Countdown to Twitterversity! #MRX

Monday, January 10th, 2011

Tomorrow marks the first ever Market Research Twitterversity, conceived of and hosted by the very talented Kathyryn Korostoff of Research Rockstar. Be sure to follow the #MRXU hashtag on Twitter all day long to listen and learn from Kathryn.

Kathryn has also invited a number of prominent researchers to join in as visiting professors, including our own Annie Pettit, @LoveStats. Check out who the other professors are here.

We hope you’ll join in tomorrow with lots of questions and comments!

Related Posts:

Free market research training via twitter
Research Rockstar’s Market Research University

From Listening to Research

Tuesday, December 21st, 2010

Tis the time of year to gaze back on what has transpired and look forward to what is yet to transpire.

In 2010, listening really took hold. Brands finally had the chance, and perhaps the dollars as well, to take the time to listen to their online consumers outside of the framework of questionnaires or focus groups or interviews. It was the year to go online and become a part of the social network. What exactly does social media data look like? Who is participating in social media conversations? How can social media data help me do a better job of meeting my consumer’s needs? 2010 was the year of identifying “influencers,” posting jobs with titles like “Chief of Listening,” and most of all, simply “listening.”

nasirkhan from morguefile

2011 will, of course, continue to see much growth in the online listening space, but with one major differentiator. Instead of  listening, instead of wondering and looking and learning, 2011 will be the year that brands realize that listening is not always sufficient. Listening can create learning but it’s strength does not lie in creating create organized and actionable learning. Research, on the other hand, provides answers to specific questions, discovers new problems, and supplies unique answers. Research creates valid, reliable, and generalizable solutions. 2011 will be the year of words like “valid,” “reliable,” and “Chief of Research.”

2011 will be the year where we’re ready to turn listening into research and use every method at our disposal to learn about our consumers’ needs. It will be the year where surveys and social media research work together. Where focus groups and social media research work together. Where mobile surveys and social media research work together.

Just wait. You’ll see.

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Related links
Social media monitoring vs social media research: Can you see the difference?
The Conversition Hierarchy of Social Media Insight
How important is sampling? Well, how important is gay marriage?

Happy Holidays from Conversition!

Monday, December 20th, 2010

Conversition Strategies launches EvoPlay, a consumer friendly social media exploration tool

Friday, July 23rd, 2010

For Immediate Release

New York, NY, July 23, 2010 – Conversition Strategies, the developer of social media research product evolisten™ and www.tweetfeel.com, has launched EvoPlay, a social media exploration tool for consumers.

Unlike evolisten™ which has been specifically designed for researchers, and tweetfeel which has been designed for  instant twitter analysis, EvoPlay is a free tool that consumers and brands alike can use to visualize sentiment across the entire internet space. Based on the most topical brands, the tool presents sentiment and conversation topics and provides a taste of social media research in a fun way. Sentiment can be displayed over limited time period allowing consumers to see brands rise and fall as marketing campaigns succeed and fail.

“The scientific principles of social media research can be intimidating, but this tool helps people see it in a more basic form by creating an engaging experience,” states Tessie Ting, co-founder of Conversition.  Jean Davis says, “This new tool will allow people to get inside the data and really experience what social media research is all about. Not just Twitter, not just Facebook, but the entire internet space.”

About Conversition Strategies:

Conversition Strategies is a boutique online market research firm based in the US (Conversition Strategies Limited) and Canada (Conversition Strategies Incorporated).  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 globally respected market researchers with social media mavens.

For more information, please contact:

Jean Davis
Conversition | By researchers, For researchers

Tweetfeel and MatterMeter T-Shirt Giveaways!

Tuesday, May 25th, 2010

Do you like TweetFeel Jessie? We certainly do which is why we had him printed on a bunch of t-shirts. And, we’d love to give some of those t-shirts to you! How is that possible you ask? Well, here are the rules.

1) You must be a registered attendee at either MRIA Toronto 2010 or MRA Boston 2010.
2) You must attend the entire social media research presentation given by Conversition’s Annie Pettit (@LoveStats).
3) You must be one of the first five people to give Annie your business card when you ask a legitimate SMR question after her presentation. Annie will decide if your question is legit! You must provide the business card quietly and with NO session disruptions. Any disruption and the game will end.

Let’s just see how this social media thing works!

See you in Toronto and Boston!

Welcome Francois!

Tuesday, March 23rd, 2010

We are delighted to have Francois join the Conversition team today! Francois is our newest developer and we look forward to all the interesting new ideas he will bring to our team.

He’s a fan of google and comics so we can already tell he’ll fit in great.

He’s also teaching us french internet lingo. This means “till we meet again.”

@++

Conversition Strategies appoints Annie Pettit, PhD, as new Chief Research Officer

Monday, January 25th, 2010

New York, NY, January 25, 2010 – Conversition Strategies, the developer of social media research product evolisten™ and www.tweetfeel.com, has appointed Annie Pettit, PhD, as its new Chief Research Officer.

With over 15 years of market research experience, Pettit was previously the VP of Online Panel Analytics at Ipsos Interactive Services, as well as a private consultant in the area of research analytics. She holds a PhD in Experimental Psychology, was previously licensed as an Industrial/Organizational Psychologist, and has specialized in the area of online survey data quality. Pettit is also known under the LoveStats moniker as an avid market research blogger (www.anniepettit.com) and tweeter (@LoveStats).

“We are so pleased to have Annie join Conversition as our CRO,” states Tessie Ting, co-founder of Conversition. “As the architect behind the iPi4 multi-stage survey data quality process at Ipsos, she demonstrated a level of industry knowledge and research expertise that our clients will appreciate. Her skills will ensure that our research products continue to reflect the highest degree of rigor.”

About Conversition Strategies:

Conversition Strategies is a boutique online market research firm based in the US (Conversition Strategies Limited) and Canada (Conversition Strategies Incorporated).  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 globally respected market researchers with social media mavens.

For more information please feel free to contact:

Jeremy Chaput
jeremy@conversition.com
647.998.3854

Is MTV’s Jersey Shore a Terrific Trainwreck?

Thursday, December 10th, 2009

Jersey Shore is a new show focusing on a subculture that rarely takes the limelight on television, one populated by extreme personalities who call themselves guidos and guidettes. It has received a lot of heat for being offensive and racist towards Italian people. Some sponsors, such as Dominos Pizza and American Family Insurance, have pulled their ads from the show because of the controversy. In fact, UNICO National protested the show but this did not have an effect. On the other hand, some companies such as BeenVerified.com, a background checking service, have decided that Jersey Shore does in fact represent their brand and have  since become sponsors.

What do tweeple think of all of this? As the blue line in the chart below shows, the volume of chatter has steadily increased since the show previewed on television. Given the controversy surrounding this show, the volume of chatter will no doubt continue to increase.

What is particularly interesting is the sentiment trend. For the week before the show premiered, tweeple shared a range of opinions about the show resulting in fewer than 50% of opinions being positive. However, most recently, and after the show has aired, sentiment drastically increased and currently sits at more than 80% positive. It seems that the initial fears of racism were outweighed by the many people who seem to enjoy the peculiarities of the characters portrayed on the show. Time will tell how other sponsors react as the show increases its audience base, and more people are exposed to the controversy.

Zhu Zhus Zip Away

Sunday, December 6th, 2009

Years past saw Cabbage Patch Kids (adults will remember), Tickle Me Elmos (adults’ kids will remember), and other hot toys tempt the imagination and money of millions of people. This year is no different with Zhu Zhu pets, the electronic hamster that promises all of the fun without the mess, becoming the Toy of the Year. The toys were on people’s minds for a while, but as the chart shows, it wasn’t until early November that chatter volume broke through the noise and registered a blip in the Twitter stream. This blip reoccurred in the middle of November when the toys began to run out and consumers were attempting to find locations where they could still purchase the toy.

Despite the ups and downs in the volume of chatter, sentiment towards these toys has been near perfect reaching almost 100% positive every single week for a couple of months now. The low price-point is no doubt a major factor for their popularity in this economy. Notice, however, that just recently, sentiment has started to decline. This is likely the results of two factors.

1. The toys have sold out nearly everywhere and consumers are expressing their dissatisfaction with being unable to purchase them.
2. Concerns have just been raised that the toys may be recalled due to health issues.

We will be certain to track how sentiment changes as more is learned about whether there is a potential hazard. Stay tuned!

Obama’s War in Afghanistan

Friday, December 4th, 2009

The war in Afghanistan is being called Barack Obama’s Vietnam, with many ups and downs over the last couple of months. We took a look at what tweeple were saying when they referenced both Obama and the war in Afghanistan. The chart reveals a few interesting things.

1. Over the last three months, positive sentiments towards Obama and the war have been increasing. This suggests that people who are chatting on Twitter are feeling more positive about how he is dealing with this crisis.
2. A large blip in chatter volume occurred at the end of September and the start of October when controversy erupted over whether Obama should take a trip to Denmark to support the Chicago Olympic bid. Clearly, the fact that something as trivial as sports was getting more attention than something as serious as a war caused outrage for many, particularly when the Chicago bid failed.
3. The recent announcement that Obama would be sending thousands more troops into Afghanistan created another increase in volume accompanied by a decrease in satisfaction. Both pro and anti-war tweeple could express both outrage and approval with the combined message of sending additional troops and giving a timeframe for ending the war.

Even when the discussion is specifically focused on Afghanistan, other countries remain top of mind. Iraq leads the list representing 34% of discussions about other countries, and this is obviously because of the war occurring there. Pakistan follows with 25% of the mentions particularly in relation to stability of the region. In contrast, Vietnam has the third largest share of conversation with 16% due mostly to discussions about whether Afghanistan is “Obama’s Vietnam.”

Obama is dealing with far more issues than just the war in Afghanistan, each of which is just as serious. So stay tuned as TweetFeel continues to track the sentiment of tweeple about Obama’s performance.