Innovation Methods: The Essential Guide to Digital Ethnography

Digitize your consumer learning for lower cost, faster insights and ideas about your consumer.

THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO DIGITAL ETHNOGRAPHY

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THE POWER OF DIGITAL ETHNOGRAPHY

Digital ethnography is an immersive technique that uses online channels for consumer learning. Researching and sorting through digital content is becoming more popular with brands since it provides access to in-depth, timely information about consumers’ lifestyles. It also enables brands to:

» Look at real-time consumer sentiments » Find and capture examples of microtrends or emerging trends » Find previously undiscovered pain points » Know what consumers are saying about a brand » Gather intelligence on potential community influencers or

industry insiders » Act more quickly on changes in the marketplace » Save time and money by doing research right at

your desk

Understanding the consumer

is everyone’s job.

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YOUR 3-POINT CHECKLIST TO GET STARTED

You don’t have to use all the tools mentioned in this guide, but it does help to start with these 3 things in mind:

DESIRED OUTCOME TOOLS TO CAPTURE YOUR AUDIENCE

4YOUR 3-POINT CHECKLIST TO GET STARTED

You’re ready to start to explore the world and better understand the consumer experience. But first, capture your research objectives, or the main questions you seek to answer with your research.

Within Batterii, create a project Room so that you can have an interactive space for all your observations and content you will be gathering. Capture desired outcomes on your Research Brief to frame your problem as accurately as possible from the get-go. Add any other key goals, background knowledge, or other supporting assets you already have to support your Brief.

PRO TIP Set up some of the tags you might want to use to categorize all your observations and assets during your exploration.

DESIRED OUTCOME: WHAT ARE THE QUESTIONS YOU WANT TO ANSWER?

You’re putting time and resources

into your digital research, so define what success might

look like.

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Creativity hinges on connecting all the observations we’ve

catalogued.

YOUR 3-POINT CHECKLIST TO GET STARTED

TOOLS TO CAPTURE: HOW WILL YOU STORE, ORGANIZE & SYNTHESIZE ALL YOUR OBSERVATIONS?It is now time to make sure you have the right tools to capture all your information. Begin to design the Walls of your Batterii Room to be as specific as you need, where each Wall represents a common theme or topic you’re exploring.

Setting up your group of Walls this way will make your sense-making even easier later. Your Batterii Walls will capture screenshots, websites and articles, sticky notes, videos and photos you find. Later, you’ll be able to drag, drop, sort and filter in this space.

Install the Batterii Web Clipper (a browser extension) so you can capture and “clip” links, screenshots, images, or notes right from any website. The Batterii Web Clipper lets you send them directly to the Batterii Wall you choose.

PRO TIP Add a Batterii Backdrop such as the Empathy Map to add a visual that will guide you as you frame and communicate your findings.

6YOUR 3-POINT CHECKLIST TO GET STARTED

YOUR AUDIENCE: WHERE ARE CONSUMERS SPENDING TIME?

Just like with any other kind of market research, digital learning is most effective when we know a starting place of where to look for our consumers. We want to see what they are thinking, how they are behaving, and what their journey looks like—and that requires observing them in their natural state online.

Do your best to capture what you know about consumers’ communities, preferred social media channels, or what kind of content they consume. Your research can help you uncover, challenge or confirm what you already know about your target audience.

PRO TIP Think about consumers relative to their lifestyle, how they make decisions, what they value, how they find meaning and anything you know about their aspirations.

Innovation is fueled when

we know how consumers think,

feel & behave.

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GET TO KNOW YOUR CONSUMER IN THE SOCIAL WEB

Here’s a look at a few activities you can utilize to see how consumers live, play, and work.

LISTEN EXPLORE MONITOR

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LISTEN: REMOVE BIAS & TAKE NOTICE TO RECOGNIZE CONSUMER WANTS & DESIRESA crucial step in keeping our finger on the pulse of the consumer is to take time to listen to them. To build authentic relationships, to build our capacity to empathize, and to know the language they speak, we first have to dedicate time to hear and observe their natural conversations and behaviors across social media.

Setting up our social listening tools means we can cut down on the time required to keep tabs on our consumers. It is also one of the best ways we can stay up-to-date on diverse and ever-changing consumer sentiments.

PRO TIP While being efficient with research is important, listening activities can take many paths and a lot of time. We recommend limiting yourself to a certain amount of time for each session.


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3. Use Websta.me to search and discover new, relevant

hashtags being used on Instagram. You can also use the

site to efficiently look through who an influencer followers

on Instagram.

1. Search Yelp to read consumer experiences and to see

their recommendations. This tactic can be especially useful

when looking at independent businesses rather than chains.

2. Use Facebook search to look at conversations around

specific hashtags or to see consumer reviews and comments.

You can also use Facebook search to look for real-time posts,

photos or links being shared. Simply use the search bar along

the top or go to search.fb.com. Filter the search results along

the top of the site by Top, Latest, People, Photos, Videos, Pages,

Places, Groups, Apps and Events—giving you just about

everything you might want to find.

Yelp Websta

FacebookSearch


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4. Use hashtagify.me to search hashtags, see top recent

media related to that hashtag and to see some of the top

influencers using that hashtag. By going to the “related

hashtags” section of the site, you can also find other tags

that are closely related to any given topic.

6. Never miss what people are posting at an event or given

location, whether you are there in person or not thanks to

Pixifly. Pixifly allows you to search photos that are being

shared by your location of choice.

5. Visit LinkedIn publisher if you want to find fresh content

around areas or topics that you want to know more about. You

can discover new content by exploring news outlets, general

topics (called channels), brands/publishers and influencers.

Hashtagify Pixifly

LinkedInPublisher


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7. Take advantage of Twitter search to see what is currently

happening around the world. Use the advanced search

on your desktop to filter by specific phrases and words,

hashtags, date, comments made by location, positive or

negative tone, and more. You can also click “More Options”

and then “Save this search” for the future. Next time you

go to your search box, that saved search will display for

quick access.

8. Join a Twitter chat to get an inside look at a specific

community. These are chats, held on Twitter, where people

come together to discuss a topic that’s important to them.

Twitter chats can also help you narrow in on people or

groups you want to further engage. Depending on your

objective, you can just listen or join the conversation.

TwitterSearch

TwitterChat

PRO TIP As you search through Twitter, use the Web Clipper to capture all your observations. Don’t worry about organizing everything at first—later you will be able to use the drag and drop feature in Batterii to move content assets from one Batterii Room or Wall to another as you sort and synthesize.


12GET TO KNOW YOUR CONSUMER IN THE SOCIAL WEB

EXPLORE: SCOUR & SEARCH FOR DISCOVERIES ABOUT THE CONSUMER & THE MARKETPLACE

Exploration allows us to see and observe the often complex, intricate and up-close realities of our consumers, or aspirational consumers, online. In other forms of market research, we may have to ask questions that we’re able to see unfold right before our eyes in the digital realm. Instead of having to ask consumers about their routines, why they act a certain way, or what their opinions are—we’re able to see that information in real-time.

PRO TIP Mixing up where you look—and how you look—will give you a more diverse set of observations to work from.

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9. Use SocialMention.com to see a real-time, social media

snapshot that shows you topics being discussed on the

Internet. You can see similar keywords to any given search

query, hashtags that are used with the topic, and a real-time

view of sentiment for that topic.


Social Mention

PRO TIP You can take any number of search queries you create, and make an RSS feed for each.

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11. Use Google Maps to see reviews for places, including

photos people have uploaded. Sometimes it will also

feature other reviews you can browse through.

10. Explore apps such as Swarm or Foursquare to see what

people about saying about the places they visit. You can

see reviews, insider tips, and even photos they have posted.

GoogleMaps

Swarm


PRO TIP As you gather more assets, don’t forget about Batterii global search which lets you easily find content no matter where you originally placed the asset within Batterii.

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PRO TIP Use Batterii’s Web Clipper as you go through your top blogs and find something you want to save for later.

12. Sometimes we can get intelligence on our consumers

or competitors by lookingback in time. Use The Wayback

Machine to see any website that’s been archived on the

web. Simply type in any URL and you can capture and save

a website as it used to appear.

13. Quora has been called the “best answer to any question.”

Utilize the Q&A site to see questions and answers being asked

to a community of people. You can even ask a question

yourself. Be strategic when you sign up for an account, since

you’ll be able select certain topics you want to follow and

receive notifications for.


WaybackMachine

Quora

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14. Use Followerwonk to search social media profiles (and

even bios) to find your target audience. You can also use

the site to compare social media users to one another.

Once you’ve identified an influencer or specific audience,

you can see when they are most engaged on Twitter and

where they are located.

15. Use Twitter lists to take advantage of the work other

people have done. You can use Twitter lists to find groups

of likeminded users you want to monitor and/or engage

with. If you visit the Twitter profile of an influencer, click on

“Lists” to see what list they are member of—or even what

lists they subscribe to and follow. In many cases you’ll find

more people on Twitter who share their interests.


Follower-wonk

TwitterLists

PRO TIP You can create your own Twitter lists: start by creating a few private lists of influencers, loyal consum-ers or even brands you want to keep an eye on.


MONITOR: RECEIVE UP-TO-DATE INFORMATION TO IMPROVE YOUR RELATIONSHIPS WITH CONSUMERSSocial monitoring gives us the ability to see who is talking about our brand. We’re able to grow our relationships with consumers by monitoring the conversations happening around our categoryor brand.

Monitoring is powerful because it lets us see what consumers are saying online, in real-time—no matter where they are located. But effective monitoring tactics also give us a better, more accurate sense of long-term sentiments held by our consumers.

PRO TIP Having information pushed directly to us saves us time since we don’t have to go out and search the web for it ourselves.


16. Looking for the most relevant influencers on any given

topic? Use Buzz Sumo to see the most shared content,

broken down by social media network. Then see the other

articles that link to any specific piece of content, which can

help you better understand a niche community. Besides

filtering by date, language and content type, you can even

save searches. After you fine tune results to get what you’re

looking for, set up email alerts to stay on top of the “most

shared” and the most relevant authors in any niche.

17. Use Google Alerts to set up timely notifications on

specific phrases from anywhere on the web. Never miss out

on an article or information you want to hear again. Visit the

Google Alerts site and type in the topic, just like if you were

doing a Google Search for that theme. You can monitor

your brand, a competitor, or a specific topic area: simply

use those phrases, and select how often you want those

alerts to be sent to your email. Google even gives you a

preview so that you can see the kind of articles that would be

pushed to your email.

BuzzSumo

GoogleAlerts

PRO TIP Want to see another brand’s most popular content? With Buzzsumo, you can view the most popular content for any given domain.


18. Media monitoring and social listening tools like

Mention.com save you time by optimizing the keyword

monitoring process, and they also help you cut through

the noise. Using Mention, you can create a dashboard that

lets you watch how your brand is being talked about. After

setting up your alert(s), you can select how you want to

filter and then analyze through a custom report. A report

is created that will show trends, sentiment, top sources

and more. It’s a useful tool whether you use it for specific

campaigns, to watch the competition, or to analyze

emerging trends over time.

19. Use a service such as Hootsuite Syndicator or Feedly

to take advantage of content that can be pushed to you.

Services such as Feedly (RSS Readers) save you time and

allow you to efficiently read dozens of blogs and digital

publications. Instead of having to visit each blog or site you

want to follow, you can see the latest, all in one centralized

place. You can organize your content and even get ideas for

new blogs similar to those you’ve subscribed to.

20. If you don’t want to use an RSS reader, consider taking

advantage of email newsletters. Maybe your target audience

regularly consumes a certain blog or publication. Don’t

overlook how simple it is to subscribe to that blog so you

can stay up-to-date on what they are reading. You can even

set up a separate email address where you deliver all the

content. Then, catch up on all your newsletters at once.

Mention Email

RSSReaders

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ORGANIZE & PRESENT YOUR LEARNINGS

You’ve collected a wealth of knowledge. Now you’re tasked with cross-pollinating your findings & formalizing what you learned.

You now have captured deep knowledge about the consumer, including previously unarticulated insights into their beliefs and aspirations. You are ready to start organizing, making sense of all your observations, and building on those ideas within Batterii.

Open up the problem solving process to your team as you nurture your ideas, build solutions and evaluate them. If you started with questions or a hypothesis to frame your research, work with colleagues to “connect the dots” to support or argue against those initial hunches.

Batterii helps provide the ideal living, breathing repository to deposit all your support, research, new ideas and insights. Use sticky notes, color-coding, and backdrops (visual guides) such as Storyboards, Timeline, Experience Map, Empathy Map, Business Model Canvas, Persona Maps, and more, to drive more solutions and possibilities.

Use Batterii to organize your learning and build ideas.

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SUPERCHARGE YOURSOCIAL LISTENING

Social media intelligence is most useful when content is shared and insights are acted upon. It’s not just about listening, monitoring or capturing content: the power comes from what you do next. Make social scraping a habit by scheduling at least 30 minutes per week to listen, review and then build upon information you discover. Before you know it, you’ll have a wealth of information on how your brand is perceived, what’s on the mind of consumers, and you will have your finger on the pulse of any marketplace shifts.

What are the tools you use as you look to build more loyal consumers?

Let us know at @Batterii on Twitter.

Make it part of your routine.

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A Smarter Way to Capture & Synthesize Your Digital EthnographyIf you want a more savvy way to curate, aggregate, prioritize and synthesize your insights, give Batterii a try.

Visit www.batterii.com or click here to schedule a demo.

http://www.batterii.com

http://batterii.com/demo.html