Market Research is too inward looking – Social Media analysis by Bakamo Social

As part of the NewMR/GreenBook Social Media project Bakamo Social have produced an analysis that looks at the differences between the market research industry and two other comparable industries, Management Consultants and Advertising. Click on the image below to read the report.

Bakamo Image

The key finding from the Bakamo analysis is that Market Research is highly interconnected, but insufficiently connected externally. The analysis highlights the tendency for market researchers to do things, particularly on Twitter, that are of interest to other market researchers, but of little interest to the wider business community.

One of the key observations in the report is “Convincing each other that we are brilliant might be pleasurable, but certainly it’s not good for the future of our business – this seems to come naturally to us researchers. But we must pierce our bubble and start engaging with the real world: we need to heal ourselves. ” Of course, many of you will say that you knew that already, but the benefit of the Bakamo study is that it is based on evidence and is able to provide an estimate of the scale of the difference between MR and the way the other two sectors connect externally.

The analysis by Bakamo looked at three leading companies from each of the three business sectors and focused on Twitter. As well as making observations about challenges that the market research industry faces the report makes a number of recommendations. One of these is to produce more material that is of a wider interest, something we at NewMR have already decided to adopt!

The Social Media Collaboration Project
Read other elements of the project by clicking on the links below:

Once all of the reports are published Lenny Murphy and Ray Poynter will create an overarching review of the project, looking at the many ways social media can be used to enhance research.

3 thoughts on “Market Research is too inward looking – Social Media analysis by Bakamo Social”

  1. thanks for sharing. it’s an interesting observation that MR seems to talk to itself and it would be interesting to how the industry reacts. not so long ago any attendee at an industry conference would have said that MR had appalling presentation skills. While not perfect that has indeed changed and we now have many great presenters. I know from experience that an effort by different industry conference organisers to emphasise improved skills through awards, encouragement and training helped. which makes me wonder if this is also a situation in which event organisers could play a role. To be honest i stopped using twitter 3 years ago because it was so predictable and mostly badly done. Now as i start again i wonder if MR event organisers could do more to coach attendees on what are good tweeets ( or other social media platform ) means of drawing in wider audiences with clever, well written views to share ? I know the different key social platforms ( FB, Twitter, Linkedin, LINE etc ) coach clients on this … based on their own research of what works. so maybe workshops ??

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