Equivalent Research Value. According to a Google source, the cost breakdown for market research is as follows (all figures shown are minimums): Eight person focus group = $6,000 ($750/participant). Let’s say a company decides to use Facebook as a market research tool. Because most Facebook interactions are abbreviated and cursory, let’s assume that this would be quantitative interview-level data gathering only, valued at $80 per person above. Co-written with Kyle Mensing , an economics grad with a creative bent who is trying to merge business and social. MORE >>

Brand advocates — people who share content that results in a new person engaging with a campaign – generate an average of 14 earned media impressions each, according to research released today by Wildfire, the social media marketing software company recently acquired by Google. The data is based on an analysis of 10,000 social marketing campaigns that ran on Facebook over the past 9 months. Extend your social communities across a variety of platforms. On average, only 17% of fans share a brand’s campaign with friends and family. MORE >>

This is the finding of new research from Forrester. The research , based on a sample of 20,788 (and 63,703 North American) European online consumers, was published by Forrester this week and explores how consumers react to different marketing messages and types of content. The nature of social media is that it is about interaction and that it allows consumers to build their own networks or communities of people with whom they share common interests. Social media Social networks Brand consumer facebook Forrester Research social media TwitterHello!! MORE >>

McKinsey’s groundbreaking research in this area has consistently demonstrated that companies that leverage social technologies most aggressively see the payoff in market share gains, improved productivity and higher customer satisfaction. However, the research also indicates that becoming a fully networked organization is difficult, and remaining fully networked may be even harder. communities corporate Social Media internal networks mckinseyExecutives at fully networked organizations report greater benefits from both internal and external interactions. MORE >>

“If the future of events is driving online engagement and being able to generate measurable results online in addition to, or instead of, face-to-face meetings, community management is at least as valuable a skillset as—if not more valuable than—meeting management. wondered which education gap would be harder to fill—community manager retraining to learn meeting management, or meeting manager retraining to learn online community management?” ” 40% of Association Members’ Online Time is in Professional Communities [Research]  (Socious). Enjoy! MORE >>