What has social media done to market research? So much hype has been built up around the act of reaching fame and fortune through social media, that we’ve lost sight of what it’s all about. For consumers, that means using social media to enhance your real-world experiences. For small businesses, that means learning from those real-world connection points of the end users.

Social media has been promising all sorts of market research for years now, and the recent diversion of social media into pop culture has made it difficult to remember the branding power behind it. That may seem backwards, considering the growing amount of consumer data that can be gleaned from social media activity. But my point is that this huge consumer shift within the social media movement means conversations between brands and customers will only evolve again.

Returning to the core purpose of market research and its crowdsourced capacity to provide engaging feedback is something that can be of great benefit to small businesses and brands. Stretching through the growing pains of a social media consumerism means a promise of privacy and a welcoming environment. As more services are being provided online, there’s a parallel shift towards rising demand around tools that address these needs.

Commodity Online notes this shift as one that brings about the new generation of crowdsourcing. As outsourcing became the method of fragmenting and commoditizing services, the current need moves towards bringing all of that activity back together.

Companies like Prova use this new concept of crowdsourcing to provide innovative designs to brands that need creative work done. Prova acts as the search, correspondence, sharing and marketing tool all in one. The crowdsourcing movement is allowing consumers to wear multiple hats, contributing towards the direction of the company as well. Blurring the lines between brands and consumers, the new crowdsourcing tools empower all parties.