There’s nothing the socialmediaverse likes more than a bit of triumphalism, and most of the analysis around Coca-Cola’s decision to shift its digital focus towards social media for certain brands surely looks like a big win. But what are its research implications? To answer that we need to look at Coke’s reasons for the move, as detailed here:

http://www.nma.co.uk/news/cover-story-coke-drops-campaign-sites-in-favour-of-social-media/3008538.article

Coca-Cola’s Prinz Pinakatt is quoted in the article as follows: “We would like to place our activities and brands where people are, rather than dragging them to our platform,”. Unilever’s Cheryl Calverley says that “It’s less effort to ask people to leave an environment they’re already in.”

This makes a lot of sense – after all, advertising has always been based on coming to where its audience are, rather than expecting them to make an effort to see it. A shift to social media presents enormous challenges in terms of negotiating the exact relationship between marketers and audiences, of course, but the principle is sound. Lives online are organised now around networks, not just destinations: people-based businesses have to reflect that.

Research isn’t marketing – not quite yet – but it’s a principle that also resonates within social media research. The question of whether to build bespoke environments – like online communities – for participants, or whether to research them in situ underpins a lot of the methodological shifts we’re seeing at the moment.

At the moment, though, as an industry we’re moving in both directions: building walled environments like MROCs for participants, which also bakes in the effort of getting them to go and stay there, while at the same time “listening” to them in their “natural environment”. Both directions have immense advantages – you can find evangelists for each very easily.

“Listening” has its own set of issues but it seems to fit the Coke and Unilever principle of “fishing where the fish are” better than MROCs. It’s not hard to imagine a ‘best of both worlds’ scenario though – research environments that integrate seamlessly with participants’ activity within their networks. That could become a reality when and if network carriers like Facebook decide to tap their latent research income streams. Whether any of us current practitioners will enjoy those benefits is another matter, of course!