What is social research?
In the context of businesses and the internet, social research is a method of learning about your target market. Social research uses social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter, Digg, or a blog to ask questions, to find out customer preferences, and to generally learn your target customers’ opinions about any aspect of your current or future business.

Benefits of Social Research:
Why go for social research as opposed to more conventional forms of research? Here are its advantages:
•    It is easier, quicker and hardly costs you a cent: Most blogs and social media sites are free to join, and once you join them, you can search the groups or fan pages where your target market is most likely to be found. As a member, you will be allowed to post your own content free of cost. This is infinitely easier and much cheaper than designing and printing out questionnaires or forms and going out in the marketplace or door to door to get them filled.
•    It helps you identify the target market and build a reputation before even launching your business: This is why carrying out social research before launching a business is a great idea. The people on social networking sites get to know your idea, and if you present it in the right way, you can make it appear intriguing enough that they will want to buy from you when you actually do start. You get to know which people are most interested in your ideas, and you can with their permission use them as leads in marketing later on.

How to Carry Out Social Research:
There are several ways to do this. Here are some of the quickest and easiest ones:
•    Use your Blog:
Simply post your questions on your blog, if you have one, and let people answer. If you don’t already have a business blog, this is a great reason to create one. This way your business can develop an online following, popularizing you among your target customers.
•    LinkedIn:
LinkedIn has a separate section where you can ask questions and get responses. Sometimes the number of responses can go up in hundreds. Thus you learn a lot from different people’s opinions.
•    Yahoo Answers:
As this is a website dedicating to posting and answering questions, you can not only ask people questions about upcoming business ventures, but also reply to existing questions by introducing your business idea or existing business websites.