I’ve written about both Myspace research development and Facebook research development, in the form of panels, within these social networks. Some questions you may be asking: Why is it important to create a panel, and how do identified insights actually shape a social network campaign?

A qualitative social network panel identifies insights that can specifically deliver on MySpace’s “secrets” to activating the “Momentum Effect”, as written in their Never Ending Friending study. If you are not familiar with “Never Ending Friending A Journey into Social Networking” study here is a recap of the secrets:

Secret #1: “Your brand is a persona. The name of the game in SN value creation for both consumer and brand is simply recognizing the symbiotic relationship between marketer and consumer…downloads, tools and viral elements all must embody the brand persona.”

Secret #2: “Give them a reason to talk about it.”

Secret #3: “Give the consumer a chance to realize his or her dream/fantasy.”

Our process is rooted in online anthropology. We analyze the daily usage within the panel, expressions on their profile page, expressions on other areas of the social network, and conduct one-to-one dialog via email.

Their Daily Usage
Understand how your target audience segment uses the tools within a social network site. By looking at this on a personal level, versus simply reviewing statistics from Myspace or Facebook, you will determine which tools you should implement and, more important, you will identify an insight that will allow you to create an interesting usage scenario around that tool that aligns with your brand/product and naturally weaves into your audience’s usage pattern.

What’s important to them?
By reviewing: their profile page, groups they’ve joined, discussion that is taking place, subjects of their blogs, etc, you can determine what topics in life are meaningful to them. It’s a cross between a focus group and an ethnographic study. By identifying meaningful topics you can create compelling social media tactics.

By identifying these insights, and aligning them with your brand or product, you can move the brand/product toward a more intimate zone in the consumer’s mind versus being in the public zone.

As marketers, we do a lot of talk about the importance of relationships with consumers. Social networking puts your brand/product to the relationship to test: How much effort and commitment are you willing to put in to creating a “deep relationship” with a consumer. If your brand/product isn’t willing to do what’s necessary, it will maintain in the public zone of consumers.

I currently create research panels for clients such as Kraft and Western Union, and apply the findings to create meaningful social network campaigns. If you would like to further understand this social media strategy planning and apply it to your brand or product, please contact me at jenni@weluvdigital.com or 323-828-8137.

As I noted in my previous blog, I am in the midst of Myspace research development as well as Facebook research development. Here is part 1 of the directional findings from the qualitative panel. Please note that these are directional findings and they may be revised/updated based on further analysis or changing user behavior.

General Usage Findings
The Myspace research development and Facebook research development has revealed an overall consistency across both social networks, in regards to why panelists visit their account on a daily basis and what they do on it (Note: Panelists are visiting their accounts 30-100+ times a month):

Most Noted Reasons That Panelists Visited Their Account:

• They want to find out if anything was happening on their account. “To check on things, any new notifications, etc.” and respond to these.
• Because the social network informed them they had activity on their account, via an email to their non social network email account. Most common and frequent activities on the account are friend requests, comments, new messages, and bulletins.

Other Noted Reasons That Panelists Visited Their Account:

• “Update profile” (Myspace and Facebook: new profile picture, status, updated information, etc.)
• “Find band pages/music” (Myspace specific)
• “Find music venue pages to get concert date information” (Myspace specific)
• “Had to contact a friend and try to get cubs tickets” (Myspace specific)
• “To post a bulletin” (Myspace specific)
• “Bored” (Facebook specific)
• “I wanted to follow up on my Scrabulous game” (Facebook specific)
• “Searched for long lost friends” (Facebook specific)

What They Do:

A core set of usage activities emerged within myspace and facebook panelists: respond to emails, send emails, look at wall postings, read bulletins, post bulletins, address friend requests, read/make comments, look at updated profiles, look at friends’ pages, respond to invites, read comments/make comments, commenting to photos.

These set activities seem to be initiated by:

• Notifications and emails from the social networks informed panelists of the activity on their account. These act as a to-do list for panelists.
• Newsfeeds: They provide a “to do lists” for panelists.
• Indication of new messages on their profile page gives them a starting point if they are “checking in” unaided.

Once they addressed these things that “needed to be done” on their account they did not tend to surf other real estate or applications or add applications as part of a daily usage pattern.

Other Usage Findings

• Facebook panelists used the “events” tool when they are planning an event. Panelists responded to the invites generated by this tool.
• Some Myspace primary users remarked that they prefer Facebook’s event’s application because it’s much easier to use versus myspace’s event creator.
• Myspace user panelists had high instances of posting bulletins. Some myspace panelists noted this many times as their favorite feature of the day.
  • There were not high instances of facebook panelists posting on The Wall.
• There were many incidences of photo posting and commenting to photos on both social networks.
• There were instances of uploading mobile photos.
• Some Myspace panelists listened to music on their profile page and many changed their profile song on a regular basis.
  • Facebook panelists did not indicate these activities.

How Should Advertisers Act On These Findings:

• Ensure that the brand message is encountered throughout the daily usage activities to drive brand awareness.
• Create new ways to involve the brand within the daily user activities.
• Create ways to be a leisure activity within social networking, because social networking is a leisure activity for panelists in addition to staying connected with friends.
• Have presence in music and music related promotions in myspace.
• Consider supporting local bands as well as major bands. Supporting and designing promotions around local bands may be more effective than designing promotions around large corporate bands.
• Consider creating branded tools that make it more fun and easier to consume and organize their music and music lifestyle.
• Pioneer new music tools on facebook.
• Create new photo tools that make it more fun to share and engage with photos.
• Consider print services for mobile photo uploads–it is likely that they don’t have a hard copy of their favorite mobile images.

These insights guide social media strategy planning and the supporting social media tactics. If you would like specific insights for your company from a social network specialist, please contact jenni@weluvdigital.com or 323-828-8137.

I started a Facebook qualitative research panel and a Myspace qualitative research panel. I started the panels to gain insights, directly from users, that would guide Facebook strategy development as well as Myspace strategy development. The panel will begin to answer these questions:

* What are the insights for social networking usage? How do they use on a daily basis?
* How are users incorporating facebook applications into their life?
* What do they like and dislike about applications?
* How are facebook users different from myspace users?
* Why do they choose Myspace over Facebook?
* How are people are using both Facebook and Myspace in conjunction?
* How can the identified insights contribute to campaign development?

Here’s a little bit about the Facebook research and Myspace research panel:
It consists of women in their twenties, most are in college or grad school. They live in the Chicago area (to help keep the study more representative of the nation as a whole versus skewed to the coasts). For now, the study will focus on women in college due to the time involved with managing multiple segments. The methodology: Each time panelists use their myspace/facebook account they email me, via their social network, responses to questions. In addition, data achieved via analyzing the newsfeed, friend subscription, and profile activity will be overlayed.

I’m also offering this panel to marketers, as well as other panels, as a way for marketers to obtain feedback from their target audience segments. If a company is planning a Myspace campaign or a Facebook campaign, a social media research panel is a smart tool to utilize when planning social media tactics.

If you are in need of a social network marketing expert, please contact  jenni@weluvdigital.com or 323-828-8137.