A podcast about all things market research. Connecting with some of the brightest minds in the industry to discuss the practical and the big picture of #mrx (with a slight qual slant)
Hosted by Seb from QualRecruit (https://www.qualrecruit.com/)
Unpacking how The Social Question captures authentic feedback from engaged consumers where they already gather. TSQ partners with influencers to “moderate” their communities in-platform, introducing research questions into existing conversations. The result is rich, conversational feedback from consumers talking about categories they already care about.
In this episode
Seb sits down with Kayte Hamilton, founder of The Social Question, to explore a form of social media research that sits somewhere between traditional qualitative research, social listening, and influencer engagement.
They discuss:
How The Social Question partners directly with influencers and creators to field research questions through Instagram Stories.
Why existing audience relationships can produce more conversational, story-rich responses than traditional open ends.
How influencers can function as natural qualitative moderators when two-way conversation is already part of their relationship with followers.
Why keeping participants in-platform can reduce friction compared with sending them into a separate survey or research environment.
Where social media research fits alongside traditional qual, quant, and social listening—and where its methodological limitations remain.
What Kayte’s experience with progressive hearing loss taught her about accessibility, text-based research, and finding new ways to connect with participants.
Key moments
06:16 — How influencer-led research works in practice A walkthrough of using Instagram Stories, polls, and question prompts to collect research responses from existing communities.
10:18 — Why staying in-platform matters Kayte explains the difference between asking someone to leave social media for a survey and engaging them directly where they already spend their time.
12:03 — The limitations of the method No screener, limited demographic precision, and a much more “big picture” approach to insight than conventional sample design.
14:45 — Influencers as moderators Kayte describes how she evaluates creators based on their ability to sustain genuine two-way conversation—not simply follower count.
17:57 — Why market research needs new data streams A broader discussion about the industry’s tendency to stay within familiar research environments and the case for combining traditional and emerging forms of data.
About Kayte Hamilton
Kayte Hamilton is the founder of The Social Question, a social media research agency that helps insights teams connect directly with social media users through influencer collaborations. Her background spans qualitative moderation, quantitative research, sales, and app development before she built a research model around creator communities and in-platform engagement.
Links
The Social Question (https://www.the-socialq.com/)
Kayte Hamilton on LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/kaytehamilton/)
The Social Question on Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/the_socialq/)
Insightful Connections Podcast (https://www.qualrecruit.com/insightful-connections-podcast)
About Insightful Connections
Insightful Connections explores the people, practices, and ideas shaping qualitative research.
QualRecruit helps research teams recruit high-quality participants for qualitative studies across the U.S. and international markets.
13 Nov 2025
Aryn Korpalski: Fieldwork Inc
Aryn is Senior Vice President at Fieldwork Inc. Fieldwork makes qualitative research easy, effective, and human. They handle details from recruiting participants to hosting and managing projects, allowing their clients to focus on the insights. With welcoming, convenient, and purpose-built facilities across the US and a trusted virtual platform, their team is here to support all kinds of research from consumer conversations to complex medical studies. Fieldwork believes that great research starts with great people, and they're here to connect you with them.
4 Nov 2025
Pam Goldfarb Liss, LitBrains! Igniting Ideas Inc.
Our guest today is Pam Goldfarb Liss. Pam is president-bigbrain at LitBrains! Igniting Ideas Inc., and the founder-superfriend trainer at Mission Kid Possible, an online library of kid-sized workshops and live training courses for moderators who want to work with kids and teens. After running Lit Brains for over 30 years and spending over a decade perfecting the Riva course on moderating with kids and teens, Pam founded Mission Kid Possible to further share her expertise on moderating with kids. Prior to founding LitBrains, Pam held a variety of agency-side roles and cultivated her expertise moderating with kids for numerous leading brands.
Who has been a guest on Insightful Connections
Names identified in recent episode analyses. Showing up to five guests.
Wes Michael
Layla Shea
Andrej Žukov Gregorič
Podcast Authority Score: 7 / 100
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