Original Market Research for TEXT 100This is a featured page

Text 100 Website: http://www.text100.com/

Text 100 is a Global Public Relations Consultancy Firm dedicated to analyzing social and traditional media and drawing deep connections to the client's industry. The focus is on innovation in communication for clients, trying to remain ahead of the groundswell and find unique ways to deliver the client's message. They believe "great communications are directly linked to the business goals of an organization AND are constantly being optimized to meet those goals." (www.text100.com/who-we-are)

An introduction to the research we will be conducting for Text 100

Understanding APAC Bloggers

Background
In April 2008, Text 100 conducted a survey that touched more than 150 bloggers across APAC. It was designed to help the PR industry and its clients better understand technology, business and news bloggers in the Asia Pacific region.
http://www.text100.com/media/press-releases/apac-bloggers-call-pr-people-get-online-and-blog
Following the survey, Text 100 approached Prof. Michael Netzley of Singapore Management University (SMU) for comment on the findings. As a result of this engagement, Text 100 and SMU have had ongoing discussions about broadening this study in terms of reach and frequency between now and next April, when the survey will be repeated to measure shifts in the relationship between PR people and bloggers and highlight new findings important for PR people to understand.

Understand APAC Bloggers - Phase Two: Scope of Work
SMU business students have been engaged to develop and implement new research that builds on the initial findings of Text 100. In essence it will identify and benchmark the current state of trends, topics and interests of the collective APAC blogosphere through a continuous and ongoing pulse-check of facts and data. It will also broaden the data sample beyond the T100 relationships.
The research team will establish a virtual research panel for each country made up of between 25 and 40 APAC bloggers. This will be on an opt-in basis, whereby these bloggers agree to be polled on regular basis (each quarter).
The study will take the form of a 4x5x4 approach (4 surveys (one per quarter); each containing five questions; conducted across four countries).

Target Bloggers
- Business / technology / news bloggers
- Keen to increase the number of B-2-B bloggers, particularly those focused on large enterprises
- As bloggers are approached to opt-in, Text 100 would like the researchers to ask which bloggers would give permission to be quoted / approached for quotes in communication of the findings

Target Countries
- Rather than looking at individual countries, Text 100 would prefer the key markets of the region be grouped as follows:
o Greater China (Hong Kong, China)
o ASEAN (Singapore, Malaysia)
o Australia and New Zealand
- Note – during the first study, Text 100 found in Hong Kong that many bloggers preferred to communicate in Hong Kong Chinese; similarly in mainland China, our people translated as they conducted the study

Areas of Interest to Text 100
The following are some thoughts from our people on what they would like to see coming out from the study. These will help give an impression of the gaps in our understanding of APAC bloggers.

- Growing our understanding of APAC bloggers
o Reasons why they blog
o How they measure success of their blog
o Impact of blog on their personal and professional life
o How they build the audience of their blog
o How they monetize their blog
o What topics they post on
o Whether they post on brands and products
o Is English the defacto language of bloggers throughout APAC? Is that due to more readers?

- Growing our understanding of how APAC bloggers like to be approached and engaged with
o Tracking shift in likes / dislikes about way PR people / corporations engage
o Tracking new tools or techniques
o Tracking use of Web2.0 activities: Facebook, Flickr, Twitter etc

Our survey topics:
1. Blogger profiles (age, income, sex, education, etc.)

Age: just set up groups in equal amounts. <20, 20-29, 30-39, 40- 49, 50-59, 60+
Income: speak to someone in each country for quick guidance. In Singapore, <1500 monthly, 1500-2499, 2500- 3499, 3500-4499, 4500-5499, 5500-6499, 6500+
Education: ask someone in each country if you can. Perhaps secondary schooling, some post-secondary, university degree, postgraduate degree, other
Marital: single, committed relationship, married, divorced, widowed

You can always look at other surveys for some guidance. check out a survey research book and look for guidance. Last of all, do a quick web search for average incomes to get a starting point. We are seeking nominal data here, so let's keep the categories fairly simple and help them push through the survey pretty quickly (hopefully creating a positive first impression. You also have my survey monkey pasword, so you can look at surveys I have created for ideas.

2. Looking at the role of bloggers in crisis / issues based influence:
o For example, the recent infant milk formula issue – what role should / could bloggers have in ensuring corporations are kept honest / the public is kept informed and safe?

3. Looking at impact of financial crash
o What do APAC bloggers think the impact will be?
- Less time blogging (looking for a job?), less time online (too $), attitude changes etc?
o Do they think big events such as this will increase the numbers blogging or decreasing it as people find blogging is not economically viable / they need to focus on money-earning endeavours?

4.Time and dedication to writing, researching and moderating blogs
--Surveys will be sent to a minimum of 30 bloggers in 4 APAC countries after they have agreed to participate (with a response from our pre-survey announcement).
    Countries in mind · Australia, Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia

    *** *** ***

    Pre-Survey Email to be sent to Bloggers: Updated Draft

    Subject: Social Media Research—You are Invited
    Dear (insert name),
    You are cordially invited to join a select panel of bloggers in (insert country here) who are being asked to share their views about blogging. Your opinions are of high value to our learning, and we would greatly appreciate your feedback.

    If you choose to be part of this research initiative, you will receive a series of 4 emails starting this week, each of which will contain a short survey with 5-10 questions. We are a four-member team of social media students from Singapore Management University www.smu.edu.sg , and we will be conducting this survey with the support of Text 100 www.text100.com. As a token of our appreciation, Professor Michael Netzley, http://communicate.os3.sg, who is overseeing this initiative, will make a donation of $1 for every completed survey. That donation will go towards furthering social media education or towards aid supporting digital media public events.
    Your individual feedback will be kept strictly confidential, and you will not receive marketing materials as a result of completing the survey. Finally, all data will be processed and presented in a statistical form, and the results will not be linked back to you. In short, the survey will be conducted with your privacy and the high standards of academic research in mind. Survey results will be released to you prior to the press release by the PR Agency.

    If you would kindly provide us contact information of any bloggers you know that would be interested in participating in this survey it would be greatly appreciated.

    If you choose to opt-out of our surveys, please reply letting us know that you would rather not participate. Your name and email will be immediately removed from our contact list.
    Also, if you have any other queries at all, do feel free to contact us at prsocialmedia@gmail.com.

    Thank you in advance and we look forward to receiving your feedback.

    Sincerely,
    Blair Saeks
    Danielle Chow
    Elizabeth Ng
    Samantha Weintraub



    ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    2nd Letter to be Sent to Bloggers - First Survey Invitation Email (Draft)
    Subject: Social Media Research – 1st Survey Link
    Dear ________,
    Thank you for agreeing to participate in our short surveys!


    This is the first in a series of four survey invitations that you will receive, and the topic this time is

    Blogger Profiles


    The link below will take you directly to the survey, the questions of which have been designed to allow for quick and convenient responses. We anticipate this survey can be completed in only 3-4 minutes. As stated in the previous email, please be assured that your individual feedback will be kept strictly confidential, and you will not receive marketing materials as a result of completing the survey. We are a four-member team of social media students from Singapore Management University www.smu.edu.sg who are completing coursework in social media, and we will be conducting this survey with the support of Text 100 www.text100.com.

    If you have any queries at all, do feel free to contact us at prsocialmedia@gmail.com.

    Thank you once again for the time that you are giving us.


    Sincerely,
    Blair Saeks
    Danielle Chow
    Elizabeth Ng

    Samantha Weintraub
    _______________________________________________________________________________________________
    BRAND NEW!!!

    hi ppl!
    After digesting and internalising our feedback, I feel we have to start over. We went about this with a wrong approach and wrong channels so I think we should rethink our strategy.
    The first thing i think we should do is to set up a proper email account. A lot of the bloggers deleted our survey announcement because they thought it was spam. So I think we need a more official account. I went to CIT this afternoon asking them if we could have an email account that uses the @smu.edu.sg domain. The guy said that this was a little bit difficult coz it was subject to approval and we need Prof to endorse. Even then the approval process takes a week, so I'm not too keen on that. We could try though. An alternative would be to use one person's email account and then set up a group distribution list. This way, it will be more personal to a certain degree and there will be verification. I volunteer my email account. I would prefer the above alternative but the 2nd one is not too bad either, at least all 4 of us will be in the loop instead of individually checking the gmail account.
    The second thing would be to set up a blog. On the blog, we can state all the information that is needed so we do not need to answer the same questions over and over again. Things such as who we are, what is this for, how will it be used. Something more personal. They are bloggers after all and they will visit our blogs. We can post updates and survey links as well. And another thing. Surveymonkey doesnt support Mandarin software and we do need that for our Hong Kong market. So maybe we could post the a document or something in Mandarin. We will figure this out.
    The third suggestion is to use Twitter/Plurk. We can update via Twitter/Plurk to let respondents know when the next survey is coming, to thank them and perhaps briefly tell them what the results look like. This way will be more personalised.
    I will run these through Prof tomorrow to see what he thinks. Will update then.
    Cheers,
    Danielle

    Hi guys!
    I spoke to prof and the blog as well as using my email address is a go! I have been thinking though. Instead of having just one point of contact, why don't we have 2 or 3? I could take the Hong Kong bloggers and the Singapore bloggers as well and the rest of you could take the rest. I have added some bloggers that we could take a look at and I will be emailing that list out soon. I have also taken the liberty of sending the bloggers who responded to our surveys an email, stating that we have moved to my email address as well as the blogsite: prsocialmedia.blogspot.com. I will be the point of contact for those bloggers then.
    I dun think we need a standardised letter across all 4 of us. just something personal, something that you would actually write. This is something I wrote to the responsive bloggers. Please do not use it as a template.
    Hi Paull!
    My name is Danielle and I am part of the PRSocialMedia group. We have been using the prsocialmedia@gmail.com account. However, we received some feedback that a gmail account might not be the best way to go and hence we have made the switch to my school email, danielle.2005@smu.edu.sg.
    We would like to thank you first and foremost for participating in our surveys. Your assistance is really appreciated and we will be sending out the rest of the surveys soon. In the meantime, you might like to visit our blog at prsocialmedia.blogspot.com. Do drop us a comment or feedback! :). The 2nd survey will be sent out soon. On a side note, would you prefer to be updated via the blog or via email? Please let us know so we can make the best arrangements.
    Once again, thank you so much and we will be contacting you soon! Have a good week ahead
    Also, im going to translate our survey questions and letter into Mandarin for the Hong Kong bloggers. I noticed we have very little responses coming from them and I couldnt see on gmail whether we sent out the announcement to them. I think we would have more luck in Mandarin anyway. Wish me luck! Oh please bcc each other when you send out the announcement. I think you just need to bcc us for one announcement so we know that you have sent it out. And please keep tabs on who sent what and when and to whom. Thats all! Wish me luck with the Mandarin :P\
    Danielle

    ________________________________13 Nov 2008______________________________________________
    ok what needs to be done to send out emails to bloggers again. most of the earlier emails probably went to spam. so we need to send it out again.
    i have compiled 3 lists.
    List 1 is the bloggers who have COMPLETED THE SURVEY AFTER THE FIRST EMAIL SENT OUT BY GMAIL! I have emailed them to thank them. I will be these bloggers' point of contact.
    List 2 is the bloggers who have AGREED TO BE IN THE PANEL BUT HAS NOT COMPLETED THE SURVEY. I will email them again to inform them that the survey is up and running. I hope to do this by the end of the week. Liz, I need you to take the Msian and Australian panel members and email them. You will be the point of contact of these countries.
    List 3 is the bloggers who DID NOT OPT OUT AND NEW BLOGGERS. Again, Liz please take Msian and Australian. Will need you to write another announcement letter, informing of them of the move from prsocialmedia@gmail.com to your school email address. Please put in the blog website as well: prsocialmedia.blogspot.com
    I will post the lists after I finish typing here. Please take note!
    As for the surveys, we will send by school email to make it more personal.
    Samantha could you post the rest of the survey topics on survey monkey? Hopefully, response will better this time around.
    People who I thanked and will POC for Bloggers who agreed to panel but hasn’t completed first survey. Liz take Msian and Aus bloggers
    paull -oz
    emily freeman - oz
    stephenbyrne -oz
    matt –oz
    jonathan crossfield -oz
    richard - hkg
    felix -hkg
    daisy – hkg
    haggen - hkg
    eddy-hkg
    Thomas -hkg
    abdylas -msian
    james - msian
    kian ming -msian
    yuhui -sg
    rendy -sg
    renhao - sg
    tania- sg
    caleb - sg***
    anthony- sg
    mark khoo - sg
    dorothy - sg
    ephraim-sg
    coleman (spoke to him)
    jye** refer to gmail -oz
    trevor-oz
    katie-oz
    tony pua- msia
    yuen chi lian - msian (EMAILED - 15-11-08)


    (their email is in the gmail account)


    SURVEY UPDATE: I have added the 2 surveys about blog activity and bloggers role in crisis situations. For the blog activity survey the 1st 2 questions are very similar. Please look at them to see if we should change one of them or add a question about something else. Is there a difference to posting and writing to the blog? that is the question to ask in deciding if we can keep the 2 questions in the survey. I took away the 2nd question - it's repetitive, you're right, Danielle. I have also added in another question to make it 5, on whether they reference other blogs when they post. Hope it's okay. ~ Liz Look at the answer options and see if they are alright and how they sound. Some of them are agree/disagree scale, and others are multiple choice. I couldn't do the financial crisis one because we don't even have any questions for that. We need to come up with those questions. But I guess we can send out the blogger activity survey and then the crisis situation survey and the financial crisis survey can be last to give us more time to think about what to ask. Alright, let me know how it looks/change whatever you want.

    p.s. sorry this is only on the right side, I can't figure out how to get the text on the whole page :/

    We do have questions for the Financial Crisis. They are:
    1. Do you think you will be blogging more or less than during this financial crisis? Why? 2. Do you think that companies will start approaching more bloggers to advertise their products, since right now digital media is more cost-effective than traditional media and has the advantage of niche marketing?
    3. Do you shape your opinions/outlook on the financial crisis MORE from your fellow bloggers’ thoughts, or from what is being published in traditional media?
    4. Do you think blog-shops/online businesses will proliferate in the wake of this financial crisis due to the lower costs of e-business? 5. Do you think bloggers will have a different perspective on the financial crisis than what is being published in traditional media? If so, in what way? Shall we use these then?

    * Oh. Have also added a "Name" section into our Blogger Profiles survey to keep track of who has replied. We should add it at the beginning of every survey though, right?
    I just sent the email with blog link and wtv to the MALAYSIAN bloggers in the malaysia blogger section. 3 of the emails did not work so i took them off of the list. One person already responded, but he said he's getting on a flight so will respond in more detail later (whatever that means). I'll keep updating the list and i'll keep track of who responded and who didn't and whatever.

    15-11-08 (4.09pm) All emails to AUSTRALIA are out ~ Liz
    15 Nov All emails to Hong Kong and Singapore are out.
    Survey respondents:
    10 Singaporeans
    5 Australian
    6 Hong Kong
    4 Malaysia
    1 unaccounted for. booo
    16 Nov. Re-sent English email to Hong Kong
    Survey respondents:
    12 Singaporeans +2
    6 Australian + 1
    7 Hong Kong + 1
    5 Malaysia + 1

    17 Nov: Please update this list so everybody will be up to date
    Survey respondents
    12 Singaporean + 0
    7 Australian + 0
    8 Hong Kong + 1
    5 Malaysia + 0

    17th Nov Surveys Update:

    Girls, I've tweaked the questions and uploaded all survey links onto the blog as per the request of some bloggers. Do take a look as and when you can! The direct links are also available in our Gmail account.

    22nd Nov - Report Update

    Have graphed all results for our surveys! It looks good :)

    Also, since there's more than 1 person writing the report, don't forget to keep it in the same POV, i.e. third-person for a more businesslike feel ("It was suggested" as opposed to "We suggested").


    Liz_Ng
    Liz_Ng
    Latest page update: made by Liz_Ng , Nov 22 2008, 12:11 AM EST (about this update About This Update Liz_Ng report update - Liz_Ng

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    samweintraub what's next? 1 Nov 14 2008, 9:47 AM EST by daniellechow85
    Thread started: Nov 13 2008, 1:56 AM EST  Watch
    hi guys... danielle. I'm a little confused with what you already did and what needs to be done. Let me know what I can do because I don't want to do something that would overlap with anything that has already happened. Also, my email account is also going to be deleted near the 1st, so I think it might be best to just use your email, and Liz, if you're ok with using your email as well, we can use both of those. Are you guys alright with giving us your passwords? or does it even matter because we'll use survey monkey to send out the survey? Are we still using survey monkey to send the surveys or are we using an smu email with a link? I'm still really confused with what we're doing. So we're starting from scratch? with the announcement email and everything? just making sure I understand what's going on. let me know what i can do, but my internet is extremely bad right now and it takes a lot longer to sign onto the wiki page than it does to get to my smu email for some reason. so send stuff to my smu email and it will make things a lot easier. Ok. let me know!
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    bsaeks Out of Town 0 Nov 11 2008, 7:07 PM EST by bsaeks
    Thread started: Nov 11 2008, 7:07 PM EST  Watch
    Hey guys,

    I just wanted to give you a heads up that I leave this morning to go traveling for two weeks with my mother! I am going to have access to internet for some of the time, but I definitely won't be as regular as I am here. I will still try to contribute as much as possible and i can always help with email sending, blog posting, twitter/plurk updating, whatever you decide. Also, I would totally offer up my smu address for the project, however, i'm pretty sure it is going to be deleted near the 1st of december, because thats when our SMU student card expires. So might not be worth the risk.

    I'll remain in contact, just wanted to give you the heads up!

    I still think we can fix this and run a great survey and get fun results!
    Thanks,
    Blair
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    kriti.2005 Final Presentation 2 Nov 11 2008, 7:03 PM EST by bsaeks
    Thread started: Nov 10 2008, 11:41 PM EST  Watch
    Hi guys,

    I am still a little surprised about the whole Caleb Cowboy fiasco (for the lack of a better word). Listening to your presentation (and later reading his blog posts quoting the emails) I realized that I would have most likely done the same thing.

    I would not be able to understand what this blogger’s problem was! If he wanted an email from an ‘official’ account, he didn’t make it clear! He asks, “SMU does not provide you with email address” the answer is “Yes it does, but it’s not the appropriate route” which is basically what you guys said.

    I know things could have been handled differently, but I would react in the same way-so it’s definitely good learning. There will be difficult people and we have to engage them, or at least part ways peacefully.

    Good Luck with getting all the other results!
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