This document provides guidance on how to successfully conduct online communities for market research. It discusses why online communities are useful, such as engaging participants anywhere and replicating familiar social media platforms. The key aspects covered are recruiting the right participants through clear introductions, incentives, and screening; designing creative discussion guides with open questions and challenges; and effective moderation to build relationships and generate data. Examples of recruitment scripts, discussion topics, and community features are also included. The goal is to create an enriching experience for both participants and researchers through engaged moderation and creative techniques.

1. How to conduct
successful online
communities
Irina
Dimitriade
Mustard Research
Presentation copyright, the presenters and NewMR. Please credit when using.
October
2019

2. Sponsors
October
2019
Communication
Gold
Silver

3. Agenda
3
• Why online communities?
• How do we make them work?
• Questions?

4. Why online
communities?
4

5. An online community is a
qualitative platform for engaging
with people and engineering
discussion and collaboration –
research participants are just a
click away, ready and willing to
share opinions and co-create.

6. works on various devices and replicates social media
platforms that users are already familiar with

7. individual tasks group discussions

8. Extended
consultation
Geographical
coverage
Time to think Flexibility
Creativity
Bringing the
research to life
BENEFITS

9. Building trust
Unlocking
emotions
Getting personal Comfortable
RESPONDENT
ENGAGEMENT IS KEY!

10. “I found this experience very enriching…I
really loved to share my experience when it
comes to music, it happens so rarely and it
felt so good.” (FR)
“Just wanted to let you know that I’m really
enjoying the ‘smoking’ online community. It’s
great being able to see everyone’s opinions and
it’s great to be able to put across my own.
Everyone is so supportive! Thanks so much for
putting me forward for it.” (UK)
An enriching experience for
participants

11. “I think this project is going to easily top
the list of ‘my favourite projects’!!! Reading
people’s responses and moderating the
French community makes me so happy.”
(Moderator in UK/France)
“Unfortunately today was the last day! It was one
of the most interesting jobs that I did! Thanks a
lot for giving me this opportunity!”
(Moderator in Brazil)
An enriching experience for
researchers

12. An exciting topic, the right creative methods and an
active moderator will make an online community a
transformative experience for all those involved!

13. How do we
make them
work?

14. Recruitment partner
Creative questions
RECRUITING THE
RIGHT PARTICIPANTS
Incentives
Prizes
A clear introduction
What, how, why, how much?
Getting the right people on board
Screening criteria
Panel provider vs. qual
recruitment partner?

15. “Good morning / afternoon / evening. My name is… from Mustard, a market research company. We are
conducting a study on behalf of [insert client name here] in order to understand smoking behaviours and the
awareness of stop smoking services in the area.
With this in mind, we would like to invite you to take part in a four week online forum that will start on the 26th
of
June and end on the 24th of July. Within this forum there will be several different discussions and a few tasks
for you to complete. We would expect the forum to take approximately two hours of your time in total
across the four week period. However, you can participate and reply in your own time and take the forum
at your own pace across these four weeks.
Your contribution will be massively important as it will help inform the development of stop-smoking
initiatives and support services in Greater Manchester, helping to make a difference in the community we
all live in.
To say thank you for taking part you would get a £100 cash incentive upon completion of all discussions within
the forum. Along the way we will also be giving away a total of £400 in various prizes for the most creative,
detailed and insightful responses.
I can confirm that Mustard is an independent research agency and that this study is being conducted in
accordance with the Market Research Society Code of Conduct, so all of your answers will be treated confidentially
and not used for sales purposes.
Introduction example

16. Recruitment partner
Creative questions
RECRUITING THE
RIGHT PARTICIPANTS
Incentives
Prizes
A clear introduction
What, how, why, how much?
Getting the right people on board
Screening criteria
Panel provider vs. qual
recruitment partner?

17. Creative question example
If you had to choose three items from your fridge that best
matched your personality, which would they be and why?
Eggs - I am tasty and able to
help out in lots of situations.
Chocolate - smooth sweet and
able to cheer people up.
Extra mature cheese- some love
me some hate me
I would choose cheese because it’s
strong flavoured, loved by everyone and
something my boyfriend can’t live
without. Jelly because it can be wobbly
but it’s fun and can be childish at times.
And finally cocktail sausages because
they are short and little like me.
Don’t know

18. Shop vouchers
INCENTIVES AND
PRIZES
Cheques through the
post
Amazon voucher
Bank transfers
PayPal transfers –
business account!
Is your project national or global?
How many participants do you
have? Did you factor in enough
admin time?
time savers
when in bulkOnce you decide on the method,
capture the correct details!

19. DISCUSSION GUIDE
DESIGN
Keep it snappy
Allow yourself plenty of
probes
Make use of your
platform’s features
Avoid Yes/No questions
Don’t ask everything at
once
Introduction is key!
Encourage them to
share audio visual
materials
Set challenges

20. WEEK 1: Discussion thread 1 – Introduction and warm-up
Title – Getting to know you…
As a starter for 10, it would be great if we can get to know you all a little bit better and to
find out more about you. It’s always good to get the introductions out of the way early on!
• Tell us a bit about yourself, maybe your hobbies or interests, how do you like to spend
your spare time, if you get any?
• How about your family life? Do you have any children?
• If you work, what do you do, what is your role?
• If you like to spend time with friends or family, where do you go, what do you do?
• If we were to ask your friends how they would describe you, what 3 words would they
use? (There is no need to be modest here!)
Introduction example

21. Title – Tell us about your quitting attempts!
We would now like to understand more about your attempts to quit smoking,
the methods used, what worked better for you and what didn’t work.
• How many times have you tried to quit smoking?
• What motivated you to consider quitting?
• What methods have you used and why?
o What do you see as the most successful attempt that you’ve
had? What was it that made it work for you?
o What about the less successful attempts? Why did they not
work?
• Did you have any ways of dealing with cravings during your quit
attempts?
• How long do you typically manage to stay smoke free?
• What is the longest you have stayed smoke free?
• What usually triggers you to start smoking again? Please give us as
many reasons as possible
Topic example
what they see
further probes
for moderator
Further probes to build into the discussion where appropriate
might include:
Ø Were there any incentives that prompted you to consider
quitting? Prompt if necessary:
o Health
o Money
o Children / Loved ones
o Appearance / Smell
Ø What kind of support, if any, did you have from family /
friends / other sources?
Ø What else would have helped you in your quitting attempts?
Ø How did you feel while you were quitting?
Ø How did you feel when you’ve started again?
Ø In terms of triggers do you ever feel Social / family
pressures?

22. Clients have viewer access levels and can leave
moderators private notes / further prompts
Heat Mapping
Mood board – allowing respondents to
upload imagery
Online diaries
Pin boards - to highlight
likes / dislikes
Features and tools

23. Online one-to-one or group
discussion
Drag and drop / online polls
Ideation – great for NPD / concept
development, with ability to “vote”
Features and tools

24. Heatmap examples

25. MODERATION
The ‘invisible’ friend
It’s ok to deviate from
the guide!
Informal language
Replicate social media
behaviour
Factor in enough time to
build relationships with your
participants and make them
feel heard and important!

26. Engaged
participants,
creative techniques
and good
moderators will
together generate
an incredible
amount of data!

27. 1,484
Individual
responses
over a 4 week
period
213
Hours total
consultation
time
2¼
Average hours
each respondent
engaged on the
community
645
Page
community
Word export
4 weeks community
with 90 people:

28. The data is ready,
you just have to
write the story!

29. #NewMR
October 2019
Presentation copyright, the presenters and NewMR. Please credit when using.
Q & A
Irina Dimitriade
Mustard Research
Ray Poynter
Potentiate

30. Sponsors
October
2019
Communication
Gold
Silver