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Vision Critical Gets High Marks for Communities & Panels Webinar

Today it seems like everyone wants to build a community.

But how do you make sense of all the noise? What type of community is best for companies trying to gain consumer insight? Conduct concept testing? And explore product innovation and ideation?

Kris Hartvigsen, SVP International Global Development, and Ellie Sykes, VP of Qualitative and Online Communities tackled these questions in a recent webinar about integrating online communities and custom panels. The webinar was summarized and reviewed in RFL’s Research Conference Report for July-August.

With the proliferation of communities, businesses are hard-pressed to identify “voices amongst the noise” in public community space. “The more you want to zero in on who you are talking to…the more likely a private community or a proprietary panel will be a good fit,” said Kris.

Private communities are closed, intimate, comfortable online environments where customers can share ideas and opinions, establish social connections and build a reputation. Kris said “the wave has led many companies to ask why researchers are sitting behind a one-way mirror?”

Private communities can be used to conduct research on product innovation, customer sat, and brand perceptions; as well as for competitive intelligence, identifying experience gaps, and finding unmet needs. “Combining custom panels and communities can inform quantitative research with qualitative in one environment,” Sykes said. “In today’s world you can have it all, depending on your software,” Sykes stated.

Sykes offered some tips for building a successful community:

1. Establish clear direction
2. Solve real problems
3. Create a culture
4. Fulfill members’ social needs
5. Incent extrinsically when needed

To read the full review in Research Conference Report, click here.

Posted on August 13, 2008
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