[Posted by Jeremiah Owyang]

Using Social Technologies for the Next Generation of Customer Research

Mathilde Beljaarts,

a senior consulting at Metrix Lab discusses how the next generation of research could use social tools.  They’ve used innovative techniques such as deploying image based ‘mood boards’ that let individuals share their feelings using self-selecting images.  From ‘Photo Diaries’, a form of blogging allows consumers to share the intimate details about their consumption of products within their own house.  Using eye tracking tools, and online co-creation, there’s a variety of methods that can be deployed to track, and understand customer needs.  Communities like Hyves, MySpace, and Facebook, are actually user structured content.  How to get started?  Focused on key issues and objectives, then look at ‘domain scouting’ which will provide a full view of a product category. Which marketers does this not work for?  It can work for all marketers, and even financial industries.  This is intended to be a continuous process, not just before a new product launch.

Takeaway: Many new social technologies can dimensionalize customer research like never before