Thursday, October 14, 2010

The Social Network

So I recently saw the new movie Social Network, which is the story of how facebook came to be.  This week in my blog, I decided to focus on social media because it is so prominent in all of our lives.

Francesca's last blog focused on the unobtrusive research methods we talked about in our previous classes and related it back to social media.  Statistics show that over 500 million people check their Facebook to see what there friends are doing for more than 700 billion minutes per month.  Whether they know it or not though, they are all conducting unobtrusive research by "keeping tabs" on their friends, as Francesca mentions in her blog.  Personally, I spend a lot of time on Facebook and never realized that I was doing "research."

The second blog I wanted to focus on was Katie Warner's because she took social media to the next level.  She blogged that it is essential for non-profit organizations to invest time in creating a Facebook page and even money for advertising.  She states that, "with 39 million people using Facebook multiple times a day, it is easy to put a message out there and get more views than you would have on a standard website dedicated to the organization."  She also agrees that facebook is an example of unobtrusive research, even though many don't even realize they are conducting it.  Now Facebook isn't the only social media outlet that organizations can use, but for now, it is the most popular and ensures the company will gain recognition.

One of the most important points about unobtrusive research methods is that results are immediate.  By using these social media sites, companies can keep track of clients, employees, and volunteers.  The possibilites are countless!

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