Google tools for market research

Getting useful and relevant information is key in doing market research. Whether it is for building a service-related business, a blog, or just for a small store in your town, you need to know the right information about your target market or customers.

By now, it may be assumed that Google takes the majority of market share in terms of searching online. So it just makes sense that people base a portion of their market research based on what their customers search for; what your competitors put out online; and what are the current trends in your industry today.

In the Philippines alone, internet peneration has risen to 36% and is expected to increase this year to 41%. Search is one of the major activities in the country, as, according to comScore, the Philippines is third in Southeast Asia in terms of search activity. The country is also a tiny bit higher than the average number of internet searchers worldwide.
So with the Internet behavior of Pinoys established, what are the free and available Google tools that you can use?

Google Alerts

You can monitor the Web for any keyword you wish and in any result you need. By going to google.com/alerts, you can set a real-time, daily, or weekly report of news, blogs, videos, books, or discussions related to the keyword you want to monitor.

Not only is it useful in tracking your competitors' activity, it is also a listening tool for companies who want to track what other people are writing or saying about them. Of course, you can also use Google Alerts in seeing articles about trends relevant to your industry.

And if you're paranoid, you can always set a real-time monitor on your whole name...

Google Trends

What are the hottest searches for Pinoys this week or this month? How do my product compare with my competitors' products in a particular year and location? What are the other searches that users search for related to my industry? These questions can be answered by Google Trends, a tool that analyzes Google searches based on location and time.

Users can see what people are searching on Web, Image, News, YouTube, and Shopping (if available in the country). Based on the country availability, categories can be used. To drill down on the searches, a certain timeframe can be selected and locations can be set.

There is even a study that Google Trends can predict movements on the stock market (http://www.technologyreview.com/view/514226/google-trends-could-predict-stock-market-moves-study-shows/). This is possible as values in Google Trends can be dowloaded as CSV.

Google AdWords Keyword Planner

Google AdWords Keyword Planner, formerly called as Google Keyword Tool, is actually a Google AdWords tool for advertisers but can be used for research. Instead of a graph that Google Trends shows, Google AdWords Keyword Planner provides actual figures for the average monthly search volume, the suggested bid, and the competition, letting you know how much advertisers are paying attention to that certain keyword.

How is this useful for your market research? Imagine that you already have a brand and you just need to create your presence online. How would you know what right set of words to use so that customers will be able to find you? Google AdWords Keyword Planner is the answer.

Google+ and other social networking websites

As most of consumers are on social networking sites, it is good to assess the sentiment of your target market through social networking sites. Facebook, Google+, and Twitter, among others, are good to monitor especially since more and more businesses are setting up their presence on these websites.

Facebook. 

In order to look at your competitors or at least businesses in the same industry, you have to know the name of the business' page. This is one of the weakness of Facebook search, so oftentimes you find yourself searching on Google to look for the Facebook pages of your competitors. In terms of hashtags, Facebook seems to be still in the beta phase as Facebook omits some of the results when looking for posts related to a hashtag. So unless you are friends with thousands of people and you are a fan of a thousand pages, you can efficiently use Facebook for market research.

Twitter. 

Hashtags are its powerful feature as you can see all posts with hashtags - even mentions of keywords in real time. This is a great tool to listen what your customers are saying and even have the abiliy to reply to these messages. In researching for competitors, you need to have an idea of their brand name at least to look at their page.

Google+. 

Some associate Google+ as a social networking page that merges both Twitter and Facebook in terms of features. With Google's powerful search functionality, you can easily search for anything on Google+. Be it hashtags, keyword mentions, pages, or even users - you can see it all. As you type, all related pages, users, and communities appear on the searchbox. You can pick 'Best of' or 'Most Recent' to view relevant or timely posts on a topic. Plus, business pages are mostly public so you can read what they are saying about a certain topic.