Category Archives: Research

Listening for Advertising Campaigns: Overcome Two Problems to Listen Better

Posted on October 11, 2012 by stephenrappaport

Prof. Mark Edelman invited me to present a lecture and workshop on listening for advertising campaign development to his undergraduate students. In the 60 minutes allotted, I gave a quick rundown of listening – how it came about, what it [...]

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Listening – What is an Insight?

Posted on October 9, 2012 by stephenrappaport

I had the pleasure of being interviewed by Professor Allie Siarto of Michigan State University on listening. The podcast is here:
We had a pretty freewheeling discussion on listening. Readers of Listen First or this blog will be familiar with my [...]

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What Concerns Consumers about Having their Conversations Collected for Listening? The Research is In.

Posted on April 28, 2012 by stephenrappaport

The study I described earlier this month is completed and available for viewing and download – just scroll down a bit to the presentation.
Highlights:

Privacy is not a one-size fits all proposition, yet this is the way it has been approached.
There [...]

Posted in Methodology, Privacy, Research | Tagged , , | 2 Comments

Social Media Monitoring – A Brazilian View

Posted on April 20, 2012 by stephenrappaport

Tarcizio Silva is a Brazilian practitioner and authority on social media monitoring and listening, organizer of several e-books and a curator of the upcoming conference, Social Media Brazil.  We recently had an email conversation that touched on several topics of interest [...]

Posted in Engagement, Global, Observations and Opinions, Research, Social Media, Social Media Monitoring, Thought Leaders | Tagged , | 3 Comments

How Should Researchers Collect Conversations for Social Listening?

Posted on April 4, 2012 by stephenrappaport

Our field is challenged by privacy concerns. Researchers have come up with a variety of codes and policies to protect consumers while maintaining our ability to collect conversations for market research.  Yet, there are two key questions that are unanswered:
1. [...]

Posted in Data Privacy, Ethics, Privacy, Research | Tagged , , , , , | 1 Comment

Social Listening before there was a Web

Posted on March 8, 2012 by stephenrappaport

Conversing with colleagues this morning, I mentioned that social listening to online conversations predated the Web. This took one by surprise, so I dug up a guest editorial I wrote for the Internet Business Report in 1994 about how I [...]

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Listeners need to be Historians

Posted on March 8, 2012 by stephenrappaport

James Dewar’s 1998 essay The Information Age and the Printing Press: Looking Backward to See Forward grapples with trying to make sense of the information age and where it will go. Here’s the problem:
It is difficult to see where the information age [...]

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Should companies do their own listening?

Posted on August 29, 2011 by stephenrappaport

Following workshops and sessions I give on listening, when people want to talk one-on-one or take a meal together, I hear a story along these lines:
We’re very interested in listening and just went through a time-consuming vendor evaluation. We picked [...]

Posted in Organization, Research, Uncategorized | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

Marshall Sponder Reviews Listen First!

Posted on August 20, 2011 by stephenrappaport

Marshall Sponder, author of Social Media Analytics, reviewed Listen First! It’s a very thorough review, with emphasis on methodological issues, and I endorse his conclusion
Listen First!: Turning Social Media Conversations Into Business Advantage by Stephen D. Rappaport is a book [...]

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Listening Research Part 2 – Selecting Sources and Voices

Posted on June 29, 2011 by stephenrappaport

After you have defined your scope, the next step is to locate the conversations and the places they occur, so that you can collect and, later, prepare for data processing and analysis. Where you listen, as well as the appropriateness [...]

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