While focus groups and research are valuable methods to learn about market insight, online conversations are a great way to gain real-time feedback about your products and/or services. It’s immediate, more cost efficient, and I would argue that the conversations are more authentic.

In focus groups, and I know this because I participated in a few when I was a young lad the participants usually act in a way that they think they are supposed to act. Reason being, they know that they are being watched. Despite the sodas, cookies and popcorn, they are in unfamiliar territory with a bunch of strangers. Not to mention the intimidating one way mirror on one end of the room and the videos cameras.

In my opinion, I am not completely sure that most of the participants in focus groups respond to questions in a way that they would normally respond in a real world conversation with their friends and/or family. Take reality television like MTV’s Real World and the Bachelor as an example. I would argue that many of the participants on these shows are simply putting on an act because the cameras are in their faces 24-7; and because they are on camera, they are not genuinely interacting with others the way they would normally do off the camera.

With that said, I believe that online conversations are more authentic for two reasons. There is a sense of anonymity online when they are interacting with others. They are in a comfortable environment and are not afraid to share their real thoughts, ideas, concerns and criticisms about a particular product. In addition, they are talking to people that they trust and already have an established relationship with.

Conversations mean absolutely nothing if marketers aren’t:

• listening to these conversations
• participating in these conversations
• providing feedback to product teams about these conversations

In other words, what better way to gain immediate insight about a new product or feature than from the people who are already using it and talking about it? Chances are that even if just one person is talking about your products online, it’s likely that there are many others talking about the same issues offline as well.

The reality is that even if the feedback makes no business sense whatsoever; just the fact that you are listening and participating will make a world of difference.

I do believe that focus groups and other forms of market research provide value to marketers; however, social media has created a new element of this same research; and it should not be overlooked.

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