Tocquigny

You like to think of your company as progressive. You’ve always been willing to reach prospects in new places and in new ways. That’s one of the reasons you’ve been successful. You hear the buzz about social media as the next frontier in advertising. What you don’t hear is how it fits into the sales cycle. Is it really an effective sales tool? Well, much of this depends on the product you’re selling — but I would suggest that it almost certainly fits somewhere.

Have you ever been in a campaign brainstorming session and wished you could call on your target audience to answer a quick question about their web or purchasing behavior.   I cannot think of one kick-off meeting where I haven’t encountered some form of the question “What kind of incentive should we offer for [insert product] or “Do you think they would interact more, if we….?”

Of course we would always recommend strategic messaging and branding research, but what if you don’t have time for that, or are just looking for a quick yes or no answer? That, my 17 Stories readers, is one of the great benefits of your social media networks – Instant, real-time market research capabilities.

Below is a list of some of my favorite market research tools for social media that give you an opportunity to ask those quick “Should we offer this, or this” type questions.  And if you are an instant gratification type of person like me, these polling and survey tools are going to rock your world.

By now, you’ve surely read all about Facebook changing the “Become a Fan” button to a “Like” button on all brand pages. It’s a little change, but it could make a big impact on the way individuals psychologically engage with brands on the popular social networking site.