I recently gave a hard look at Leonard Murphy’s highly informative report, GreenBook Research Industry Trends. If you haven’t checked it out by now, I’d highly recommend the read for anybody who wants to see the latest in the present state of the market research industry, but more importantly, they spend a good bit of time highlighting the future trends.
I’m shocked at the disparity between social media interest and adoption from the buyer (AKA brands) compared with the suppliers. As the GRIT explains, “buyers are far more likely to have used social media analytics (44%) than suppliers (24%)” That’s a 20% gap!
A staggering difference like that where the demand outweighs the supply spells O-P-P-O-R-T-U-N-I-T-Y if I’ve ever embraced a statistic. As the GRIT proceeds to explain:
“The discrepancy between suppliers and internal
leaders on social media raises a number of
important questions. Could it be that suppliers
are behind the curve, wedded to interrogatory
approaches as opposed to passive social media
listening posts? Do suppliers view social media
analytics ultimately as a DIY tool and not within
their wheelhouse? This gap is likely going to
be exploited by non-traditional suppliers who
recognize the demand and are able to meet the need of client side researchers.”
While many market researchers stick to their guns of traditional techniques that they believe to be tried & true, brands will increasingly start to migrate towards more innovative solutions that leverage social media.
Don’t be surprised if the market research industry is soon overrun by technology-based companies that back into the industry. As one of my favorite business sayings goes, “an industry in chaos is prime for new opportunities.” Look out!
May 25th, 2011 at 10:26 am
[...] on my last post about the demand outweighing supply for social media solutions in market research, another statistic has really stayed with me: 70% of buyers anticipate using social media [...]