Google+ Consumer Insights Labssl.gstatic.com/think/docs/google-plus-qualitative-research-playbook... · Deep dive into how consumers are researching, evaluating, and purchasing products

Google Confidential and Proprietary 1 1

Google+ Consumer Insights Lab Qualitative Research Playbook

Spring 2012


Background


Google+ as an online research platform

•  The rise in social media platforms and usage has given marketers a compelling new avenue for conducting qualitative research.

•  By design, social media platforms are created with the purpose of facilitating sharing and conversations. In addition, the ubiquity of social media means the learning curve for participants is, in some ways, lower than when using a platform designed specifically for qualitative research.

•  Activities such as posting, commenting, tagging, and sharing photos and videos are second nature to participants who are accustomed to using social media to communicate.

Use Google+ to conduct socially enabled qualitative research in today's social media world. Interact and engage with consumer communities in a structured way and learn valuable customer insights

Read on to learn about…

Qualitative research that can be done using Google+

Google+ features that make research engaging


Qualitative research that can be done using Google+

Test a new product idea.

Have a great new product idea? Get insightful feedback or prototype your idea directly with a relevant audience in a rich, interactive environment. Learn how your product can help fill an audience need or where it falls short.

Learn how your target audience is making purchasing decisions.

Deep dive into how consumers are researching, evaluating, and purchasing products. Use Google+'s mobile features to gather insights offline, and use features like screen sharing via Hangout to conduct walkthroughs online. Use picture sharing as a way to track influential touchpoints.

Get those ideas flowing! Below are examples of some of the different types of research that can be done using Google+.

Test a creative concept or get ideas for creative messaging or package design with your target audience.

Find out what creative elements and messages resonate with your audience. Then dig even deeper and find out why that is and get new ideas for future creative design and messaging

Talk directly with your consumers.

Use Google+'s social features to connect with your followers or target audiences. Run live focus groups via Hangouts from anywhere in the world regardless of where participants are located. Start discussions via text as well as via photo and video uploads.


Google+ features that make research engaging

Communities as a go-to spot

Organize all of the participants, discussions, and activities within a self-contained Community. Communities can be public or private and can be easily removed after a study is over.

Hangouts for focus groups with anyone, anywhere

Use Hangouts to conduct live focus group discussions with participants all over the world. In addition, make use of a variety of Hangout Apps to make Hangouts more interactive - watch videos together, brainstorm together, share screens, and more.

Both asynchronous and two-directional sharing

Participants and moderators can share directly with each other only, or to the Community as a whole.

Google+ features offer a rich palette with which to design creative and interactive activities that make your research more engaging.

Mobile capabilities to capture away-from-home experiences

Conduct shop-a-longs with location-tagged posts and pictures. Run mobile Hangouts. The Google+ mobile app is available for both iOS and Android and is full of features.

Photo and video uploads

Create photo and video journals or have participants take pictures of product design elements, ad creative, and messaging that resonate with them. Then turn it into a discussion or vote via post commenting and +1s.

And more…

Use the Events feature to schedule activities and have them automatically appear in participants' calendars. Also, Google Docs integration means docs appear seamlessly within in-stream posts.


Conducting a study on Google+


The Research Process: A Sample Timeline

Investing the time to develop a plan and timeline before you begin the study is essential to success by making sure the right people are recruited, the right questions are asked, and the right activities are planned.

Pre study

Week 1

Weeks 2 & 3

Weeks 4 & 5

Post study

Determine:

Who you want to talk to and what you want to learn from them.

Develop your screener based on who you want to talk to. Also screen for participants who have the technical requirements to complete activities.

Recruit participants and invite them to the Community.

Also, create an activity and discussion plan to address what you want to learn.

Run the study with participants.

Compensate participants.

Distill learnings and compile any deliverables.


The Research Process: Pre-Study

Know who you want to talk to

You'll need to recruit people to talk to, so have a clear idea of who those people are. Are they your current customers? A subset of your current customers? Google+ followers? Potential customers?

For the most actionable insights, go beyond a loose definition of your audience. For example, instead of "travelers", think about looking at business vs. leisure travelers or travelers with young children.

Having a clear idea will help you determine how you can recruit (panel, customer lists, followers) and how you can best screen for those participants.

Don't run a study for the sake of running a study. Know who you want to talk to and what you want to learn from them. Have clear goals to get the most out of your research!

Know what you want to learn

So you know who you want to talk to, but what do you want to learn from them?

Boiling down the number of topics will help you plan out the length of your study, the activities you want to engage participants in, and topics to discuss each day.


The Research Process: Screener Development

Demographic and Psychographic Criteria

You may have decided that you want to recruit first time dads into a study, but what questions do you ask exactly to find a representative set of first time dads? Some criteria you might end up considering as you build the screener could include things like:

•  Whether or not the respondent lives at home with the child

•  Whether the respondent became a first time dad within the past six months, one year, etc.

•  Whether or not you want a good geographic distribution for recruits

•  Whether or not you want a good distribution of ages of the recruits

With your audience in mind, develop a screener that can be used to find and recruit them. A screener survey can be given to potential recruits regardless of whether you recruit from a panel, your followers, or somewhere else.

Technical Requirements

For studies on Google+, include technical requirements criteria in your screener to make sure participants will be able to partake in the activities you have planned. For example, if you are planning a Hangout, make sure participants have broadband Internet. If utilizing mobile capabilities will be a big part of your study, make sure the participants own compatible smartphones. For mobile Hangouts, a 4G connection may be desired.

In past studies, we've also found that recruiting participants who are somewhat tech savvy help the studies go more smoothly since the entire study is conducted online.


The Research Process: Recruiting and Discussion Guide Planning

Recruiting

Participants for a qualitative study can come from a number of sources. These include:

•  External focus group panels

•  Google+ followers

•  Current customers

•  An ongoing customer feedback community you maintain

The method chosen should reflect the study's goals. For example, if the goal is to learn what a potential new customer segment may think, recruiting from existing followers (people who already like your brand) or current customers is probably not ideal. Use your screener to screen for the criteria you're looking for.

The process of recruiting participants can take up to two weeks. In the meantime, come up with a specific plan for engaging with the participants once the study starts.

Discussion Guide Planning

Create a solid plan for how you'd like to engage with the participants once the study begins. Doing so is a good way to make sure you have the right activities and daily topics planned to cover the questions that need to be addressed. In some cases, you may find it necessary to cut back on questions or lengthen the study.

Decide specifically what actions you will ask participants to take for each activity and map them to the questions they will help answer. For example, a group YouTube ad sharing and viewing Hangout can yield feedback on ad messaging. Decide how many days you want to give participants to complete activities as well. For instance, you may want to schedule an in-store shopping event for the duration of a weekend to give participants some flexibility in order to maximize completion rates.


Example Activities

Photo Journal + Discussion: Talk about messages that do or don't resonate


Example Activities

Shop-A-Long Scenario: Delve into the in-store purchase process


Example Activities

Hangouts + Hangout Apps: Focus groups anytime, anywhere


Example Activities

Video Diaries: Talk about product use, wishes, and wants


Example Activities

Google Docs Integration:

•  Activity logging

•  content sharing

•  and more


The Research Process: Running the Study

Setup

The best way to create a self-contained environment for the study on Google+ is to create a Community. Communities provide a one-stop-shop where all discussions, posts, and events for a study can reside - and can be disbanded when the study is over.

Invite all of the final participants to the Community a couple of days before the study begins to give leeway for any technical questions or issues.

You've recruited your participants and know how you will engage them. It's time to begin the study.

Engaging the participants

You will essentially be managing a community for the duration of the study so having a dedicated community manager for this task is critical. It is up to the community manager to make sure all participants are set up, lay out the ground rules, to initiate daily conversation within the Community, and to both monitor and incite participation.

Initiate each study with a Hangout to allow participants to introduce themselves face to face and at the same time allow for an opportunity to spot and troubleshoot any technical difficulties a participant might have.

Stay on top of reminding participants of when the next activity will happen in order to maximize participation. Use Google+ Events to schedule and organize activities. Creating an Event will automatically send out a calendar invite for the Event, and any discussions or uploads related to the Event will appear within the page for that Event.

Also, new information will inevitably surface as part of qualitative research. Look out for these and dig deeper where relevant!


The Research Process: Post-Study

Participants

At this point, you want to thank your participants and compensate them or set expectations on compensation based on any agreements you had with them at the beginning of the study.

It may also be worthwhile to get feedback from participants on their experience and how it could be improved for the future.

The study is over! All that's left is to tie the bow and clean up.

Synthesize your findings

With the rich data you now have at your disposal from pictures, videos, discussions, and Hangout activities, piece together the insights. In many cases, qualitative research will yield rich and detailed insight that can provide direction for a follow-up quantitative study to further validate those insights.

In addition to the primary study insights, compile your own list of best practices based on experience and participant feedback to use for future studies.

Google+ Community

Once the findings have been synthesized and any supporting material has been downloaded, delete the Google+ Community to remove posts and events.


Best Practices


Recruiting and Incentives Recruiting Sources •  When recruiting from external panels, look for focus group panels over those designed primarily for survey

research. Participants in focus group oriented panels have different expectations and are generally more willing to discuss and share experiences which makes for a more conducive Google+ Consumer Insights Lab study.

•  Maintaining a long term community to run studies with is expensive for one time studies due to the ongoing community management time required to keep the group engaged. However, if you plan on conducting research with the same audience on a regular basis, doing so may be less expensive in the long run compared to recruiting fresh each time.

•  Provide clear and concise instructions at all points of the study and make sure participants are clear on what they can expect to minimize drop-off. This includes any legal or privacy disclosures participants are required to sign.

•  Expect 25-30% of initial recruits to stay until the end of the study - so over recruit! The largest drop off occurs if and when participants are asked to sign marketing release forms.

Incentives •  Make sure to set clear parameters and expectations for what it means to "complete the study" from an

incentives perspective. For example, participation in at least 3 out of 4 activities, etc. •  For any activities that are particularly important to get participation in, consider offering an additional

monetary incentive on top of the standard payout for participating in those activities.


During the study Study Length •  The length of Google+ Consumer Insights Lab studies is flexible depending on the number of activities planned.

For example, if you only plan on running one or two Hangouts, the study may conclude within a week. In general , a good maximum length is two weeks. This gives enough time and flexibility to run 4-5 activities and daily discussion but not wear participants out.

Hangouts •  If you are planning a Hangout as one of your activities, set up a test or introduction Hangout with participants to

pinpoint and troubleshoot any potential issues (e.g. connection) beforehand. •  Allow extra time at the beginning of each Hangout for participants to join. •  Have a backup plan for participants who encounter technical issues during the session - for example, asking the

participant to switch to voice-only mode - in order to minimize interruption. •  Offer more than one Hangout session and keep in mind when the best times for your participants might be - for

example, after work hours or on weekends.

Sharing •  Google+ at its core is a social networking platform. As such, clear instructions should be provided to participants

to minimize the risk of accidentally sharing posts outside of the study Community. The best way to keep posts within the study is to make sure when participants share, they only share with the study Community. Posting within the Community or Community Events also automatically limits those posts to the Community.


The End

Documents

Google+ Consumer Insights Labssl.gstatic.com/think/docs/google-plus-qualitative-research-playbook... · Deep dive into how consumers are researching, evaluating, and purchasing products