Five Eras of the Social Web – Part 2 – What does it mean for market research?

In the first post (below) I discussed the recent Forrester study and how they described the Five Eras of the Social Web.

The five eras not only relate to social media marketing but also the discipline of market research.

Innovative market research companies have already tapped into the fact that market research methodologies need to change in a web 2.0 environment- become more online and more ‘social’.

The following are  a list of agencies that are currently using innovative approaches:

• The Digital Edge – the only Australian company to have facebook-style community software that enables a highly interactive online and highly ‘sociable‘ research experience – referred to as MROCs or market research online communities. (Era 1 & 2)
• Peanut Labs, runs  surveys across widgets on social networks. (Era 2)
• FreshNetworks build online communities for innovation and consumer advocacy – with the ability for insight collection (Era 5)
•  Australian online communities provider Resonate Solutions builds communities for organisations with potential for market research/insight gathering (Era 5)

The Social Web touches many disciplines from knowledge management, to pr and marketing and market research. The agencies that innovate to recognise the change  and use it to drive their future methodologies will survive while those that don’t will become increasingly irrelevant.