to find the most influential people in the market and consumer research areas to follow. You can read more of our recent research posts from making online research better to one on simple, effective market research . The full list of market researchers to follow on Twitter is below (in alphabetical order) and you can vote for the top ten by commenting on the Research Reinvented blog. Research Reinvented have polled the Twitterverse (I hate that word!) Rather ingratiatingly I’m one of them and now get to wait to see if I make the top 10.

Yesterday we posted about statistics from MarketingSherpa showing that a lack of knowledge hampers social media marketing , with 46% of firms who had not adopted social media marketing citing a lack on internal understanding as their main hindrance. Another set of statistics from MarketingSherpa paints a more positive outlook for social media agencies. In September 2008, just as we were recognising the full potential of the economic downturn in which we now find ourselves, they surveyed almost 400 firms asking them about their marketing spend for 2009. Which lines would increase and which lines would decrease.

This may be increased sales, a specific number of new ideas generated for the business, increased retention rate, traffic to an ecommerce platform, savings in market and consumer research spending… The areas where online communities can contribute to business objectives can be vast and depend on the specific needs of the business. Tags: social media qualitative market research Social Media Virtual community Strategic planning online market research freshminds Organic search innovation market research Business Matt Rhodes web2.0 Image via Wikipedia

But data from TNS shows that use of social media and social networking in the country is widespread, making it the fourth largest market in Europe for social networking behind the UK, Germany and France. These statistics are impressive and firmly place Russia as the fourth biggest market in Europe for social networking. It’s in these markets that I would expect to see We’ve posted in the past about the use of social media in Russia, when Russian President Dmitry Medvedev launched a video blog . The January Web Index for TNS shows that two leading social networks

Time will tell which are the most appropriate and which have the highest return on investment, but it is worth all brands learning the basics of Twitter usage for marketing purposes and in particular for PR. We wrote earlier this week about how brands should use social media marketing instead of email . Tags: social media marketing Comcast freshminds web2.0 Again this week, Twitter has been high on the media agenda. As is always the case during a time of innovation, brands are experimenting with lots of different ways of using Twitter.

Executive Social Marketing Bootcamp Matt Rhodes Required reading Social Media Blog blogging Brand Business co-creation Conversation customer communities David Alston freshminds FreshNetworks innovation market research marketing Marketing and Advertising online communities online market research qualitative market research Radian6 Simplicity Social marketing social media Social network Twitter Virtual community web2. Image by FredArmitage via Flickr For any brand using social media , an important first stage is to find out

Presentations from Facebook and MySpace at the Marketing 2.0 But the content of their presentations was interesting, if only to see how both organisations approach selling their marketing potential to brands. Read all of our posts based on the Marketing 2.0 Chinese Social Image by Getty Images via Daylife conference caused something of a stir - first of all for getting both on stage at the same time, and second as Damien Vincent from Facebook, having only just joined them from MySpace, seemed to momentarily forget who he was working for.

common debate among those working in marketing and social media is between engaging people on your own domain - in an online community that you build and manage yourself - and engaging people where they are - out in social networks like Facebook and MySpace or on YouTube, external blogs or forums. In fact the best way to build a sustainable approach to marketing and engagement using social media is to do both. Image by MattRhodes via Flickr A

This is a relatively new online community from one of the major players in the UK supermarket market. This fits well with the open and friendly brand they have developed and so would reinforce their position in the market. Tags: social media Virtual community marketing Asda Online Community Examples starbucks freshminds web2.0 For the second in our series of Online Community Examples , we move on to look at online communities in the retail industry. Online communities in the retail industry

It is the insight into the attitudes to branded content, pages and applications that is, however, most interesting from a social media marketing perspective. We know that social networks are difficult places for brands and it can be best to use them not as the start and end of your engagement or marketing strategy. Components of Social Media Marketing: The Moogis Case by Wyndstorm (fastforwardblog.com) Research released by the Internet Advertising Bureau (IAB) in the UK suggests that people are growing increasingly tired of requests to join brand pages or install brand applications in Facebook and other social networks .