Using Social Media for Market Research

As we know or can probably guess, social media has opened the doors to a two way road between marketers and consumers. Marketers can no longer push a message on the consumers without hearing feedback as well as consumers have a much stronger voice in the online world which forces companies to be more proactive and communicate with their customers in this online Community. Below is a video I found that shows social media is an asset to another department of the marketing group: the market research folks-

  As David C Skul of Relativity an internet market firm says in the video- social media is a great way to converse with customers as well as get very detailed demographic information. A profile can tell the market researcher so much information that it helps them narrow down who to talk to, or who is talking about their products in the social media world. 
   A company might think they need to target 14-19 year old males who play video games, however through research on social media sites like FaceBook and Twitter, that company may realize their actual market is 17-24 year old males who are active members of a community. This understanding will allow companies to market to their actual audience and connect with that audience.