When survey methodologists write survey questions, we want the truth. Problem is, the truth is not so easy to come by or even to assess when we've succeeded in getting it. Social media research is a developing field of study focused on using passive data collection of residual elements in social media vehicles to understand consumer behavior. In other words, social media participants leave behind a trail of multi-media data which can then be mined and analyzed to glean insight. There are many vendors offering social media research services including data collection and cleaning, and text and sentiment analysis. But, aside from the problems we still have in using computer technology to understand human sentiment, the data collected is still secondary – it wasn’t intended for the purposes of the research at hand.
Enter, Research Lifestreaming by Harris Interactive which provides content on social media activities from a panel of survey respondents. Panelists reveal activities on sites including Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn, as weRLS can provide text and sentiment analysis of social media residuals but importantly, it can also link panel survey responses to the social media data.
While social media data suffer from originating for another purpose than research and survey data may suffer from measurement and response biases, combining the two forms offers potentially a much clearer view of the truth.
You’ll see RLS in action when Bob Witeck of Witeck-Combs Communications shares a case study of travel insights based on RSL at the ad:tech Social Media Marketing Master session.
