Ideal participants in online market research: Lessons from closed communities

Heinze, A; Ferneley, E; Child, P

Abstract

Online market research communities are dependent upon their members’ participation that in turn provides market intelligence for community operators. However, people join these communities for different reasons. The selection process for market research community members and the moderation process of these communities have a number of pitfalls, which can result in misleading interpretations of intelligence and flawed decisions based on their contributions.

Using social capital theory in conjunction with research on different motivational types of participants, this paper focuses on lessons from commercially operated, closed online market research communities; it provides us with insights on membership selection and community moderation methods.

The practical finding is that the ideal participant of such communities would be attracted by activities and rewards, which do not directly or obviously relate to the specific objective of an online market research community.

Citation

Heinze, A., Ferneley, E., & Child, P. (2013). Ideal participants in online market research: Lessons from closed communities. International Journal of Market Research, 55(6), 769-789

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Publication Date: Nov 20, 2013
• Deposit Date: Dec 12, 2013
• Publicly Available Date: Dec 12, 2013
• Journal: International Journal of Market Research
• Print ISSN: 1470-7853
• Publisher: World Advertising Research Center
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 55
• Issue: 6
• Pages: 769-789
• Publisher URL: https://www.mrs.org.uk/ijmr_article/article/100688
• Related Public URLs: https://www.mrs.org.uk/ijmr/
• Additional Information: Additional Information : The definitive version of this paper is available at https://www.mrs.org.uk/ijmr_article/article/100688