Conducting Marketing Research

Advertising/Media

Social Media Metrics

There are two different ways of looking at advertising. One is directed at making certain the product or service finds its audience, and the other is determining if the message is being heard. With the emphasis on social media, many companies perform a type of environmental scanning for themselves, or outsource it to a PR/marketing/social media firm. Companies may do the same type of scanning for their competitors in their peer group so they can listen and analyze what customers are saying about them, as well.

There is a a lot of competition in this field and currently they are all fee based services. Most are software or "platforms" (i.e. websites) that track a company or brand's Social Media "influence" (as measured through a variety of metrics) and then can compare their own metrics to the software vendor's other clients' "averages". This is the exact same route that happened with email marketing - the big email service providers started publishing/supplying "average" metrics based on their aggregate clients' participation and they became the "industry standard." Here are the three, including Radian 6 (they are a start-up here in KC).

• radian 6
• cymphony
• Alterian SM2

Below are more traditional media resources:

1. Advertising Age
   An important weekly newspaper of interest to advertising and marketing professionals. Publishes several annual issues or features of special interest:
   
   
   • 100 Leading Media Companies (Click on Media)
   • The Top 200 Brands (click on Marketers)
   • 10 hot media markets (Click on Media)
2. American Network Scorecard
   This chart presents AC Nielsen statistics on audience share for leading TV series on broadcast television, including percent of audience by age/gender. This does not include recent Nielsen statistics.
3. Arbitron
   The Arbitron site offers many free studies of media audiences for radio, cable TV, internet, and online radio. These include studies of multi-cultural audiences. There are also studies on "out-of-home media such as cinema advertising, outdoor advertising, airport advertising, and "in-car" media. The site also offers profiles of radio stations, ratings of stations, and rankings of radio markets. Althoug some parts of the site are restricted to Arbitron clients, there are many free reports.
4. Audit Bureau of Circulations Reader Profiles
   Some free Reader Profile reports are listed by state. These provide statistics on readers of specific newspapers including number of readers, reach, average frequency, gross rating poings (GRP), a map of the circulation area, and a detailed reader demographic analysis. Also on the site are listings of the Top 200 Newspapers by Largest Reported Circulationand Top 150 Designated Market Areas. Other parts of the site may require a subscription.

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