Social media blurs the line between research and marketing

The majority of the media that people consume are still what we call traditional. They are one-way, ‘few to many’ channels whose creation and distribution requires complex infrastructure. They are also channels for marketing of course, and so it’s important to know who the audience is and how many of them are out there. As a result there are industries to create and distribute the media content, other industries to pump that content for commercial value and, sitting in the middle, the media research industry counting the winners and losers.

And it’s research that takes the high ground. It independently audits audience sizes and profiles and even when called to measure commercial effectiveness, research is usually seen as objective and beyond reproach. It’s an industry determined to keep its hands clean when faced with the dirty discipline of marketing.

So called social media are very different to their traditional forebears. They are open channels where media content can be created by anyone and passed around freely. Brands are increasingly in the business of creating their own content rather than just advertising around someone else’s (Nike is a great example). Social media are also comparable in scale to traditional media, at least in terms of reach if not time spent, so they are increasingly taken seriously by brands looking to connect with audiences in new ways.

In this new environment a new type of media research is emerging, one where the space between ‘clean’ research and ‘dirty’ marketing all but disappears. I’m talking more and more to these new breed of agencies about hybrid projects that start with research and end with marketing. A typical brief might flow like this:

- Identify key opinion formers/influencers within specific social media communities

- Recruit them to help refine strategy and develop content

- Turn these influencers into advocates to help mobilise communities and generate maximum word of mouth/mouse

To do this requires an agency that knows how to move between observation and participation. An agency that knows how to report demand but also how to stimulate it. This is completely alien to an industry built around objectivity and the need to neutralise a research effect. But looking at where things are heading there is plenty of business to be had for an agency that is prepared to get its hands dirty.