The Survey Geek

Using Facebook to predict the yield on 10-year Greek bonds

The graphic below is from the "Correlation or Causation" section in the current issue of Businessweek.  I expect there is an ESOMAR paper not far behind. 

Another data point on social media privacy

The buzz about privacy protections in social media research has fallen off some since August's Great Privacy Debate. That doesn't mean the issue is settled by any means, only that the professional and trade associations who have been driving the debate have taken the feedback they've gotten and to one degree or another are back at the drawing board.

For me the key issue is not traditional survey research ethics, Terms of Use or legislative privacy protections. It's really about the expectations of social media participants. The industry's future will be bleak if we rely on methods that rightly or wrongly appear to abuse our research subjects. In this connection most of the survey data I've seen say that people have expectations about privacy in social media that are at odds with those of at least some MR practitioners.

So I found this little piece in The Market Research Bulletin to be interesting. In it some folks from Maritz report on a survey of Twitter users suggesting that when someone complains about a brand on Twitter the vast majority of those people hope that the brand follows up with them. I guess it's a cry for help. Only about a third report such follow-up and of that third 80% plus are pleased that they did. So in this instance there does not seem to be an expectation of privacy. They might not like it if their tweet is featured in a commercial, but they like the personal attention.

While I like the study I feel compelled to cry "foul" on a methodological point. The methodology description includes an estimate of sampling error which makes no sense with a nonprobability panel. While this is an all too common misuse of the statistic in MR it's a bit more objectionable here given that in the next paragraph Maritz boasts (justifiably) that they are ISO 20252 certified and the standard clearly specifies that standard error should only be calculated for probability samples.

Nonetheless, it's still an interesting little study.

"Twitter is outdirectedness cubed."

My wife is a borderline obsessive reader of the New York Times.  When she gets behind certain sections of it pile up around the house.  But in the end all of it gets read.  Some of it she clips and puts on my desk where it also piles up but in the end all of it, too, gets read.

Hence my late discovery of this interesting essay from July with the title, "I Tweet, Therefore I Am."  The essay refrences a forthcoming book by Sherry Turkle at MIT.  In it Turkle talks about how  posts to Facebook or Twitter gradually take on the character of a performance, an identify constructed for consumption by other people.  Not really your true self.  She reminds us of how the sociological masterwork The Lonely Crowd described the transformation of Amercian culture from inner-directed to outer-directed and how social media has sped that up.   Hence the title of this post, a quote from Turkle.

As any pioneer on the bleeding edge of the NewMR will tell you, we have embraced the basic tenant of behavioral economics that says people don't always do what they say they will do or can even explain after the fact why they did what they did.  This makes working with survey data a bit challenging, to say the least.  But by the same token, if people we listen to in social media are not true selfs but selfs constructed for our consumption, it raises some pretty significant challenges for working with social media information.

Or, to put it in terms a survey geek can understand we might say: Twitter is social desireaiblity on steroids.

Where is the insight?

Just prior to the holidays the folks at the Harvard Business Review released the results of a survey that asked 2,100 companies about their use of social media. This finding is especially telling:

Nearly two-thirds of the 2,100 companies who participated said they are either currently using social media channels or have social media plans in the works. But many still say social media is an experiment, as they try to understand how to best use the different channels, gauge their effectiveness, and integrate social media into their strategy.

Despite the vast potential social media brings, many companies seem focused on social media activity primarily as a one-way promotional channel,  and have yet to capitalize on the ability to not only listen to, but analyze, consumer conversations and turn the information into insights that impact the bottom line.

The methodology of this particular study is underwhelming but the results are largely consistent with other things I see and hear, some of which I blogged about back in August. 

Were a modern day Rip Van Winkle to awake after 20 years with an interest in MR and the only sources available to him were conference proceedings and Twitter he probably would quickly conclude that MR=Social Media Analysis.  But outside of that echo chamber it's a different world. Despite all of the hand waving about social media, the NewMR, Web 2.0, etc. clients, for the most part, remain unconvinced. The latest estimates from Inside Research suggest that in terms of dollars spent social media research is barely above the noise level in an $8 billion US industry. For the moment, at least, it seems that we are losing the argument where it counts most.

Ode to the New MR

Courtesy of John Henry Saxe (1816-1887).

                 I.
It was six men of Indostan
 To learning much inclined,
Who went to see the Elephant
 (Though all of them were blind),
That each by observation
 Might satisfy his mind.

                 II.
The First approached the Elephant,
 And happening to fall
Against his broad and sturdy side,
 At once began to bawl:
"God bless me!-but the Elephant
 Is very like a wall!"

                 III. 
The Second, feeling of the tusk,
 Cried: "Ho!-what have we here
So very round and smooth and sharp?
 To me't is mighty clear
This wonder of an Elephant
 Is very like a spear!"

                 IV.
The Third approached the animal,
 And happening to take
The squirming trunk within his hands,
 Thus boldly up and spake:
"I see," quoth he, "the Elephant
 Is very like a snake!"

                 V.
The Fourth reached out his eager hand,
 And felt about the knee.
"What most this wondrous beast is like  
 Is mighty plain," quoth he;
"'Tis clear enough the Elephant
 Is very like a tree!"

                 VI.
The Fifth, who chanced to touch the ear,
 Said: "E'en the blindest man
Can tell what this resembles most;
 Deny the fact who can,
This marvel of an Elephant
 Is very like a fan!"

                 VII.
The Sixth no sooner had begun
 About the beast to grope,
Than, seizing on the swinging tail
 That fell within his scope,
"I see," quoth he, "the Elephant
 Is very like a rope!"

                 VIII.
And so these men of Indostan
 Disputed loud and long,
Each in his own opinion
 Exceeding stiff and strong,
Though each was partly in the right,
 And all were in the wrong!

                 MORAL.
So, oft in theologic wars
 The disputants, I ween,
Rail on in utter ignorance
 Of what each other mean,
And prate about an Elephant
Not one of them has seen!