Listen to conversations about your brand in social media ; it’s better than a focus group. Use this information to discover how to set the direction and focus of your small business brand. This will take some time, but it won’t cost you any money. As a small business working to leverage social media, focus on communicating what you do, not what you sell. By now, you have heard all the hype about content marketing. Although this powerful marketing strategy is one of today’s biggest buzzwords, many brands are still hesitant to jump into the mix. MORE >>

Ultimately, both sides need to come to an understanding, with management conceding that not all of that peer interaction is a waste of time and employees focusing primarily on achieving business goals through social media activity during work hours. LinkedIn has had problems with LinkedIn group spammers , though the business social network has responded by creating new group management tools to fight spam. It’s a critical and cost-effective tool for gathering market and competitive intelligence. Image credit: Spin Sucks. Reasons Social Media Sucks. No question. MORE >>

On how to decide which research method to use: Steve said that they use a mix of tools on almost every project, with surveys, focus groups and interviews being the most common. They use interviews and focus groups (they call them workshops) to extract softer information – feelings, attitudes, and so on. Low-cost research tools: We already know this, and Steve reiterated, that there are literally hundreds of them, e.g. Survey Monkey and Zoomerang, which are probably two of the most popular online survey tools. and low-cost tools like Actionly. MORE >>

These events build lifetime bonds between members and ensure everyone finds a group within the community where they can exist. You can focus on  scaling processes  to ensure the community can continue to grow and develop without forever escalating costs. Sub-groups. You can work to develop sub-groups for the community. TV show), sell focus group access, and otherwise follow the Mumsnet model. Some communities are huge. They have thousands, potentially millions, of members. They generate thousands of posts every day.  Campaigns. MORE >>

book tour can be very costly. For Movie/TV/Radio/Theatre/Music/Dance Promotions, use Webinars to reach large groups of people to interview actors, singers, dancers, poets, playwrights, producers, choreographers, directors etc. Focus groups can view and research products through audio, chat or text-based questions. Polls and online surveys are also a popular feature in these focus groups and are available features with this technology. Everyone can view the same document simultaneously, so edits can be made quickly and efficiently, without costly delays. MORE >>