Social networking surveys and user engagement patterns

Social Networking Survey

In designing the study of the survey on social networking, the researcher must keep in mind that from the conceptualization to interpretation stages of the research process, s/he must anchor all these stages to the research question or questions presented from the onset of the study. In this study, the researcher would like to explore the feasibility and benefits of using social networking sites for promoting small and medium enterprises, or SMEs.

More specifically, the researcher would like to generate the following information needed through the study: (1) benefits of social networking sites as a platform to advertising; (2) evaluation of social networking (social media) for increasing the advertising competitiveness of SMEs; (3) determination of success of word-of-mouth (WOM) marketing using the social networking platform; and (4) determination of the social networking advertising strategy in making SMEs more competitive to larger enterprise businesses.

Ultimately, the study would explore the feasibility and determine the likelihood of success of SMEs when they advertise or promote their businesses via the social networking platform. The hypothesis developed and would be tested in the study is: Social media is a contributing factor to the success of marketing/advertising promotions of SMEs vis-a-vis large business enterprises. More specifically, the study would like to determine if there is a significant relationship between promotion using social media and the success rate of SMEs in promoting their businesses.

Designing the questionnaire for the survey, the researcher must have a strong grasp of specific groups or categories of information critical in creating the "bigger picture" or a holistic understanding of the phenomenon that is social media and its usage for promoting SMEs.

First section would be understanding the profile of the SME being studied. Inasmuch as the researcher would like to test for the feasibility of social media as a platform for marketing SMEs, the researcher must first understand the nature of SMEs as business entities and as compared to large businesses. Creating the profiles of SMEs would give more understanding of the possible differences (and similarities) that could emerge in the process of analyzing the survey data. These profiles would potentially help determine the nature and cause why social media as a medium for marketing promotion would work for specific types of SMEs only (this, again, is a hypothesis that would be tested for significance).