When should you choose social media sampling?

The social media revolution has paved a new way for marketing research, respondent targeting, and questionnaire administration. This new methodology complements a range of already proven methods, notably the two main traditional approaches: telephone and online panels. 

Today, we tell you everything: when to use them, for what objectives, and what inherent study parameters? 

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1. Social media surveys to reach all types of targets

• Nat. Rep.: a national representative sample refers to a sample that is representative of a country's population. This type of sample is frequently used for standard studies aimed at gauging national opinion and based on national population quotas. Whether by telephone, online panels, or social media: all methods have proven effective for this exercise.

• Niche targets: these are underrepresented populations that are very difficult to reach via telephone and panels (in the worst cases impossible to reach, at best very expensive). Social media, however, offers a targeting precision that allows for surveying niche targets easily and at a lower cost.

• Youth target: it is true that social media surveys offer an unparalleled opportunity to survey young people. These are young people who are not registered in panels and are very unlikely to respond to telephone surveys. However, stating that social media surveys only allow for surveying young people is false!

• Local target: a local target is, as its name suggests, a target within a restricted geographical area. Due to a lack of depth in these small areas, it is very difficult to reach this type of target via panels. The exercise becomes possible with time and money via telephone, but increasingly complicated with the mass abandonment of landlines. Thanks to the incredible targeting capability of social media, reaching local targets via this method is fast, easy, and inexpensive!

• International target: while multi-country studies are complex to implement via telephone surveys (language barrier, costs, and time), they are possible through panels. However, you will gain speed and simplicity by using social media, by engaging a single provider and having all your results consolidated on one platform!

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2. Studies via social networks for a collection in record time

Telephone surveys, due to each questionnaire needing to be administered by an interviewer, do not allow for rapid data collection. By using online panels, the questionnaire is self-administered, thereby reducing the data collection duration.

However, social media surveys will offer you record-time data collection thanks to the high frequency of social media usage, which facilitates rapid respondent recruitment. At Episto, the average fieldwork duration is 3 days!

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3. Social media surveys for collecting better responses

Authentic responses: our experience has shown that social media surveys offer numerous advantages for gathering authentic responses. Notably, thanks to:

• to unaccustomed and non-incentivized respondents
• on smartphones, which are familiar tools respondents are used to giving their opinions on and use when available
• to an engaging questionnaire with a familiar app-like look & feel, emojis, varied question types, resembling a live and natural conversation.

Rich Verbatims: According to our observations, verbatims collected via social media are 50% longer than those gathered from online panels. Compared to telephone surveys, verbatims are written by the respondents themselves rather than by the interviewer, which ensures both neutrality and authenticity. 

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4. Social media surveys for an engaging and tailored questionnaire

Multimedia Questions: Similar to online surveys, social media surveys allow for the inclusion of multimedia content (videos, photos, audio) in questionnaires. This is not possible with the CATI (Computer-Assisted Telephone Interviewing) method. Even better, social media surveys also enable the collection of multimedia responses: respondents can be asked to film themselves, take photos, or record audio! 

Long Questionnaires with More Than 60 Questions: While online and CATI surveys can accommodate long questionnaires, we advise against exceeding 60 questions for a social media questionnaire because conversational questionnaires need to be engaging. Technically, it's not impossible, but it is strongly discouraged to avoid a high abandonment rate during the questionnaire. 

Questionnaire Involving a Complex Setup: We also advise against using social media survey methods if the questionnaire involves a complex setup, such as webcam-based eye tracking. 

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Key Takeaways...

Social media surveys will be a suitable, and as we have seen, optimal method for surveys targeting all kinds of audiences, providing insightful responses and rapid fieldwork. Regarding questionnaires: these surveys will prove suitable for integrating or collecting multimedia elements.

However, the necessity for this method to offer an engaging questionnaire will be a constraint regarding questionnaire length (it is advisable to avoid exceeding 60 questions) and the complexity of the setup.

Discover all the advantages of social media surveys in detail in our White Paper.