“One of the most bizarre premises of quantum theory, which has long fascinated philosophers and physicists alike, states that by the very act of watching, the observer affects the observed reality.”

The premise may have been proven on February 27, 2008.

“. . . researchers at the Weizmann Institute of Science conducted a highly controlled experiment demonstrating how a beam of electrons is affected by the act of being observed. The experiment revealed that the greater the amount of “watching,” the greater the observer’s influence on what actually takes place.

This premise has long cast a tiny shadow of invalidating doubt on all manner of research. Primary marketing research like focus groups, usability testing, interviews and even surveys are no exception. The simple act of observing an action or response can to some degree skew that action or response.

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Yet, today, an array of Social Media Monitoring and Listening tools provides marketers and brand managers with an unprecedented way to access the actions and conversations of a particular group in such a way that the group isn’t cognizant of the observation.

Thus, possibly, yielding more valid and therefore valuable results.

In yesterday’s “Hashtag Social Media Twitter Conference”, during a very lively debate on Social Media ROI, which was moderated by social media strategist, Jacob Morgan, it was postulated that “Savings, not sales, might be the best way to demonstrate the ROI of Social Media”.

While it’s easy to quantify the cost of engaging in Social Media (only part of the equation), making a direct and unassailable correlation to sales lift can be problematic for many reasons.

Perhaps Social Media practitioners should take aim at their marketing research budgets. Study that plan and budget carefully and ask themselves, are there not research objectives and goals that might be more effectively and efficiently reached through Social Media Monitoring/Listening?

 

For more thoughts and progress updates join us on twitter: @socialtality

Tags: Social Media ROI

This entry was posted on Wednesday, November 11th, 2009 at 9:20 AM by greatmin and is filed under Social Media ROI. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.