The future of social media networks

Social Media and Technology

Today, a growing number of the world's population subscribe to various social media networks such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, MySpace and others. Moreover, just as the overwhelming majority of enterprises jumped on the Internet bandwagon during the late 1990s and early 2000s, companies of all sizes and types are taking advantage of these social media networks as well to promote their businesses and interact directly with their customers. This study proposal provides a series of researchable questions and a review of the relevant peer-reviewed and scholarly literature regarding these trends. A description of participant selection procedures for the proposed study is followed by an identification of data collection methods, potential ethical problems and limitations of the research proposal. Finally, a summary of the research and important findings concerning the proposed study and its guiding research questions are presented in the conclusion.

Review and Discussion

Research questions

The implications of the proliferation of social media networks in recent years extend to consumers as well as businesses, so the proposed study will be guided by the following research questions:

1. How have social media networks changed the competitive environment for businesses?

2. How can companies benefit from social media networks?

3. What are best industry practices for using social media networks for business promotion?

4. What is the future for social media networks?

Review of the relevant literature

Technically, social media networks have been around for quite some time with electronic communications such as radio and telegraphs being used for essentially the same purpose since the late 1800s, but the modern versions that use the World Wide Web first emerged during the late 1990s (including BlackPlanet, Six Degrees, Asian Avenue, and MoveOn) and these have evolved into a number of sophisticated versions (such as Facebook and YouTube) that provide companies and consumers with a number of benefits that were not realizable with strictly electronic communications (Edosomwan, Prakasan, Kouame, Watson & Seymour, 2011). Although every business is unique, most companies can benefit from social media networks for the following applications:

Promoting open communication between employees and management;

Enabling employees to share project ideas and work in teams effectively, which helps in sharing knowledge and experiences;

Promoting better content, such as webcast and videos, than just simple text;

Facilitating collaborative communications between current and potential customers, in receiving feedback, product definition, product development, or any forms of customer service and support;

Encouraging members, or part of the company's employees, to become members of a well-recognized community;

Providing a venue for discussions and becomes a classic goal of marketing and communications (Edosomwan et al., 2011).

A summary of a series of recent peer-reviewed journal articles and dissertations concerning social media networks is provided in Table 1 below.

Table 1

Summary of relevant studies

Author

Methodology/Methods Used

Key Findings

Kunz & Hackworth

2011

This study analyzed social media marketing use by 18 major retailers on five social media networks during fall of 2009. Authors collected weekly data for the period September through the first week of January 2010 to identify the respective levels of participation by the retailers on each of the social media networks.

Authors identified significant changes across retailers, and across the different social media networks. Authors also found that it is important to coordinate cross-channel promotions and each network requires different metric and analytic tools.

Wattanasupachoke, T.

2011

Systematic literature review

Social media network members have a strong emotional attachment to each other. These platforms create a successful viral communication that allows users to disseminate interesting contents between individuals and a way to create a positive impression on customers and a chance for a company to release proper information.

Bicak

2013

Essay

The current user-friendly generation of the Internet promotes sociality and the uploading of many different kinds of content. Consequently, networks are "time-eaters, and we're only being sucked deeper into the social cave without knowing what to look for" (p. 32).

Elias, S.

2012

Stratified, purposive sample of educational leaders with whom the author interacted via Twitter

The flood of information on social media networks makes it difficult for consumers to single out information specifically of interest to them.

West, A.

2012

Systematic literature review

Companies must ensure that staff assigned to social media networks use proper etiquette and language in responding to customer feedback.

Description of participant selection procedures

A convenience sample of college students (Neuman, 2003) recruited from online forums dedicated to this population using posts with a hyperlink to the online survey will be used to collect responses a series of open-ended questions tied to the proposed study's guiding research questions using the qualitative data collection methods described below.

Identification of data collection methods

An online survey will be posted on a premium online survey service such as Zoomerang or SurveyMonkey to collect responses to a series of open-ended questions tied to the proposed study's guiding research questions.

Potential ethical problems

All respondents to the online survey will be guaranteed their anonymity and all respondents will be consented using a prefacing disclaimer which emphasizes that they can withdraw from participation in the survey at any time with no repercussions whatsoever.