Research Reinvented have polled the Twitterverse (I hate that word!) to find the most influential people in the market and consumer research areas to follow. At FreshNetworks we make the most of strong research credentials, both in our specific online research communities , but also helping all of our clients make the most of the insight they can get from online communities . Rather ingratiatingly I’m one of them and now get to wait to see if I make the top 10. You can read more of our recent research posts from making online research better to

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.

We’ve written before about the real power that online research communities can bring to a brand, and also of the way in which you can get insight from any online community . The promise of rich insight is great - real people talking to each other about your brand, market and competitors. At FreshNetworks we have built online communities from scratch, and also worked  with organisations They provide a real hub for innovation and co-creation and give you access to real-time insight. But sometimes they just don’t seem to work, they just don’t deliver what you

Customer service - listening to customers and having a direct dialogue with them - is a form of marketing. And an effective form of marketing at that. For Becker, customer service is marketing, and for brands who get this right, it is characterised in three ways: Customer Service is the New Marketing (Next09, Hamburg) Image by LiminalMike via Flickr We wrote last month about the Zappos story , about how they have used customer service to extend and enhance the customer experience and how this has had a positive impact on sales, satisfaction and growth.

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. Five ways to use an online research community in 2009 (freshnetworks.com) Image via Wikipedia On Friday we posted about an experiment running on one of our online communities , comparing paid and organic search strategies .

Details Magazine Buy Reprint Idea in Brief HBR.org > January–February 2010 Rethinking Marketing by Roland T. m, Scape Biennale, Christchurch, New Zealand Web Exclusive: Special Section on Reinvention Imagine a brand manager sitting in his office developing a marketing strategy for his company’s new sports drink. Harvard Business Review Cart My Account Downloads Explore Today on HBR Blogs Magazine Books Authors Store Harvard Business School

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

Stephen Collins and I and a bunch of Twitterati got into a discussion about social media marketing campaigns and whether they should exist earlier today. Stephen followed up with a blog post called “ Social Media, It’s not actually about selling anything ” (actually about social media marketing) which of course is questionable on a number of levels. First, marketing is not sales. We don’t sell items through marketing, we sell concepts, ideas. Spin and spam if we’re bad.

We initiated the Online Community Culture study in October of 2008, as part of the ongoing research agenda of the Online Community Research Network. We had over 75 participants in the research, representing many sectors, including software, tech, traditional media, social media and online community, and non-profits. Director Internet Marketing, Tools/Service Provider “Platform, The intention of the study was to get a broad look at the factors that influence online community culture, and the steps community managers and strategists take in cultivating, and in some cases influencing, a community’s culture.

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.