A Research Agenda for Collaborative Consumer Engagement and Research Methods

Abstract

This research paper took you on a journey from the evolution of the Internet to the widespread acceptance of social media tools and their impact on the way consumers engage with brands, with marketing messages, and with each other. In essence, there is not much new here because the overall objective of marketing remains the same: to get and keep customers. This objective will never waver—the Internet has simply introduced new and different supporting tools. And as the supporting tools change, so must our investigative methods. Market research is the foundation of figuring out how to get and keep customers. The beauty of the media revolution is that it has increased the number and variety of consumers who are ready, willing, and able to tell us everything we need and want to know. We just have to authentically engage them. Wiki sites are just one platform to accomplish this engagement. The properties of wikis— their collaborative nature and ease of use—offer unique and clearly underutilized opportunities to engage the consumer and to precisely track and analyze the varied kinds of interactions supported by this software.