The cornerstone

14May10

‘One big focus group’

I’ve heard this term thrown around a bit (Google it) to describe ‘naturally occurring’ conversations on the internet as a rich source of customer insight. It annoys me.

Listening to/gathering online content is absolutely nothing like a focus group.

Beyond the obvious (ie there’s not a great deal of focus in terms of sample, or being able to probe specific topics), and maybe surprisingly, it lacks some key aspects of spontaneity than can be generated in a focus group. Moreover, unlike a focus group, it doesn’t readily provide a good foundation for analysis.

Highly edited

In many cases that we, as market researchers, will be interested in, the content that ends up in the netographer’s dragnet – eg a blog post, a comment on a community thread, a tweet, etc – is the product of a process that involves considerable cognitive effort on the part of the creator; either word crafting a thought/response, choosing an image, shooting and editing a video etc.

And various factors will shape that effort, such as the intended or perceived audience, the perceived importance of that audience, the background and motivation for generating and posting the content in the first place etc.

Clearly, this is a highly controlled, highly edited process – a fact that seems at odds with the perception of unsolicited online content as somehow more authentic than the content a researcher can get via other (more direct) methods of inquiry.

But the key issue here is that there are very few clues to help the researcher understand the motivations of any particular individual driving their broadcast to the online world.

The mother of issues

As a qualitative researcher, motivation is one of the key factors I’m interested in understanding. It’s the very cornerstone of my analysis; the context. But I can’t readily get that online. Without directly asking, in a timely and appropriate fashion (a whole other blog post), I’m not privy to the backroom.

Of course, not understanding the motivations/context behind the content is fine if you’re simply gathering and presenting content. But it’s the mother of issues if you want to provide your client with any substance.

We’re getting good at capturing data and making it look pretty. But is our industry paying enough attention to its analysis?