Bloghound

People are sick of being polled and surveyed, as Ad Age’s Jack Neff has been reporting , with articles like “Consumers Rebel Against Marketers Endless Surveys. “ (Survey response rates average 10 percent and are falling.)

But seems like people do want to have a say and help companies. New research to be released tomorrow by Communispace finds that people participate more when companies give them more interesting ways to participate — chats, video sharing, brainstorming, going mystery shopping, posting day in the life diary posts, etc. People also like to be able to weigh in on more topics.

This study of 26,500 people in 57 communities follows up Communispace research earlier this year that found that monthly participation in by-invitation communities ranged from 33 to 84 percent, with an average of 56 percent of community members contributing. In other words, half of the people asked to help, helped. What a difference compared to conventional research’s 10 percent participation, if that.

This is another good example of business disruption — and of people opting out of a blah experiences (surveys) and opting in to experiences that they find interesting, fun or valuable.

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