How do studies on social networks work?

01. Why use social media?

The survey industry was born in the early 20th century. Over the course of technological revolutions, opinion collection methods have diversified, with the most innovative regularly imposing themselves over existing methods. In the early century, the first surveys were conducted face-to-face directly on the street.

Then the advent of the telephone and its democratization in households made it possible in the 1970s to rationalize the costs and time of surveys while benefiting from a wider geographical reach.

This was without accounting for the advent of the internet. By the late 1990s, the digital revolution disrupted the industry. Surveyors no longer needed to administer the questionnaire to each individual; they could now distribute it online to panels of internet users to collect responses simultaneously.

Strengths and limitations of the 3 traditional opinion collection methodologies

Face-to-face / CAPI (Computer Assisted Personal Interviewing)

Strengths

• Access to respondents without internet or phone
• Ability to step outside the interview guide framework

Limitations

• Need for trained staff
• Time-consuming
• Bias related to contact with the interviewer
• Expensive

Telephone / CATI (Computer Assisted Telephone Interviewing)

Strengths

• Access to a larger population
• Ability to step outside the interview guide framework
• Geographical targeting from a distance

Limits

• Need for staff and training
• Time-consuming
• Biases related to contact with the interviewer
• Decrease in the use of landlines and difficulty in obtaining mobile numbers
• Growing reluctance towards calls from unknown sources‍

Online panels / CAWI (Computer Assisted Web Interviewing)

Strengths

• Easy to program and administer on large samples
• Little need for human resources
• Speed of execution and fieldwork
• Cost-effective

Limits

• Exclusively for literate populations with internet access
• Professionalization of certain respondents
• Limited qualitative data

Today, the power of social networks represents a significant opportunity for quantitative studies. In France, 80% of the population uses social networks.

The time each individual spends there daily averages around 2 hours.This represents nearly 20% of awake time!Your targets spend a large part of their free time on social media: it’s therefore the ideal place to question them about your issues.

Social media in 2022

02. How does it actually work?

Social media advertising as a targeting tool

Social media today offers the opportunity to target all users based on specific criteria: socio-demographic, geographic, and by interests. This targeting, initially intended for the dissemination of advertising content by advertisers, becomes, in our context of quantitative studies,a valuable tool for prequalification and recruitment of respondents.

The methodology of studies on social media relies on the advertising and its precise targeting criteria.

The principle is simple:

Define the target of the study

according to its objectives.

Create posts (posts and stories)

a visual accompanied by a message inviting feedback.

Launch an advertising campaign

that promotes these posts to the target population using the targeting criteria of social media.

Monitor the collection of responses from targeted users

by especially tracking the filling of quotas.

At Episto, we primarily use Facebook and Instagram to recruit our respondents. But also Snapchat and TikTok if the defined objective allows it.

The conversational questionnaire as a collection mode

Well-targeting respondents is crucial. But then it's about administering a questionnaire that they will enjoy completing, all the way to the end!

If interested in the advertisement,targeted users are just one click away from becoming respondents of the study.

They are then redirected to the questionnaire, which they can answer directly on their smartphone.

The main challenge of social media studies is to offer each individual a pleasant experience, through an easy-to-understand and smooth questionnaire.

At Episto, that's what we do through an engaging conversational format.

What is an engaging conversational questionnaire?

It's a questionnaire that takes the form of a natural conversation like in instant messaging.

• A look & feel of a familiar application
• Varied question types
• Emojis
• Questions that appear throughout the "discussion"
• An engaging tone that is neither too casual nor too formal with suitable vocabulary

Attention!

While respondent engagement is essential for gathering quality responses, this method may not be suitable for certain case studies. Two scenarios fall into this category, and based on your questionnaire, we can discuss alternatives and possible solutions together.

If your questionnaire involves a device that is too complex

That is, it requires technical arrangements such as activating a webcam for doingeye-tracking for example.

If your questionnaire is necessarily long

That is, it consists of more than 60 questions and its completion time is therefore over 15 minutes. In this case, it will not be suitable for this methodology, especially for mobile use and the non-compensation of respondents.

Contact us!