Community-Developed Social Media Survey: Results Are In, Marketers!

Back in May, in my column over at MarketingProfs Daily Fix Blog, I asked, “Wouldn’t it be grand if we could tap our collective intelligence and create our own marketing survey... with someone else taking care of the expense and legwork? A research project that that was truly “for marketers, by marketers”?

Well, we did just that and Equation Research delivered--in spades. To our knowledge, this is the first marketing survey that was directed by the community, yet facilitated by a third-party research company. 

And just as promised, we’re getting first access to the report, before it’s promoted anywhere else: and you can get your copy over at my column here.

The 40-page report is jam-packed with overall findings and implications, results for each of the 10 questions that were selected from the community’s contributions, scores of relevant charts and graphs illustrating the key points, replete with breakdowns by audience designations. It’s enough to make a data wonk out of you, too.

While we'll learn through the report’s findings, I do want to point out the key lesson that I’ll be sharing with my clients and colleagues—because ironically, it doesn't stem from data found inside the report, but from the core idea of the report itself. That is to say, creating a piece that was both for the community and directed by its members.

Given social media’s growth tear, I hope businesses will leverage these tools in ways that engage audiences by providing new and creative types of value to their communities... rather than using these media as just another vehicle for broadcasting their marketing messages. This program--via crowdsourcing the questions and preparing data that will help us in our work and learning curves--serves as an example of that practice. And I hope to see plenty more.

Go on and get your copy of the report at this column here!

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