In my last post "My Research Methodology", I forgot to mention that there is a £100 cash prize as well as Amazon vouchers involved and you can do your bit for charity as well.
I have pledged to donate 50p for every completed questionnaire to the Cancer Research UK.
Please click the link to take part in the survey.
Showing posts with label research. Show all posts
Showing posts with label research. Show all posts
18 September 2009
15 September 2009
My Research Methodology
Just met my second supervisor yesterday and he approved my final research questionnaire with some minor changes. It's now live online at www.surveymk.com//blogs.
With this I am now at the halfway stage of my PhD research work at the Warwick Business School, University of Warwick.
I am actually quite relieved because the first stage is actually the toughest. It took me quite some time to get here because getting the questionnaire right the first time is crucial. A lot of people rush trough their questionnaire development phase of their research and suffer the consequences later.
The first step in starting a research is to have a broad idea of which area you want to research in. For me it was a no-brainer - I wanted to do something related to blogs. However, as I have a marketing background and I am in the business school, I was interested in the marketing aspect of blogs. More specifically on the consumer behaviour related to blog.
Carried out an extensive review of literature and found out that very little research has been carried out on blogs and even less on the marketing aspect of blogs. This was both good and bad news for me. Good because almost anything I do will be new contribution but bad because I had negligible literature to base my research on.
If you are new to research, the first thing you should be aware of is that review of previous literature is absolutely essential. This would allow you to identify the gaps and your potential contribution. You also need previous research to support some of your assumptions and hypotheses.
I had decided from day One that my research should be quantitative in nature and based on a survey questionnaire. Learnt that I fell under the positivist philosophy camp. Most of my friends research here are qualitative in nature. There has been an ongoing battle between the different sides on the best approach to research but I firmly believe that quantitative research is the best. This may be due to my educational background in the biological sciences.
My research looks at the consumer's perception of blogs and as I am looking at consumer attitudes, I rely a lot on several human psychology theories - as are in fact, a lot of marketing studies.
Several conceptual models with various constructs came up and went until we (myself and my supervisor) finally agreed upon one.
This was a really frustrating phase and I did wonder whether it was worth all the mental and financial cost.
These constructs are measured by various statements and are derived from previous studies published in leading marketing and psychology journals. I guess that's why we call it "re-search".
I also conducted some interviews followed by a pilot test. Based on the comments and exploratory factor analysis, I had to drop several statements used to measure the constructs and even drop one completely because I found out that it was actually had wrong measurements and was not reliable. I had taken the scale from a research conducted by some Professors in a top US University. This actually proves that experts do get it wrong sometimes.
Anyway, I am finally here and ready to enter the second stage. If you read blogs regularly, please spend a few minutes to complete my survey.
With this I am now at the halfway stage of my PhD research work at the Warwick Business School, University of Warwick.
I am actually quite relieved because the first stage is actually the toughest. It took me quite some time to get here because getting the questionnaire right the first time is crucial. A lot of people rush trough their questionnaire development phase of their research and suffer the consequences later.
The first step in starting a research is to have a broad idea of which area you want to research in. For me it was a no-brainer - I wanted to do something related to blogs. However, as I have a marketing background and I am in the business school, I was interested in the marketing aspect of blogs. More specifically on the consumer behaviour related to blog.
Carried out an extensive review of literature and found out that very little research has been carried out on blogs and even less on the marketing aspect of blogs. This was both good and bad news for me. Good because almost anything I do will be new contribution but bad because I had negligible literature to base my research on.
If you are new to research, the first thing you should be aware of is that review of previous literature is absolutely essential. This would allow you to identify the gaps and your potential contribution. You also need previous research to support some of your assumptions and hypotheses.
I had decided from day One that my research should be quantitative in nature and based on a survey questionnaire. Learnt that I fell under the positivist philosophy camp. Most of my friends research here are qualitative in nature. There has been an ongoing battle between the different sides on the best approach to research but I firmly believe that quantitative research is the best. This may be due to my educational background in the biological sciences.
My research looks at the consumer's perception of blogs and as I am looking at consumer attitudes, I rely a lot on several human psychology theories - as are in fact, a lot of marketing studies.
Several conceptual models with various constructs came up and went until we (myself and my supervisor) finally agreed upon one.
This was a really frustrating phase and I did wonder whether it was worth all the mental and financial cost.
These constructs are measured by various statements and are derived from previous studies published in leading marketing and psychology journals. I guess that's why we call it "re-search".
I also conducted some interviews followed by a pilot test. Based on the comments and exploratory factor analysis, I had to drop several statements used to measure the constructs and even drop one completely because I found out that it was actually had wrong measurements and was not reliable. I had taken the scale from a research conducted by some Professors in a top US University. This actually proves that experts do get it wrong sometimes.
Anyway, I am finally here and ready to enter the second stage. If you read blogs regularly, please spend a few minutes to complete my survey.
25 March 2009
How to increase traffic to your blogs
As part of my doctoral research, I have looked at the reasons why some blogs are able to get thousand if not hundreds of visitors to their blog everyday.
Some websites charge to tell you this secret but here I am telling you for FREE.
CREDIBILITY.
There is a huge debate among various scholars and various conceptualisations about credibility but most define it as as "believability".
Some authors have come out with the terms ‘webelievability’ to refer to “the degree to which people judge online information as credible”. Of course we cannot discount the credbility of the source - the blogger when it comes to blogs.
Looking at the credibility of the source, Credibility has been shown to be composed of
However, the next question is how do bloggers gain this credibility. This is where it gets interesting. Stanford Persuasive Tech Lab has published a list of ten guidelines to boost your web site's credibility.
Some are not even experts at all but somehow were able to get this perceived credibility and eventually became an "expert". I know of a couple of guys who ultimately went on to become popular speakers even though they didn't have either the professional or educational qualifications but just on the basis of their popularity of their blogs. Some of them have regular columns in magazines and even lecture at Universities with professors sitting in the audience. That's amazing isn't it.
It is interesting to note that many popular bloggers including John Chow don't really follow some of the points listed (for example, many of them carry ads including pop-ups) but they still continue to receive thousands of visitors. I guess that's where branding comes in. It also provides an interesting insight into the human behaviour. Once you get famous, the traffic has a snowball effect. Everyone wants a piece of you.
How you get that break is really important and sometimes it is by pure chance but often due to talent. I saw this with popular Malaysian blogger Kenny Sia when he exploded on the Malaysian blogging scene with his original brand of humour (his big coconuts) and of course his (in)famous Xiaxue pose. Now's he's Internationally known and his blog averages about 14k visits daily.
The lucky break may occur due to a mention in the press, magazine or a mention by another celebrity blogger. For example, a small mention by the ProBlogger can do wonders for your blog traffic.
But as they say, not everyone is lucky and sometimes you have to slog it out for several years before you get famous just by your sheer effort.
Some websites charge to tell you this secret but here I am telling you for FREE.
CREDIBILITY.
There is a huge debate among various scholars and various conceptualisations about credibility but most define it as as "believability".
Some authors have come out with the terms ‘webelievability’ to refer to “the degree to which people judge online information as credible”. Of course we cannot discount the credbility of the source - the blogger when it comes to blogs.
Looking at the credibility of the source, Credibility has been shown to be composed of
- trustworthiness and
- expertise.
However, the next question is how do bloggers gain this credibility. This is where it gets interesting. Stanford Persuasive Tech Lab has published a list of ten guidelines to boost your web site's credibility.
Some are not even experts at all but somehow were able to get this perceived credibility and eventually became an "expert". I know of a couple of guys who ultimately went on to become popular speakers even though they didn't have either the professional or educational qualifications but just on the basis of their popularity of their blogs. Some of them have regular columns in magazines and even lecture at Universities with professors sitting in the audience. That's amazing isn't it.
It is interesting to note that many popular bloggers including John Chow don't really follow some of the points listed (for example, many of them carry ads including pop-ups) but they still continue to receive thousands of visitors. I guess that's where branding comes in. It also provides an interesting insight into the human behaviour. Once you get famous, the traffic has a snowball effect. Everyone wants a piece of you.
How you get that break is really important and sometimes it is by pure chance but often due to talent. I saw this with popular Malaysian blogger Kenny Sia when he exploded on the Malaysian blogging scene with his original brand of humour (his big coconuts) and of course his (in)famous Xiaxue pose. Now's he's Internationally known and his blog averages about 14k visits daily.
The lucky break may occur due to a mention in the press, magazine or a mention by another celebrity blogger. For example, a small mention by the ProBlogger can do wonders for your blog traffic.
But as they say, not everyone is lucky and sometimes you have to slog it out for several years before you get famous just by your sheer effort.
First Commentator
Lisalicious
Lisalicious
08 March 2009
The happiest countries
According to the results of a study survey carried out by researchers at the University of Leicester, Denmark is the happiest nation in the world.
They have come out with a "World Map of Happiness". It was found out that the significant factors that decided the "happiness" of a country were health, poverty level, and access to basic education.
Only two Asian countries are in the top 10 - Bhutan and Brunei Darussalam coming in at 8th and 9th places respectively.
I was surprised to find that Malaysia did quite well, coming at 17th place. The United Kingdom came in at a distant 41 (I am not surprised). The US of A came in at 23rd.
Apparently the most miserable people on the Earth are those that live in Burundi closely followed by Zimbabwe.
Mr. Mugabe! Please pity to your people and just step down.
Read the BusinessWeek article.
They have come out with a "World Map of Happiness". It was found out that the significant factors that decided the "happiness" of a country were health, poverty level, and access to basic education.
Only two Asian countries are in the top 10 - Bhutan and Brunei Darussalam coming in at 8th and 9th places respectively.
I was surprised to find that Malaysia did quite well, coming at 17th place. The United Kingdom came in at a distant 41 (I am not surprised). The US of A came in at 23rd.
Apparently the most miserable people on the Earth are those that live in Burundi closely followed by Zimbabwe.
Mr. Mugabe! Please pity to your people and just step down.
Read the BusinessWeek article.
02 March 2009
A chance to win 6 Ryanair gift vouchers
My friend Amrul in The University of Nottingham is doing a study on the online travel experience of UK customers.
If you are a UK resident and have used travel websites such as Ryanair, Easyjet, Lastminute, Ebookers, Travelocity, Expedia etc. for your travel needs during the past 12 months, please go over to http://www.surveymonkey.com/Online_Travel_Experience .
He's giving out 6 Ryanair gift vouchers to 6 lucky winners and he has also promised to make 50p donation for every completed survey to Cancer Research UK. So even if you don't win, you still get to do some good.
If you are a UK resident and have used travel websites such as Ryanair, Easyjet, Lastminute, Ebookers, Travelocity, Expedia etc. for your travel needs during the past 12 months, please go over to http://www.surveymonkey.co
He's giving out 6 Ryanair gift vouchers to 6 lucky winners and he has also promised to make 50p donation for every completed survey to Cancer Research UK. So even if you don't win, you still get to do some good.
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