By Ken Rosen
One of the fascinating things to me about social media is the quantitative analysis possible. 99% of the time, my personal value-add to clients is a qualitative recommendation based on qualitative inputs. But at my core, I want to be sure. I want causality. And that requires data. I excerpted this graphic from post by Marshall Kirkpatrick. How many Twitter users can honestly say they have no interest in knowing which words affect retweet likelihood? In the graph below, you see tweets containing “increase,” “socialize,” “manage,” and others positively correlated with retweets. Yet “write,” “trust,” and even “easy” seem negatively correlated. (See, I wanted to say “hurt your chances at retweet,” but that would confuse correlation with causality…and we wouldn’t want that!) 

Recently, we worked with a client to completely reposition them within their industry: how they spoke of differentiation, competitive position, and perhaps most importantly, what they stressed in future product development. Virtually all inputs were qualitative: interviews with decision makers. And the recommendation was completely qualitative: the core story of why this company mattered and stood out. But before making that recommendation, we tested the proposed positioning in a survey sent to 30,000 decision makers. And that data separated what was true…and what seemed to be true.

I live in a qualitative world…but I love data.

Takeaways

  • What fundamental truths do you need to understand about your market? Customer desires, fears, and cravings? Customer reactions when using your product or service? Skip the survey as a first step…and talk to your market. Focus groups can be good, but one-on-one is best. Listen to tone and hesitancy, not just specific answers. You may be shocked by how few interactions you need before you have new convictions.
  • Test your convictions! Now you’re ready for the survey! This is the spirit of scientific method— explore your world, come to a conviction, then test it quantitatively. Not only will you be sure and correct, you will also be more compelling because your confidence will shine through.