In an early post, I talked about how online communities are dominating and seem to be taking over the world. The GreenBook Research Industry Trends report has shown that online research communities have been the most successful and most widely adopted new research methodology. This speaks volumes about the importance they have in the research space and the vast insights that researchers get from them. I also talked about why they are taking off so rapidly and mentioned the following three reasons:
Access to Customers
Online research communities give a company long term access to the thoughts, insights, and feelings on their customers. In addition, these companies have instant access to their customers and they can conduct research very quickly and get their results in less time as well.
Engagement Through Collaboration
With the additional tools available like Discussion or Idea Board module, the community sees higher levels of engagement and also collaboration between members. This helps to tease out even more insights as you now have members collaborating and offering their opinions and feelings so you get really good organic conversation and discovery as well.
Adoption of Social Media Networks
The rise and widespread adoption of social media networks has likely been the most significant reason that online research communities are dominating. Essentially, social media networks like Facebook and Twitter are a community where people can come together to connect and share their feelings and opinions. This is what an online research community is at it’s core.
Now, let’s look at what the future holds are online communities. In the technology space, there are many interesting things happening from AI to machine learning. We have virtual reality seeming to take off and even more data points in our increasingly connected world. Many of these same technologies will make it to online communities.
To find out which of these technologies or trends we predict will come into communities, please join our upcoming webinar on December 14 where we’ll be joined by Ray Poynter. He’ll talk why online research communities are everywhere, where they are going next, and why they should be used by all companies. There will also be a sneak peek into new technologies and features that QuestionPro has already integrated into the platform. Click this link for more info and to register – https://info.questionpro.com/online-research-communities-webinar.
Finally, QuestionPro Communities is a purpose-built community insights panel solution. Our feature rich tool set is at your disposal to help you create engaged communities, collect real-time customer insights, and positively impact your business. Contact us today – [email protected] or www.questionpro.com/communities.
