Online community discussion boards, also referred to as bulletin board focus groups or BBFGs, are a highly engaging and insightful form of online research.
Discussion board online focus groups occur in a secure environment where participants login and post comments on a research discussion board in response to a specific topic. A discussion board topic can include question, images and website or video links. We can ask participants to comment on post or we can conduct private discussions with all participants. Participants are notified by email when a new discussion topic is posted and, just like Facebook, its is a simple process of logging in with their unique username and password, and posting to the discussion board. Online discussion board focus groups range in the length from a few days to weeks or months.
Discussion board focus groups are ideal for running long term studies where participants login and contribute in their own time. The client can also log in to the discussion board and review the comments in real-time, and the text transcripts are immediately available for download.
Discussion boards allow you to target a large number of people and provides the opportunity to capture feedback, opinions, and top-line reactions on a large number of topics. The moderator can change the direction of the topic during the discussion and quickly explore new opportunities as they arise. The online discussion board provides research flexibility and is suited to conducting qualitative research with 10 to 20 participants.
We can even combine online surveys with a discussion topic to utilise best of both online qualitative and quantitative research methods.
Our online discussion boards are ideal for:
- Testing product concepts
- Measuring brand image
- Facilitating customer service feedback
- Measuring employee engagement
- Capture group knowledge
- Targeting hard to reach and busy people
