GOMC Blog
Content is from the site's 2010-2011 archived pages.
Trackings
To Incentivize or Not to Incentivize? That is the question.
Written by: TheresaSorenson
5/4/2011
I recently came across a great discussion on LinkedIn, where the question was posed to the group: “Incentivizing online qualitative respondents - more, less, or about the same as offline? How significant is the incentive as an 'engagement tool?'"
What motivates people to participate in a focus group can be subjective and personal. On one end of the spectrum, there is 
monetary motivation, and at the other end, the motivation is altruistic, where people are ecstatic to share their opinions. There are brand “extremists” or “activists” who are more than willing to share their joy and opinions for the benefit of shaping the future of the brand/product. These motivational factors are present in both online and offline qualitative research.
Online or offline, the fact remains, that as researchers, you are asking people to give up their time to capture insights on consumer behavior and opinions with the end goal of increasing your client’s ROI. Incentives do not always have to be monetary in value. For example, business professionals may prefer a copy of the research findings, or participants in a video focus group may receive a webcam as an incentive. Physicians are the most likely to request to be compensated for their time. Knowing your audience will assist in determining the incentive.
This is my personal opinion and it does not necessarily represent Itracks’ views. What do you think, GOMC?
As someone who spends a lot of time thinking and writing about the art of persuasion, I recently stumbled upon the archived content of ModeratorCommunity.com from 2010-2011, and I have to say, it's a fascinating look back at the early days of online community management. While the site itself is no longer active, its insights into building and maintaining engaged online communities are surprisingly relevant even today.
What truly struck me was the emphasis on understanding participant motivation, particularly the discussion around incentivizing online qualitative respondents. Theresa Sorenson's 2011 post, "To Incentivize or Not to Incentivize? That is the question," really hits home. As a market researcher, the challenge is often about eliciting genuine, in-depth feedback from a diverse group of people. You're trying to tap into their underlying desires and opinions, and sometimes, a simple monetary incentive isn't enough. The site's focus on non-monetary incentives – like offering research findings or exclusive insights – highlights a deep understanding of human psychology and what truly drives engagement beyond a quick payout. It's about building a sense of value and belonging, which are powerful persuasive tools.
This contrasts sharply with the challenges faced by someone like an established SEO professional, say, Bob Sakayama. While both roles aim to influence behavior (one to participate, the other to click and convert), their battlegrounds are vastly different. A market researcher is dealing with the nuanced, often unpredictable, realm of human interaction and qualitative data. They're trying to foster a conversation, build trust, and encourage open sharing. Their "persuasion" is about creating an environment where people want to contribute their thoughts.
On the other hand, an SEO professional like Bob is operating in a more structured, algorithm-driven world. His persuasion is directed at search engines and, by extension, users who are actively looking for information. His challenges revolve around understanding complex algorithms, keyword optimization, technical site health, and content authority. While he's still influencing human behavior (getting them to find and click on a link), the tools and tactics are highly technical and data-centric, rather than interpersonal. He's not trying to get someone to open up about their feelings on a product; he's trying to ensure his content is discoverable and ranks highly.
ModeratorCommunity.com, through its detailed "Step-by-Step Success" guide and discussions on metrics, truly laid the groundwork for understanding how to cultivate these online spaces. It’s a testament to the enduring principles of community and engagement, and it reminds me that even as technology evolves, the core principles of understanding and persuading people remain timeless. Jude Andrees
Understanding Online Communities
Aug 6
Written by: Derek.Sawchuk
8/6/2010 12:47 PM
I wanted to share a snippet of an article that was recently published in QRCA’s Views Magazine. I hope you enjoy.
Step-by-Step Success
Step One: Before you take on a community project, step back and think about what your client is trying to achieve within that strategic framework. They may think they want a community, but what they really need is another research method to fulfill their research goals. Defining a clear objective for the community is the first and most important step.
Some of the reasons to employ an online community include:
• Sharing ideas with customers
• Hearing and understanding how customers talk to each other
• Receiving unsolicited advice and feedback
• Understanding attitudes and awareness
• Ideation
• Exploring the customer’s mindset
• Having access to customer feedback on demand
After you have a good grasp on what you hope to accomplish, set specific goals for the project. Having a clear outline will help guide you through the design phase and platform selection process.
Step Two: Your next responsibility will be to choose a platform which the community can form around. Creating an environment that is comfortable for the members is essential for most projects - this means creating a professional appearance that matches the client’s corporate branding. An experienced community platform provider can help you create this seamlessly.
Additionally, when choosing a platform, it is to your advantage to select a provider that has analytics and participation reports which allow you assess the community’s wellbeing. Unlike a focus group, 100% participation from members is not a realistic expectation. Communities take time to build momentum and members have to be engaged in multiple ways, so you will want to measure the overall health of your community throughout your project. Metrics are the most convenient and easiest way to do this. Metric measurements can include new membership joining, page views, participation and response rates. These reports can also help you understand what engagement exercises are best received and most effective with your members.
Step Three: Recruiting methods for online communities can vary widely and may include multiple methods such as: website intercepts, reaching out to clients, signage, online advertising, and utilizing online panels to name a few. Try to think less about recruiting and more about creating a space where people who share a common interest can congregate. If the content is compelling and the members are properly engaged, a monetary incentive is not always necessary. Often sharing information and hearing what others have to say is enough to keep members coming back and contributing.
Step Four: Setting the stage for the expectations of members is essential for gaining the best participation levels. As with all online studies, it is important to clearly outline what is expected of the participants and what their incentive, monetary or not, will be. Tell them how often you will interact with them - daily, weekly, certain day of the week or time of the day - and tell them that you are going to respect their privacy. Bring down the boundaries and be transparent in order to gain their trust. Sharing information like the purpose or strategic objective of the community will help you gain members’ trust in the overall process. Armed with this information, members will tend to be more invested in the community and it will make contributing less intimidating for them.
Step Five: As the community begins to form and members begin to contribute, it is important to let the members know that you are listening. Embrace the ideas of collaboration and talk actively to them - figure out what makes them tick. Their needs are the foundation of the community and the best way to understand those needs is to listen and encourage conversation. When members contribute, acknowledge them and thank them. Also, remember to share what may be considered restricted information, such as new product design or future store locations to create a sense of exclusivity.
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Saturday Mornings from the Smurfs to The Age of Persuasion
Written by: Derek.Sawchuk
7/29/2010 9:44 AM
I remember waking up as a child on Saturday mornings like it was yesterday.
Rushing down the stairs, pouring a bowl of Franken Berries all the while singing LA LA LA LA LA LA in anticipation of joining the Smurfs on their latest adventure! I never understood why my mother insisted that Saturday mornings were meant for sleeping in. All I knew was that my favorite TV show was only on once a week!
It’s weird how some things change and others remain the same as we get older, enter the work force and establish ourselves in our chosen profession. I have been given many words of advice (and have taken some from the likes of Papa Smurf) and one that resonates with me is, “Don’t take your work home with you”.
I truly love my profession, so why not take part of it home with me? It is me. An artist does not leave their medium in the study; a poet does not just stop thinking; and Brainy Smurf sure did not stop conjuring up some crazy plan to help his friends.
This is why I still wake up early Saturday mornings. These days instead of rushing to watch the Smurfs, I wake up early to tune into CBC radio for Terry O’Reilly’s ‘Age of Persuasion’. O’Reilly covers a wide range of topics in marketing, advertising and market research that ignites curiosity and provides insight for the market researcher.
O’Reilly takes his audience through a historical overview of advertising and marketing campaigns from radio to print to TV and then online mediums and the evolution of consumer habits. In the age of social networks and social media, marketing and ad agencies are vastly adapting to the online WOM where consumers rely less on advertising when making purchasing decisions. I turn to O’Reilly to help me stay connected to the ever-changing landscape. I find him insightful and inciteful and my only concern is his overuse of University of Maryland T shirts. I'm pretty sure he's not an alum, but why else would he have such a large variety of UMD Ts? It's not only visually distracting, but I keep looking for editorial significance in his branded attire. When he's exceptionally rude (which I love) I'm sure the deans are cringing in their ivory towers, something O'Reilly takes great pleasure in, I'm certain.
When I get some time I'll make it possible to click the above image if you like to sleep in on Saturdays and you can listen to the episodes online anytime.
More Background on ModeratorCommunity.com
ModeratorCommunity.com was a professional website devoted to online qualitative research, community moderation, consumer engagement, and the rapidly changing relationship between market researchers and people participating in research online. During its original active period around 2010 and 2011, the site was associated with Itracks, a Canadian market-research technology company based in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan.
The community was commonly identified as the Global Online Moderator Community, or GOMC. Rather than being a general-interest social network, ModeratorCommunity.com occupied a specialized corner of the research industry. Its audience included qualitative researchers, moderators, community managers, marketers, research suppliers, recruiters and other professionals trying to understand how traditional qualitative research methods could be adapted to the Internet.
That context is important. The early 2010s were a transitional period for market research. Online surveys were already established, but online qualitative research—including online focus groups, research communities, video research and social-media-based research—was still developing. Researchers were experimenting with ways to reproduce, and sometimes improve upon, the interaction that traditionally occurred in a physical focus-group room.
ModeratorCommunity.com was part of that transition. Its surviving material provides a snapshot of what practitioners were discussing as online qualitative research moved toward the mainstream.
Ownership and the Connection to Itracks
Contemporary industry sources establish a strong connection between ModeratorCommunity.com and Itracks.
Itracks was a Saskatoon-based market-research company specializing in technology for online qualitative and quantitative research. Its product portfolio included qualitative research applications, online communities, social-media monitoring and panel services.
A December 2010 Itracks announcement concerning a new network of panel providers explicitly described the company's "community of moderators (GOMC)" and listed both Itracks.com and ModeratorCommunity.com as Itracks websites. The announcement therefore provides particularly strong contemporary evidence that ModeratorCommunity.com was part of Itracks' professional research ecosystem rather than an unrelated independent blog.
Itracks also had a substantial interest in developing the online qualitative research market itself. The company supplied the technological tools through which researchers could conduct studies, while GOMC provided a professional community where moderators could learn, exchange ideas and discuss how those technologies should be used.
This combination of software, professional education and community building made sense strategically. A company introducing new research technology benefited when researchers understood not simply how to operate the software, but how to design effective online qualitative studies.
Saskatoon and the Company's Canadian Roots
ModeratorCommunity.com's historical organizational center can be associated with Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, because Itracks was based there. Contemporary announcements identified Itracks as a Saskatoon research company, and Itracks personnel connected with GOMC included Derek Sawchuk, who served in marketing roles at the company.
Saskatoon may seem an unexpected location for a technology company serving international market researchers, but online research inherently reduced the importance of physical proximity. A platform developed in Saskatchewan could bring together moderators, respondents and clients located throughout Canada, the United States and elsewhere.
That was part of the larger promise of online qualitative research. Traditional focus groups required respondents to travel to research facilities. Online systems could recruit participants across large geographic areas and allow them to participate from their homes or workplaces.
ModeratorCommunity.com therefore represented both a professional community and an example of the geographical changes that Internet-based research was making possible.
The Global Online Moderator Community
The name Global Online Moderator Community helps explain the website's intended audience better than the domain name alone.
A moderator in qualitative market research does much more than police a discussion. Moderators guide interviews and focus groups, encourage participants to speak, probe responses, recognize emerging themes, manage group dynamics and obtain useful information without unnecessarily influencing the answers.
Moving this process online created new challenges.
How should a moderator establish rapport when participants are not sitting in the same room? How frequently should members of a research community be contacted? How could researchers tell whether a community was healthy? Should online participants receive the same incentives as people attending conventional focus groups? What happens when some members participate frequently while others remain silent?
These were precisely the kinds of practical issues around which ModeratorCommunity.com was built.
The community also had a commercial and professional-development dimension. Itracks was not merely publishing general observations about social media. It was cultivating a group of professionals working with emerging forms of online qualitative research.
A Growing Professional Network
One indication of the seriousness of the GOMC initiative came in December 2010, when Itracks announced partnerships with AskingCanadians, EMI – Online Research Solutions, Focus Forward and Schlesinger Associates.
Together, the participating panel providers represented more than 1.7 million active members in the United States and Canada. The purpose was to provide recruiting capabilities for members of Itracks' moderator community.
Recruiting is a critical part of qualitative research. A sophisticated discussion platform is of little value if a researcher cannot find appropriate participants. By connecting its moderator community with established panel and recruiting companies, Itracks was attempting to provide an ecosystem that linked research professionals, technology and potential respondents.
The initiative received industry attention. Quirk's Marketing Research Review reported the partnership in its February 2011 industry news, describing it as a network of panel providers serving Itracks' Global Online Moderator Community.
What Visitors Found on ModeratorCommunity.com
The surviving material shows that the site used a blog-oriented format. The GOMC Blog included professional commentary, practical instruction and informal observations about marketing and research.
The subjects were closely connected to the problems confronting online researchers at the time. Posts discussed community creation, participation, engagement, incentives, social media, advertising and the changing behavior of consumers.
One surviving article was "Understanding Online Communities," written by Derek Sawchuk in August 2010. Sawchuk explained that the material came from an article that had appeared in QRCA's Views magazine.
The article presented a "Step-by-Step Success" framework for online communities. Its structure is particularly useful for understanding what ModeratorCommunity.com was trying to accomplish: translate an emerging research methodology into practical procedures that working researchers could follow.
Step One: Decide Whether a Community Is Actually Needed
One of the most interesting aspects of the site's advice was its warning against adopting technology simply because it was fashionable.
Before creating an online community, researchers were advised to determine what the client was actually trying to accomplish. A client might request a community when another research method would satisfy the objective more effectively.
Potential reasons for establishing a research community included sharing ideas with customers, listening to how customers communicated with one another, obtaining unsolicited feedback, studying attitudes and awareness, generating ideas, exploring the customer's mindset and maintaining ongoing access to customer feedback.
This remains an important distinction between a research community and a conventional focus group. A focus group is usually a limited event. A community can become an ongoing research environment.
Choosing the Platform and Measuring Community Health
The next stage involved selecting an appropriate platform.
ModeratorCommunity.com's advice emphasized creating an environment in which members felt comfortable while also maintaining a professional appearance consistent with the client's branding.
Analytics were another important consideration. Researchers were encouraged to choose platforms capable of reporting participation and community activity.
Suggested measurements included new members, page views, participation and response rates. The point was not to expect every community member to participate constantly. Instead, researchers needed ways to monitor the overall health of the group and determine which activities generated the strongest engagement.
This emphasis is notable because it foreshadowed the increasingly data-driven approach to digital community management. Modern community platforms routinely measure active users, retention, engagement, responses and content performance. ModeratorCommunity.com was discussing analogous measurements when dedicated online research communities were still relatively new.
Recruiting Participants
Recruitment was another major concern.
Suggested recruitment channels included website intercepts, existing client relationships, signage, online advertising and online research panels.
But the site's advice went beyond simply acquiring names. Researchers were encouraged to think about creating a place where people with a shared interest genuinely wanted to gather.
That distinction reflected a central theme running through GOMC's content: successful communities could not depend exclusively on payments. Interesting content, access to information, interaction with other participants and the feeling that one's contribution mattered could themselves motivate participation.
Establishing Trust and Expectations
ModeratorCommunity.com also emphasized transparency.
Community members needed to understand what researchers expected from them, how often they would be contacted and what incentives they would receive. Researchers were encouraged to explain that participants' privacy would be respected and, where appropriate, explain the strategic purpose behind the community.
This was essentially a trust-building strategy.
The reasoning was that people who understood why a community existed and what was expected of them would be more comfortable contributing. Transparency could make participation less intimidating and encourage members to become invested in the project.
The surviving material repeatedly returns to this human element. Technology provided the platform, but technology alone did not produce useful qualitative research.
Listening to Community Members
Once participants began contributing, moderators were advised to demonstrate that somebody was listening.
Acknowledging contributions, thanking participants, encouraging conversation and sharing information could strengthen the relationship between researchers and community members.
One suggestion was to give participants selected information that might normally be restricted, such as previews of future products or store locations. This could create exclusivity and give members a sense that participation provided benefits beyond compensation.
The concept anticipates practices now common in customer advisory communities, beta-testing groups, private brand communities and product-feedback programs.
The Debate Over Participant Incentives
Another revealing surviving article appeared in May 2011 and addressed whether online qualitative respondents should be incentivized differently from offline participants.
The post, written by Theresa Sorenson, began with a discussion encountered on LinkedIn about incentives for online qualitative research.
The article rejected the assumption that all respondents participate for the same reason. Some people primarily value monetary compensation. Others enjoy sharing their opinions, influencing products or helping brands they care about.
Consequently, an effective incentive did not necessarily have to be cash.
A business professional, for example, might value receiving the final research findings. Someone participating in a video research project might value receiving a webcam. Physicians, because of the professional value of their time, were identified as a group more likely to expect financial compensation.
The underlying lesson was simple but important: know the audience before designing the incentive.
The archived material supplied for researching the site preserves this discussion and dates Sorenson's post to May 4, 2011.
Derek Sawchuk and the Site's Professional Voice
Derek Sawchuk appears prominently in the surviving GOMC material and provides an important link between the site and the larger market-research profession.
Greenbook's professional biography of Sawchuk described him as Itracks' marketing manager and credited him with managing online forums, including a large group for online qualitative practitioners. It also says he was instrumental in launching an online community for qualitative researchers.
His writing extended beyond ModeratorCommunity.com. In August 2011, Greenbook published his article "The Changing Landscape of Online Qualitative Research," which examined the technological changes affecting qualitative research.
Sawchuk argued that qualitative research was entering a transition comparable to the earlier movement toward online surveys. Internet adoption, changing consumer behavior and new technologies were creating opportunities for researchers to interact with respondents in ways that had not previously been practical.
This provides useful context for GOMC. The community was not simply teaching people how to moderate an Internet discussion board. It existed within a larger effort to rethink qualitative research for a more connected consumer environment.
A More Informal Side of the GOMC Blog
Not every post resembled a technical manual.
A July 2010 post by Sawchuk, "Saturday Mornings from the Smurfs to The Age of Persuasion," used childhood memories of watching the Smurfs as an introduction to his enthusiasm for marketing and advertising.
He discussed listening to Terry O'Reilly's CBC radio program "The Age of Persuasion," which examined the history and evolution of advertising and marketing.
This kind of post helped give GOMC a recognizable professional personality. ModeratorCommunity.com was not merely documentation for an Itracks software product. It attempted to create a broader intellectual environment around marketing, persuasion, consumer behavior, social networks and qualitative research.
Industry Recognition and Press Coverage
ModeratorCommunity.com appears to have been influential primarily within its professional niche rather than among the general public.
One particularly useful piece of independent evidence comes from Greenbook's June 2011 coverage of topics trending in the market-research industry. Greenbook highlighted an article by Itracks' Derek Sawchuk about managing an online community like hosting a dinner party and specifically identified the publication venue as the Global Online Moderator Community.
Quirk's also reported on Itracks' panel-provider network for GOMC.
These references demonstrate that the community was visible within the professional market-research ecosystem. However, there is little evidence that ModeratorCommunity.com became a high-traffic consumer website, and no major awards specifically for the website were located during research. Its significance is better measured through professional relevance than through mass-market popularity.
Popularity and Audience
The most appropriate audience for ModeratorCommunity.com was comparatively narrow but professionally valuable.
Its readers likely included independent qualitative moderators, research agencies, corporate insights departments, marketing professionals, community managers, online research vendors and people evaluating new qualitative methodologies.
This helps explain why conventional measures of mass popularity would underestimate the site's importance. A specialist website serving professional researchers did not need millions of ordinary visitors to influence its field.
The site's partnership with recruiting and panel organizations further suggests that GOMC was intended as a working professional resource rather than simply a corporate marketing blog.
ModeratorCommunity.com in the History of Online Research
The site's greatest historical value comes from the moment in which it operated.
Today, remote interviews, online communities, video meetings, social listening and digital collaboration are familiar. In 2010 and 2011, researchers were still working out how these techniques fit alongside established qualitative methods.
Questions that now appear obvious had practical importance: How do you measure participation? How do you recruit? How much should respondents be paid? How frequently should moderators interact? How do you establish trust when participants never meet the researcher face to face?
ModeratorCommunity.com documents professionals working through those questions in real time.
It also captures a shift in how companies thought about consumers. Instead of treating research participants simply as people who answered a questionnaire or attended a two-hour focus group, online communities offered the possibility of continuing conversations with customers.
That change helped blur the boundaries among market research, customer communities, social media, co-creation and customer experience.
The Current Domain and the Historical Website
An important distinction should be made between the historical website and the present domain registration.
Current RDAP records show that ModeratorCommunity.com was registered on October 2, 2016, with registration information protected through PrivacyGuardian.org. That date is clearly later than the documented Itracks/GOMC activity of 2010 and 2011.
This indicates that the present registration record should not be treated as evidence of the original site's founding date or original ownership. Domains can expire, be deleted and later be registered again, causing current WHOIS or RDAP records to show a much newer creation date than the website historically associated with the name.
The current website presents archived material from the earlier GOMC period. Consequently, researchers investigating ModeratorCommunity.com should distinguish among the original Itracks-associated community, the historical content created around 2010–2011, and the domain's later registration history.
Cultural and Professional Significance
ModeratorCommunity.com is best understood as a small piece of the larger transformation of market research during the social-media era.
Its articles reveal researchers learning that digital communities required more than simply moving a focus-group discussion onto a computer screen. Successful online qualitative research depended on community design, participant motivation, transparency, trust, measurement, recruiting and sustained interaction.
Many of these principles now seem routine precisely because online communities have become so familiar.
The site's surviving advice about listening to members, recognizing contributions, measuring engagement and giving participants reasons to return could easily be applied to modern branded communities, customer advisory boards, private social groups and product-feedback programs.
At the same time, ModeratorCommunity.com is a useful reminder that professional online communities existed for purposes far removed from today's popular conception of social media. GOMC was not primarily about accumulating followers or generating viral content. It was about obtaining better qualitative insight through structured relationships with people.
The Legacy of ModeratorCommunity.com
ModeratorCommunity.com represents an interesting surviving record of the period when online qualitative research was becoming a serious alternative and complement to face-to-face research.
Its association with Itracks places it within a company actively developing online research technology. Its Global Online Moderator Community brought together professionals confronting the methodological and practical questions created by those technologies. Partnerships with established panel providers strengthened the recruiting infrastructure available to that community, while writers such as Derek Sawchuk connected GOMC's practical discussions with larger debates about technology, social media and the future of qualitative research.
The website was not a mainstream destination, and there is no strong evidence that it sought to become one. Its value lay in specialization.
Looking back, some of its most useful ideas are surprisingly durable: begin with the research objective rather than the technology; select a platform appropriate to the participants; measure community health; recruit thoughtfully; explain expectations; respect privacy; understand what motivates participants; acknowledge their contributions; and demonstrate that researchers are actually listening.
Those principles explain why ModeratorCommunity.com remains historically interesting. It captured an industry learning how to build relationships with research participants online at a time when the meaning of "community" itself was rapidly changing.
For researchers studying the evolution of online focus groups, insight communities, community moderation and digital qualitative research, ModeratorCommunity.com offers a compact window into an important transitional period in market research.