Conversition Survey Reveals Attitudes towards Social Media Monitoring & Analysis Tools and Technology

Wednesday, October 26th, 2011

.
.
81 Percent of Market Research Agencies Agree Social Media can Complement Insights Generated by Traditional Research Methods
.
Toronto, ON – October 27, 2011 – Conversition, a pioneer in the Social Media Research industry, recently surveyed 601 clients of Research Now to determine their usage and attitudes towards social media data platforms for the purposes of measuring consumer engagement and gaining consumer insights.

Conversition conducted a 15 minute study focused on the usage of social media monitoring tools and technology to engage consumers, or gain insight into their existing or emerging needs. In order to fully comprehend the potential that the Social Media Monitoring & Analysis (SMMA) industry has in different markets, Conversition surveyed Research Now clients based in the United States, the United Kingdom and Canada.

The findings showed highly encouraging results for an industry quickly being adopted by researchers. In particular, responses regarding the use of social media for insight purposes illustrates that SMMA has entered the „early majority‟ within prime English-speaking markets. More specifically, 81 percent of all market research agencies (MRAs) surveyed agree that SMMA can complement insights from custom and/or ad hoc quantitative and qualitative research.

When asked specifically about the potential that SMMA has:

• 65 percent of all responding companies agree that SMMA will become a substantial channel for market research in the future.
• 63 percent of all responding companies agree that SMMA has immense potential to drive consumer insights.

“What’s clear from the study is that the market research community is ‘switching on’ to the power and insight potential of social media data,” commented Michael Mayers, Vice President of Business Development at Conversition.

The survey also found that:

• 85 percent of MRAs believe that human intervention is still needed to maintain the quality of social media data.
• 58 percent of MRAs believe that data quality issues (e.g. spam, erroneous data, and difficulty of understanding the demographic profile of respondents) currently restrict the use of SMMA for insight purposes.

.
Mayers adds, “Social media data represents an emerging research channel, and data from social media can be a rich source of information for consumer insights. At the same time, perceptions over data quality are an issue, and our response is that whether managed by the client or the vendor, social media data requires the involvement of experienced and knowledgeable humans to provide those all important checks and balances.”

Methodology
Fieldwork was conducted between August 19 and September 15, 2011 among 601 clients of Research Now based in the United States, the United Kingdom and Canada. The breakdown by country was as follows: United States (344), United Kingdom (165) and Canada (91).

About Conversition
Conversition is an online social media data collection business unit based in Toronto, Canada and New York, NY. Conversition listens to consumers by applying scientific principles to the collection and analysis of social media data. Its strength lies in combining the expertise of respected market researchers with an in-depth understanding of social media.

About Research Now
Research Now is the leading global online sampling and online data collection company. With over 6 million panelists in 38 countries worldwide, Research Now enables companies to listen to and interact with real consumers and business decision makers in order to make key business decisions. Research Now offers a full suite of data collection services, including social media sampling, and operates the Valued Opinions™ Panel and e-Rewards® Opinion Panels. The company has a multilingual staff located in 22 offices around the globe and has been recognized for four consecutive years as the industry leader in client satisfaction. Visit http://www.researchnow.com to learn more.

Press Contact:
Heather Milt
1-206-200-8207
hmilt@researchnow.com

For a copy of the full report, please email hello@conversition.com.

Upcoming ESOMAR 3D presentation: Tell me what you want, what you really, really want

Tuesday, July 26th, 2011

3D DIGITAL DIMENSIONS 2011
(ONLINE + SOCIAL MEDIA + MOBILE) RESEARCH
MIAMI / 26 – 28 OCTOBER

.
TELL ME WHAT YOU WANT, WHAT YOU REALLY, REALLY WANT
CREATING DESIRED RESULTS FROM SOCIAL MEDIA RESEARCH

Annie Pettit, Conversition and Research Now, Canada
.
This presentation will teach you how to generate the social media research results you desire regardless of what the true results are. I will demonstrate how to gather social media data from the internet using inappropriate sampling methods, and how to select the wrong pieces of data and code it incorrectly. The topics of sampling, weighting, data quality, sentiment analysis, and text analysis will be highlighted so that you can understand the full range of options for mistreating data. The ultimate goal will be to create set of data that reflects our predispositions towards a topic as opposed to reality.

Attendees are required to come prepared with a sense of humour  (i.e., I will be speaking in jest!)

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

Tuesday, June 7th, 2011

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!

Write here, write now: Research Live Quotes Conversition #MRX

Friday, June 3rd, 2011

Paul Golden recently published an article in research live about the controversy between automated and manual sentiment analysis. An excerpt is below while the full article can be read here.

Those who bemoan the impact of email, text messaging and Facebook on our ability to write tend to forget one thing: that the people who have grown up with these tools write far more than any generation before them. They might not have much respect for the conventional rules of writing, but they’re making the language their own, and adapting it to different formats and audiences.

In the process they’re producing vast amounts of data, which marketers are keen to make sense of. That means understanding the meaning and sentiment of text – and numerous tech companies are queuing up to help researchers do this, each with grander claims than the last about their tools’ ability to accurately interpret and categorise millions of online comments. These text analytics tools are adept at picking up brand references from the massive volumes of online communication generated every day. But opinion is widely divided on their ability to determine whether a comment is positive, negative or neither.

….

“these approaches have flaws, but then so do people, says Annie Pettit, head of research at Conversition. “The important thing to remember is that we don’t care if individual messages are coded correctly. We care that the aggregate coding across large numbers of messages validates well. We aren’t trying to prove whether I hate or love Pop-Tarts, we are trying to prove whether a million people hate or love Pop-Tarts. A reading that is 70% accurate is actually a very accurate reading.

If humans can score hundreds of messages and validate at 85%, and computers can score millions of messages and validate at 70%, then computers are a valuable option”

Read the rest of the article here.

MR Web: e-Rewards Buys Conversition Strategies

Monday, May 16th, 2011

e-Rewards Buys Conversition Strategies
May 11 2011

e-Rewards, the parent of online panel firm Research Now, has acquired social media market research agency Conversition Strategies, just two years after its launch by former Ipsos and NPD executives Jean Davis and Tessie Ting. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Conversition, which has bases in the US and Canada, applies scientific principles to the collection and analysis of social media data. Its flagship product EvoListen collects data sourced from online social media outlets; cleans, filters and weights it; and then formats it into quantitative data sets.

Read the rest of the mrweb announcement 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.
.

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.”

.
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