Literature Review Outline On Social Media

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Literature Review Outline
Julie Famular
GrC 460
1/17/14
Introduction:
Larson & Watson (2011) define social media as “the set of connectivity-enabled applications that facilitate interaction and the co-creation, exchange, and publication of information among firms and their networked communities of customers.” The use of social media has been on the rise for many years. Social media has shifted web towards “user-driven technologies such as blogs, social networks and video-sharing platforms” (Smith, 2009, p.1). Different social media platforms include Facebook, MySpace, YouTube, Twitter, Instagram, and more. The shift to social media means that user generated content more often than not dominates what is on the web (Smith, 2009, p. 1). It also means that web content will be driven by the consumer.
The increasing trend in social media usage does not seem to be going away. Tom Smith ran a study from 2006 to 2008 in which he measured the usage of mainstream social platforms across the world. The study included 17,000 active web users. His studies showed that in two years, 23% more active web users read blogs, 17% more wrote blogs, and 51% more watched video clips (Smith, 2009, p. 1). In the past there has also been some speculation that only the younger generations use social media. However, according to the 2013 survey from the Pew Research Center’s Internet Project, 73% of adults in the United States who use the internet also use a social networking site (Print in the mix, 2013). In the U.S., online adults using social media sites has increased 4% from 2012 to 2013.
Although there are currently many different social networking platforms, Facebook still remains the most popular platform (Duggan & Smith, 2013, p. 1). Pinterest,...

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...es of Average Time on Site, Page Views, and Goal or Ecommerce conversions. This will help a company understand how their social spend is impacting your bottom line” (Vazquez Levi, 2013). Without measuring metrics, it is impossible to align strategy with success.

Conclusion
Prospective students, current students, and alumni all prefer different social media platforms, and use social media in different ways. Having several different audiences for the Graphic Communication Department’s social media efforts means research needs to be done on each audience. Only then will they properly be able to utilize social media to its best capabilities. The department must also carefully align their social media strategy with their current marketing plan. Measuring social media activity will be the last step in ensuring the department’s social media strategy is a success!

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