Mode at MRA in Washington

Conversition Team — Wed, 27 Apr 2011 13:10:10 +0000

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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#MRX MRA IMRO SMR Guidelines #16: Demos and Geos

Conversition Team — Thu, 17 Feb 2011 14:22:11 +0000

MRA recently released version 1 of the MRA/IMRO Guide to the Top 16 Social Media Research Questions, a tool to help newcomers and vendors communicate with each other about this new datasource and method. Conversition was a key contributor to this document which is now available on the MRA website.
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This blog is #16 in a series of 16, each one addressing Conversition’s viewpoint on one of the items in the guidelines. We welcome your questions and comments, and look forward to further discussions on this exciting new trend in the market research industry.

duboix from morguefile
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What, if any, methods are used for determining the geography associated with the data?
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Geography and demographics are a tricky situation for social media research. Unlike survey research where people provide their age, gender, and other personal information, very few people do so in the social media space. (When was the last time you saw someone tweet something like, “I’m a 28 year old female who has a Marketing Diploma and I love poptarts.”)
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There certainly are methods of determining the geographical and demographic characteristics of people contributing to social media but they aren’t perfect.

How about if you notice if the website is .ca or .uk or .au? We wish that method worked but the vast majority of social media is generated in .com websites which are visited from people all around the world. And, people don’t refrain from posting on websites just because they notice it’s reflecting a different country. The internet is a wonderfully global population.
How about IP addresses? This is another option, but again, a less than perfect option. According to my IP address, I’m sitting in the USA right now. But, I’m pretty sure I’m not!
What about the demos that people do share? Yes, people do share their demographic information. A very, very tiny % of people share one or two pieces of information but certainly nowhere near what researchers are used to, and certainly nowhere near what is required to create a valid generalization outside of those individual people.

Because of these reasons, Conversition uses a variety of methods for understanding the demographics of social media contributors.

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Related links

MRA IMRO Guide #1: Advantages and Disadvantages of SMR
MRA IMRO Guide #2: Datasources of SMR
MRA IMRO Guide #3: Data Fusion and SMR
MRA IMRO Guide #4: Reliability of SMR
MRA IMRO Guide #5: Responsibilities of Social Media Data Users
MRA IMRO Guide #6: Social Media Research Skills
MRA IMRO Guide #7: Research Contributor Awareness
MRA IMRO Guide #8: Citing Reference
MRA IMRO Guide #9: Legal Issues
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#MRX MRA IMRO SMR Guidelines #15: Validation

Conversition Team — Tue, 15 Feb 2011 20:11:13 +0000

MRA recently released version 1 of the MRA/IMRO Guide to the Top 16 Social Media Research Questions, a tool to help newcomers and vendors communicate with each other about this new datasource and method. Conversition was a key contributor to this document which is now available on the MRA website.
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This blog is #15 in a series of 16, each one addressing Conversition’s viewpoint on one of the items in the guidelines. We welcome your questions and comments, and look forward to further discussions on this exciting new trend in the market research industry.

clarita from morguefile

If sentiment scoring is provided, what is the process for validating results?
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We regularly validate both our sentiment analysis and our content analysis results.
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Sentiment analysis is validated both at a project level (for example, just YOUR data) as well as at an overall level (a random sample across many different brands). Though there are more scientifically accurate methods (i.e., have fun reading Krippendorf!), we have chosen a simpler method because it is easily understood by both novice and experienced research users.

The two important features of our process are 1) the large sample size which ensures we do not receive spuriously high (or low) validation scores associated with a skewed selection of data points, and 2) the blinded nature of the manual scoring which ensures the researcher does not unconsciously create high validation scores.

Our process is as follows:

Randomly select 1000 verbatims
Manually score each verbatim as negative, neutral, or positive
Align the automated scores to the manual scores
Calculate the percentage of automated and manual scores that match

The process for validating constructs is similar.

Randomly select 1000 verbatims from a specific construct
Determine if it does or does not reflect the intended construct
Calculate the percentage of verbatims that were correctly identified as reflecting the intended construct

At the end of each process, we then identify the weak points and adjust our systems to account for them. For instance, if we discover that “Charlie Brown has been erroneously coded under the color construct, that anomaly is corrected.

It takes a long time to validate data but if you’re going to do it, you might as well do it right.

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Related links

#MRX MRA IMRO SMR Guidelines #14: Sentiment Scoring

Conversition Team — Sat, 12 Feb 2011 17:32:44 +0000

MRA recently released version 1 of the MRA/IMRO Guide to the Top 16 Social Media Research Questions, a tool to help newcomers and vendors communicate with each other about this new datasource and method. Conversition was a key contributor to this document which is now available on the MRA website.
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This blog is #14 in a series of 16, each one addressing Conversition’s viewpoint on one of the items in the guidelines. We welcome your questions and comments, and look forward to further discussions on this exciting new trend in the market research industry.

Alvimann from morguefile
Does the company provide sentiment scoring?

Why yes we do!

Conversition has built a proprietary sentiment scoring system that features many advantages. We’re very proud of its accuracy, particularly in relation to its application in marketing research.

We score more than 95% of data.
We do not throw out verbatims that can’t be scored because it turns out they are true neutrals.
We score verbatims on a continuous scale from extremely negative to extremely positive.
We score grammatically correct and grammatically incorrect conversations.
We score emoticons and slang.
We use an automated system that lets us score millions of conversations every day.
Our system is carefully designed to meet the specific needs of market researchers.

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Related links

#MRX MRA IMRO SMR Guidelines #13: Data Quality

Conversition Team — Thu, 10 Feb 2011 17:32:29 +0000

MRA recently released version 1 of the MRA/IMRO Guide to the Top 16 Social Media Research Questions, a tool to help newcomers and vendors communicate with each other about this new datasource and method. Conversition was a key contributor to this document which is now available on the MRA website.
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This blog is #13 in a series of 16, each one addressing Conversition’s viewpoint on one of the items in the guidelines. We welcome your questions and comments, and look forward to further discussions on this exciting new trend in the market research industry.

manicmorff from morguefile

What data quality processes are implemented in each stage of the SMR?

Ah, we love data quality! You need a sharp eye to see all of the details that we focus on in our regular data quality processes.

Once data has been collected, we apply rigorous techniques to identify and remove many different types of spam. Keyword loading and unmoderated boards are the worst of the offendors but we vigorously seek them out. That’s how we know that British Petroleum data isn’t Blood Pressure or Basis Point data.

We also apply apply rigorous processes to both our sentiment scoring and content analysis. That’s how we know that Charlie Brown isn’t a color and that ‘what a crock’ isn’t dishes. That’s how we know that “the bomb” is a good thing to say but “ftl” isn’t.

It’s not sufficient for us to use a one method fits all system. We know that doesn’t work. So we have a one method fits all process and hundreds of individualized methods, a unique one for every client. Because we know that an average level of data quality isn’t good enough. You need data quality specific to your job.

Quality is job 1. We believe it and practice it.

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Related links

MRA IMRO Guide #1: Advantages and Disadvantages of SMR
MRA IMRO Guide #2: Datasources of SMR
MRA IMRO Guide #3: Data Fusion and SMR
MRA IMRO Guide #4: Reliability of SMR

#MRX MRA IMRO SMR Guidelines #10: Qualifications

Conversition Team — Wed, 09 Feb 2011 12:26:49 +0000

MRA recently released version 1 of the MRA/IMRO Guide to the Top 16 Social Media Research Questions, a tool to help newcomers and vendors communicate with each other about this new datasource and method. Conversition was a key contributor to this document which is now available on the MRA website.
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This blog is #10 in a series of 16, each one addressing Conversition’s viewpoint on one of the items in the guidelines. We welcome your questions and comments, and look forward to further discussions on this exciting new trend in the market research industry.

hmm360 from morguefile

What is the level of expertise and industry qualifications of social media researchers and/or SMR companies?

Social media research is a relatively new specialization in the industry of market research. It can be difficult for clients to understand the skills and expertise of their provider, most of whom have wildly different backgrounds.

Conversition’s number one skill is that of research. We are researchers who have built a research product. Our experience comes from decades of first hand experience as data collection providers, full service research providers, survey panel providers, and research client service. We have consulted with clients on research design and methodology, written surveys, analyzed surveys, written research reports, and presented reports to clients. We have conducted research on research including survey and incentive satisfaction, online survey data quality, and parallel studies. We know the intricate details of sampling, weighting, standards, norms, and scaling. We know research inside and out.

This extensive research background gives us unique insight into the desires and needs of researchers seeking a quantitative solution to the social media space and, as such, we have created a social media research tool that makes sense for researchers.

Conversition was built by researchers for researchers.

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Related links

#MRX MRA IMRO SMR Guidelines #12: Data Gathering Process

Conversition Team — Tue, 08 Feb 2011 17:32:15 +0000

MRA recently released version 1 of the MRA/IMRO Guide to the Top 16 Social Media Research Questions, a tool to help newcomers and vendors communicate with each other about this new datasource and method. Conversition was a key contributor to this document which is now available on the MRA website.
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This blog is #12 in a series of 16, each one addressing Conversition’s viewpoint on one of the items in the guidelines. We welcome your questions and comments, and look forward to further discussions on this exciting new trend in the market research industry.

clarita from morguefile
What is the process for gathering data?

Conversition specializes in the preparation of social media data for market research purposes. As such, a portion of our data is gathered by a third party which specializes in data collection from the internet. Data is gathered from millions of different websites including popular ones such as Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and Flickr, as well as very small, personal websites that may only have a few readers.

We, and our vendors, honor all website notifications regarding crawling permissions. If a website has behind the scenes coding that says ‘do not crawl,’ then we do not crawl the website. In fact, special permissions, though not required by the website owners, have been obtained to crawl and gather data from many of the major websites.

In addition, we regularly check our processes by attempting to crawl websites that we know are password protected.

We take our data collection process very seriously and hope you appreciate that.

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Related links

MRA IMRO Guide #1: Advantages and Disadvantages of SMR – The Conversition Commentary
MRA IMRO Guide #2: Datasources of SMR – The Conversition Commentary
MRA IMRO Guide #3: Data Fusion and SMR – The Conversition Commentary
MRA IMRO Guide #4: Reliability of SMR – The Conversition Commentary
MRA IMRO Guide #5: Responsibilities of Social Media Data Users – The Conversition Commentary
MRA IMRO Guide #6: Social Media Research Skills – The Conversition Commentary
MRA IMRO Guide #7: Research Contributor Awareness – The Conversition Commentary
MRA IMRO Guide #8: Citing Reference
MRA IMRO Guide #9: Legal Issues

#MRX MRA IMRO SMR Guidelines #11: Research Outputs

Conversition Team — Sat, 05 Feb 2011 19:59:54 +0000

MRA recently released version 1 of the MRA/IMRO Guide to the Top 16 Social Media Research Questions, a tool to help newcomers and vendors communicate with each other about this new datasource and method. Conversition was a key contributor to this document which is now available on the MRA website.
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This blog is #11 in a series of 16, each one addressing Conversition’s viewpoint on one of the items in the guidelines. We welcome your questions and comments, and look forward to further discussions on this exciting new trend in the market research industry.

mconnors from morguefile
What are the standard data and/or research outputs?

Conversition offers clients two different outputs. First, you may choose to access our specialized website portal which allows you to look at the data live and instantly create your own charts, tables, and EvoClouds. The portal also includes a number of pre-defined reports that allow you to quickly identify and analyze the important results in your dataset.

Second, you may choose to download datapaks which are very similar to survey datasets. After uploading the files to your preferred statistical software, whether it’s SPSS, SAS, SYSTAT, or QUANVERT, you then have the utimate in flexibility. You can run any assortment of crosstabs, create new variables, or cut the data by your preferred date range.

Though we often consult with our clients on the preparation of their research reports, Conversition does not, as a regular offering, offer full-service research report writing. You are the master of your category.
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#MRX MRA IMRO SMR Guidelines #9: Legal Issues

Conversition Team — Tue, 18 Jan 2011 13:30:34 +0000

MRA recently released version 1 of the MRA/IMRO Guide to the Top 16 Social Media Research Questions, a tool to help newcomers and vendors communicate with each other about this new datasource and method. Conversition was a key contributor to this document which is now available on the MRA website.
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This blog is #9 in a series of 16, each one addressing Conversition’s viewpoint on one of the items in the guidelines. We welcome your questions and comments, and look forward to further discussions on this exciting new trend in the market research industry.

kconnors from morguefile

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What are the controversies and legal issues regarding the rights of the people whose data is being used?

This topic is, excuse the formal language, ginormous. As researchers, marketers, and technology providers, people using social media data are still learning about the rights of people who create that data.

Some people feel that because the internet is a public space, anyone can go online and gather data from anywhere, from anyone, for any purpose, even if it takes a couple of minutes to generate a password to access the data. Some people take another extreme and feel that no data should be collected without the explicit permission of the person who has created the data.

The Conversition position falls in the middle.

We believe that password protection signals a desire for privacy. Even if it is possible to create a password and enter a site within a minute, data should not be gathered from the site.

We believe that social media data should not be shared verbatim in research reports. Verbatim comments are easily searchable online and individuals can be quickly and easily identified. Comments which may seem benign to us may be embarrassing or damaging to the person who wrote them, a person who may not have understood which types of data on the internet are and are not public.

We believe that people creating information on the internet should not be engaged with for research purposes until after they have specifically given permission to continue the contact for that purpose.

We believe that the rights of the individual come ahead of the desires of the researcher. Just as surveys and focus groups are created with the safety of the individual in mind, and this means writing non-threatening surveys and finding physically safe focus group locations, so should social media research processes ensure that the safety of the individual comes first.

The legalities of social media data collection and use still need to be determined and they will vary on a country by country basis. But, while the legalities are still being determined and after they are determined, we plan to respect the individual.

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