Social Media Shakes Up Market Research Jobs: Candidates Skill Up

The digital boom and recent economic downturn have given the market research sector a well needed shove over to innovation

. With the rise of social media as a market research tool and clients requiring insight rather than data, the industry is in a state of transition. However only 4% of our market research candidates have experience with social media, but this has risen significantly over the last year. So what do candidates need to do to keep up? And how will social media influence the industry in the long run?

Cost effective insight

Prior to the downturn, many organisations took chances, ideas came to fruition pretty quickly with little research and analysis undertaken to back them up. However, the recession prompted purse strings to tighten and companies could not afford to take chances with their products, as a result market research was pushed to the forefront making it an essential foundation of any marketing strategy. Of course with cash in short supply and the need for insight becoming more vital, clients started to want more for their money, they wanted a cost effective and insightful resource of information - enter social media.

Social media challenges tradition

Social media has managed to challenge how we source information and interpret data narratives. Back in June, Twitter and its constant stream of updates and opinions came out as top dog of the opinion polls when it successfully managed to predict the outcome of the UK general election based on its users tweets. The use of social media in this format rivals many traditional means of gathering information through opinion polls such as Gallup. The idea of using social media as a market research tool to gather insight has been widely debated both from a positive and negative outlook. It can enable companies to do their own in-house research, offers instantaneous insight into the consumer mind set and is incredibly cost effective.

Interpretation and targets

However, one notable pitfall is how the information is interpreted - colloquial language is a real issue as it can differ drastically between tweeters and as a result produce inaccurate results, corrupting our understanding of the general message. Perhaps the most obvious problem though is that the demographic just isnt broad enough. Twitter is predominantly used by a younger age group and whilst there are some exceptions this also cannot account for the sample size itself. Not everyone in the UK, let alone your target audience is on twitter. This means that there are a limited number of brands who can use this tool.

Get in on the action

New packages are now emerging who specialise solely in the monitoring of social media, such as Radian 6, Brandsearch and Buzzmetrics. This could prompt a surge in market research candidates specialising in social media. We found that out of all research and insight candidates on our database, only 4% had experience using social media on their CVs. However a huge 87% of those were registered in the last year. So candidates are skilling up as a result of the social media boom. If youre new to the industry and want to get involved with the digital / social media research and analysis then Id suggest getting some experience with social media packagers. If youre already in the game then its worth investing in your development and finding out about the many training courses available online, a reliable site is the Market Research Society.

If youre working in the market research sector and looking to make your next big career move then get in touch for the latest market research and insight jobs.

Alternatively, get in touch if you're a client looking for a new superstar member of staff. Our database is bursting with top talent looking for a new place to call home.

by: Ronnie George

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