What’s Trending on #MRX? Jeffery Henning’s #MRX Top 10 – June 28, 2011

There’s now ample opportunity to stay on top of what the market research community is saying in the Twitter-sphere. In addition to our weekly coverage on the top #MRX tweets of the week on the Innovation Evolved blog, we’ll be doing a top-ten recap every two weeks right here on GreenBook.

Of the 1,712 unique links shared on the Twitter #MRX community the past two weeks, the top 10 most-retweeted were:

▪     NGMR Meme Contest Survey – Voting is officially open for selecting the best marketing research meme on the Next Gen Market Research community. A total of 70 memes have been submitted over the past 12 months. Want to have your say on which one should win? Take the survey here.

▪     Which of the following research approaches do you think will account for the largest MR spend in 2013? – Ray Poynter asked this question on a LinkedIn Poll this week. So far, Smartphone augmented research is edging out Social Media Monitoring, while taking a slightly bigger lead over Community Panels and MROCs. Neuroscience approaches are much less favored. The poll is still open; how would you answer this question?

▪     ESOMAR Congress 2011. Impact – Research Reloaded – It’s barely summer, but the industry is already gearing up for September’s ESOMAR Congress in Amsterdam. Early bird registration ended this week, but there is still time to sign up and be a part of the annual event, which this year aims to energize the industry by focusing on the business, societal, and organizational impact of market research

▪     Sorrell confirms WPP not interested in Synovate bid – Synovate’s future got a little less murky, with WPP confirming that it will not bid to acquire the company from Synovate’s parent company, Aegis. However, a potential deal between Aegis and Ipsos appears to remain on the table; leadership from both companies met earlier this week to discuss the possibility.

▪     Has the market research industry missed the train? – Relevant Insights’ Michaela Mora summarizes the key points that Marshall Toplansky of Core Strategies and Bill Neal of SDR Consulting debated on social media market research. Her verdict: Both sides have good points. The industry is still on track, but must balance progressiveness with due diligence in using social media data.

▪     Managing an online community is like hosting a dinner party – Itracks’ Derek Sawchuk writes some words of advice on the Global Online Moderator Community. The same etiquette at dinner parties applies in online communities: greet your visitors warmly; give them something to do; show them you value their participation, and by all means don’t be a bore!

▪     WPP earmarks £200m for acquisitions – Research Live reported on WPP CEO Martin Sorrell’s interview with Bloomberg Television during the World Economic Forum in Jakarta. According to the interview, WPP is looking at targets that would expand the firm’s presence in digital media and emerging markets. These comments come on the heels of last week’s news that IPSOs could acquire Synovate.

▪     Merger Plans – In Research Live, Forrester’s Reineke Reitsma highlights the challenges that face market insights and customer intelligence professionals. “Customer knowledge lives in corners and pockets of the company, with very little systematic translation of disparate data sources into an integrated customer view.” She suggests three different stages of collaboration for these two roles, who might eventually end up in a happy marriage of the minds.

▪     Want to sell product? Sleep with your customers – Speaking of happy marriages, Martin Lindstrom asks how well you really –really – know your customer. He sheds light on the impact of the insights he’s gained by spending time in consumers’ homes for his research, and he encourages executives to make this a regular part of their companies’ product research.

▪     Glasto Goes Social #2 – Want to know how to do social media research? In this second installment of their Glasto Goes Social project, co-creation agency Face outlines its process for social media analysis. The project is testing how this data can be used to predict future behavior.

Phew! That’s quite a reading list. Thanks to all of the #MRX-ers who’ve tweeted these links and many more! Want your favorite link to show up here? Just tag it with #MRX in Twitter and see if enough people retweet it.