Do researchers get social media?

Social media divides opinion among market researchers, but we can probably all agree by now that it shouldn’t be ignored.

There are good reasons for having a healthy scepticism about some social media methods, but with revenues at the biggest agencies falling in 2009 for the first time in years, it’s increasingly hard to ignore social media-based techniques such as online communities – which continue to grow apace.

So how are researchers using social media? Does the industry attract the kind of people who can make the most of it? Or are data geeks always going to be awkward with these social tools? Is there a healthy exchange of ideas going on or are we all just tweeting what we had for breakfast?

A study being run by members of the London Co-Creation Hub is looking into these questions with a survey, accompanied by an analysis of Twitter activity. We’ll be interested to see what they find, and we’ll be taking a look at the results in a future issue of Research. Click here to take part.