1.So great of you to open this up to your audience! I'm disappointed that so much social media research is focused on if consumers/biz consumers use social media to help them make purchase decisions. This misses the point for me because people generally don't think of things this way so their answers won't be reflective of reality.

Case in point: I recently blogged about Knowledge Network's Social Media report which basically said social media is not worth much in B2B world. http://idiomstrategies.com/Idiomatic/archives/119

Their main finding was "% of Users Who Turn To Social Media For Purchase Decisions"

I use social media all the time but the way they represent it here I would have to say I don't use it for purchase decisions. People use social media to turn to PEOPLE and COMMUNITIES they know and trust to give them advice.

The medium is not what people turn to, they turn to the people and communities but these new tools/mediums make turning to people easier.

But I digress...
I'd love to see research done that looks at what makes people remove themselves from social media and communities once they start.
There is a lot out now about people starting to use social media tools or join networks and communities, but they quickly die out and no one participates. What makes people stop participating AND what would make them keep participating.

I believe most people are Listeners when it comes to the market conversation. Only a small portion are "participants", most just want to "read" the blog, but don't take the time to comment. Or they want to see a review on something, but don't bother to write reviews. So if people stop using social media tools and networks because there isn't a high enough volume of quality content...???

I'm tweeting this blog right now and will put it in my LinkedIn Idiomatic: Conversation Marketing Group discussion. Hope you get great feedback!

2.I can think of two potential topics:

1. With the recent live FIR and subsequent blog posting on the relationship between legal and communications, studying the impact (short term and long term) on the reputation/income of an organization? While some of the recent big stories (Domino's, Motrin) come to mind, do blogs such as untied.com have a real impact or make a difference.

2. On the reverse side, what are companies learning from social media. As I wrote for Ragan, many companies are using social media to listen to their customers. What are they doing with these learnings? Have they changed practices, procedures, pricing, etc. Or internally, companies who have established social media activities for employees -- is it making an impact on the business?

3.I'm with you Christine. I'm also very interested in seeing the drop out rate.
It seems like the participants are the same ones I see over and over.

4.It would be interesting to understand the distribution of people who contribute to the conversation via social media, to people who are simply 'users' of the information shared (viewing but not contributing).

Also, I'd be interested in understanding what compels people to share/participate via social media. Could it be a sense of community/connection that is perhaps somewhat lost in today's society?

Thanks for reaching out and looking forward to the study.

5.Hi Shel,
Just wondering if you had a chance to moderate my comment about what the organization brainstormed.
Kelli

6.There are no comments in my moderation queue, Kelli. Where/when did you submit it? Could you resubmit?

7.Thanks Shel, I submitted it last week. Possibly I had a problem with my connection. I was hoping to see it up there only so that I could see how you and/or others would respond. I was just curious about the ideas that the group brainstormed. I'm a university professor and I've done a number of studies about social media. I am really interested in understanding the needs of the industry and directing my research in that direction.