Comments on: Finding Credible Sources of Social Media Marketing Data http://brandsavant.com/finding-credible-sources-of-social-media-marketing-data/ Gaining Insight From Social Media Data Thu, 29 Jul 2010 01:40:01 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0 By: John Lane http://brandsavant.com/finding-credible-sources-of-social-media-marketing-data/comment-page-1/#comment-422 John Lane Tue, 11 May 2010 02:18:43 +0000 http://brandsavant.com/?p=79#comment-422 Wow. Sometimes things people pass to you on the web are spooky. And this is one of those times. A couple days ago, I was running a potential blog post past my cohort (@bwatts) that would be titled "A Tale of Two Surveys." You basically wrote it here. Better than I could have. So thanks! I had just read the report you mention above and I was shocked and a little pissed that they titled the survey report the way they did — "How Marketers Are Using Social Media to Grow Their Businesses" — after reading the methodology. It calls into question all the "facts" posited in the report. Especially for those who don't make it to the end to read how they got the sample. Now if they'd called it "Profiles of Small Businesses Already Using Social Media for Marketing" it would've been a useful piece. Truth in advertising is good, people. As for the second survey? This one is a stellar piece of work about the activities and attitudes of B2B purchasers on social media (http://bit.ly/9j1Ywm). The methodology is sound, and presented up front with an apt title so that you feel comfortable with the information you're getting. It's the kind of solid research you could actually build something on. So — as you said — it's not that the info is bad. It's not even that gathering the type of info in the way they did is *all* bad. But you have to call it what it is. The sample simply does not match the billing. Thanks! @johnvlane Wow. Sometimes things people pass to you on the web are spooky. And this is one of those times. A couple days ago, I was running a potential blog post past my cohort (@bwatts) that would be titled “A Tale of Two Surveys.” You basically wrote it here. Better than I could have. So thanks!

I had just read the report you mention above and I was shocked and a little pissed that they titled the survey report the way they did — “How Marketers Are Using Social Media to Grow Their Businesses” — after reading the methodology. It calls into question all the “facts” posited in the report. Especially for those who don’t make it to the end to read how they got the sample. Now if they’d called it “Profiles of Small Businesses Already Using Social Media for Marketing” it would’ve been a useful piece. Truth in advertising is good, people.

As for the second survey? This one is a stellar piece of work about the activities and attitudes of B2B purchasers on social media (http://bit.ly/9j1Ywm). The methodology is sound, and presented up front with an apt title so that you feel comfortable with the information you’re getting. It’s the kind of solid research you could actually build something on.

So — as you said — it’s not that the info is bad. It’s not even that gathering the type of info in the way they did is *all* bad. But you have to call it what it is. The sample simply does not match the billing.

Thanks!

@johnvlane

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