How Can Market Researchers Get Social?

As consumer adoption of social media increases and companies expand their use of social media across the organization, market research professionals must consider if and how they can use social media in a way that adds value to their work. Forrester sees an emerging practice of social market research and has identified three trends in which researchers can: 1) access consumers through social sample, 2) embrace consumers via social tools, and 3) listen to audiences by mining the social Web. These methods currently face challenges around representativeness, accuracy, reporting, and organizational ownership. But researchers can use Forrester's POST methodology to determine when to leverage social tools and the social Web for their work.