Voting: Social Contribution or Act for Reward?

As real-world shoppers vote with their feet, Web visitors vote with views, click-throughs and purchases.

Market research has never been more automated or in a position to glean valuable insights quickly and from so many, while products and services can be concept-tested before general release with minimum investment of funds, people power and time.

• Testing a new product can be as simple as posting it without a price and requesting that customers and regular visitors vote with their views, effectively, as a social contribution.  
• If not priced, they're voting on visual/aesthetic appeal and overall brand attractiveness.  
• Vote outcomes can surprise, delight and shock e-commerce vendors depending on whether they're consistent with regularly tracked pageviews or, once requested in an urgent or time-limited fashion, if they take a complete left turn in terms of results or based on which of their viewer personas participate. 
• Using analytics to track viewer source becomes beyond critical.
• Target market purchasers in one geography may beg out completely from just voting, for whatever reason, and viewers-as-product-gift-recipients in that geography who are not new product targets may also beg out.
• Whereas regular viewers in a region elsewhere on the planet, who don't necessarily buy -- perhaps due to shipping costs, exchange rates or other barriers -- may step forward unexpectedly and influence an entire vote's outcome. 

• Publicly reporting product test voting results as they come in, as with political elections, also serves to sway the bell curve and incites voter turnout as viewing guests jump on the bandwagon to give Voice to their opinions.
• In one 24-hour period, voters in one country or region may be joined by others in their country or region, just because they know others "like them" are participating.

• Creating time-limited urgency inspires viewers with the activist gene who'd be the 20% of "doers" at most anything anyway.
• Offering a "What's in it for you" reward "thank you" acknowledges that, on the Web, voting for products isn't a privilege, but a requested need -- with the ultimate outcome customer-focused as it enhances viewer purchase options.
• The reward should focus on increased participation and not price-based brand value degradation.

• Spreading product concept voting capability across social networks, each connected directly or tangentially to its topic, brings in the necessary variety of voices as a check-and-balance to assumptions about which audiences to target at launch.  
• One network's viewing voters may work in fields related to the product; another network's viewing voters may be critiquing, peer-level product designers -- each have their unique perspectives which can track together or diverge wildly.

It's a beautiful thing to find that a wide variety of viewing customers/guests vote consistently across social networks.  This is solid, verified market research corroboration verifying correctness of direction and attractiveness of any new product or service concept.