What’s Trending on #MRX? Jeffery Henning’s #MRX Top 10 – May 30, 2012

Of the 1,360 unique links shared on the Twitter #MRX community last week, here are the Top 10 most retweeted…

1. Open to All? – Peter Dann and Adam Staton of The Nursery share the results of their survey of 423 social media users about attitudes towards social media market research: 56% were aware that researchers monitor social media, and 29% were concerned by such research, worrying about private information being revealed and fearing they will be marketed to. Research magazine has the details.
2. Telephone Response Rates Fall to 9%, says Pew Report – Telephone survey response rates have dropped from 25% a decade ago to 9% now, yet provide similar accuracy on most measures—with the exception being overreporting rates of volunteerism and civic participation.
3. The Focus Group Fightback – Deb Mattinson of BritainThinks and Merry Baskin of Baskin Shark contrast the U.S. focus group with its emphasis on individual response against the European group discussion; they lament the lack of training and standards in moderating such discussions.
4. Three steps to better research presentations – James Rohde argues in Quirks for the need for clarity, consistency and context when presenting research results.
5. 3 Ways to Use Pinterest for Marketing Research – Adam Helweh of Secret Sushi Creative details three ways to conduct research on Pinterest – finding out what people value on your site, how they label products in your category and reviewing their commentary.
6. How Myths Are Formed! The Law Of Small Numbers & Market Research – Writing in the Green Book Blog, Neal Cole reminds us that researchers too make the cognitive mistakes we know consumers do. In particular, researchers often find meaning in noise: as Daniel Kahneman says, “We are far too willing to reject the belief that much of what we see in life is random.”
7. Come On You… Red Dragons? – James Verrinder of Research discusses Cardiff City Football Club’s failed attempt to rebrand its Bluebirds.
8. Riding The Whirlwind: Observations On The Pace Of Industry Change in Market Research – Lenny Murphy contrasts his 10 key 2012 trends to those presented by Stan Sthanunathan at The Market Research Technology Event and concludes that the industry is changing even faster than we realize. He writes: “Over the next 2 years we will see a seismic shift occur within market research that will leave many gasping. We live in the Age of Disruptive Innovation.”
9. The Facebook Fallacy – Former AdWeek editor Michael Wolff’s article in Technology Review deserves to be widely read: “For all [Facebook’s] valuation, the social network is just another ad-supported site. Without an earth-changing idea, it will collapse and take down the Web.”
10. What I Think about Women in Research – Kristin Luck of Decipher provides her view on the status of women in research, pointing out that only 16% of the CEOs of the Honomichl 50 are women, reflecting a gender imbalance and pay imbalance in the industry.