Four reasons why social media is the most effective way of Market research

The pace with which social media has captured the mindspace of people across the globe has been overwhelming to say the least. Today it has become an integral part of our lives. If Facebook was a country, it would be the third largest country in terms of population with more than 800 million profiles. Millions of others have their profiles on other less popular social networks such as Orkut, Myspace, Google + and still others catering to niche audience like Linkedin, Youtube etc. Social media brings out what’s really inside a person. Social media has become a major source of primary data for market researches.


Market research is data collection, integration, analysis and then dissemination of information generated. Main aim of market research is to find consumer preferences, their purchase and consumption pattern.

 Why Social media is becoming primary source of data for Market researches :-

1) Audience is pro-active on social media

Audience on social media websites update their status on their respective profiles frequently. Social media has become a part of our lifestyle. The information or data we obtain on social media is updated on a daily basis .

2) Cost-effective method

Online Market Research is very cost effective. Whenever a person likes a fan page or group on Facebook, it is automatically suggested to his/her friends, as the things become viral, it makes it cost-effective source of advertising as well as data collection. Whenever people use some application on Facebook, they allow the application to access and use their profile information. So cost of collecting information becomes very low.



3) Highly efficient as audience is targeted

It is very easy to reach your niche target as audience is divided on the basis of their fan page likes, groups and communities joined. So if you need to do some research on developers around the world it is easy to find them on various communities on social media websites such as Facebook, Linkedin etc.



4) Accurate

The information people provide on their social networking profiles are fairly accurate. Views or information provided in conventional sources of data collection such as web forms and surveys may be biased. But the information provided in social media is mostly genuine.



In the end, it is safe to say that in the coming years, as more and more people have access to internet, the significance of social media market research will only grow and other methods would propabably cease to exist.