Author’s Written Work: Research Topic Social Media

Introduction

My chosen topic of investigation is social media and academic performances. This topic seemed to be a suitable choice as it focuses on academic performances of the students in Kogi State University, and how they are affected by social media use. In today’s society where students are “addicted to the online rave” (Adejo, M.K. Ibrahim & O.A. Ogurinde, 2018) this article argues that there is a ‘positive relationship’ between social media and academic performances of students, the argument also states that students use social media to benefit their studies. When choosing a research topic social media, I first of all want to prepare a worthy scientific work. In the first section, the article draws our attention to the Social information processing theory which argues that online interpersonal relationships may demonstrate the same dimensions and qualities as face to face relationships, because of this the online relationships that students form may help them ease interactions that would not have transpired face to face due to factors such as intergroup anxiety (Psychology Wiki, 2019).

Research Paper on Social Media

Therefore, the article argues that the more the students use social media, the more they will influence their “disposition to studies” as their friends from social media will start to apply more influence on each other, which will help students enhance their studies.(Adejo, M.K. Ibrahim & O.A. Ogurinde, 2018).I will try to answer the most common social media research questions.

Secondly, the article mentions a survey by Lenhart, M. and Madden, M (2007) that stated “students use social media to stay in touch and informed.” You can also explore topics in social media on your own. Here the article again argues that students use social media to enhance their studies by sharing sites which can help with their studies.(Adejo, M.K. Ibrahim & O.A. Ogurinde, 2018).

Finally the article supports its arguments by conducting a questionnaire where 175 students were randomly selected for the questionnaire. It can be studied on resources with research paper topics about social media. Three tables were used to present the data and to analyse this data the article used “statistics scale and Correlation Coefficient”(Adejo, M.K. Ibrahim & O.A. Ogurinde, 2018).The main conclusion from the data was that there is a ‘positive relationship’ between social media and academic performances of students(Adejo, M.K. Ibrahim & O.A. Ogurinde, 2018).

Social Media Topics of Discussion

Social Media (SM) and internet technologies have changed the way we are living drastically in the last two decades, on a personal level they have changed the way we live including the way we communicate with each other , the way we learn and work and the way we have fun. You can also select your social media topic. I advise you to also pay attention to the social media essay topics that are available on educational resources.

On Cooperate level they have changed the way we buy and sell stuff, the way we evaluate products and they provided new communication lanes with companies. In this paper I will try to highlight the effectiveness of social media influencer marketing as a marketing tool when targeting customer on social media platforms , the paper will try to clarify and highlight the effectiveness of Social media influencer marketing from companies’ point of view and try to develop a formula to calculate the worth of a certain social media influencing campaign based on social media related insights to ensure correct evaluation and execution of social media influencer campaigns.

I was inspired by essay topics about social media. At the end of this paper , the study will try to recommend scientifically proven methods for marketing departments and agencies responsible of social media influencer marketing in companies to enable them to manage and execute effective marketing campaigns in addition to manage their marketing channels and their marketing distribution matrix in a way that enables the departments to achieve their marketing goals. Come up with and discover more social media research topics. In later years, I hope to combine my social media experience with my knowledge in Business informatics field to enhance and improve the discipline of social media influencer marketing and refine the basics of the field and its’ best practices.

My Detailed Student Research on Social Media

Due to the introduction of social media and web 2.0 technologies, our lives changed drastically in the last 2 decades ,for example today instead of going for the cinema , the cinema comes to you , instead of going to work in the morning , now we work from anywhere we want , and these technologies have played a great part in changing the way we decide how and what to buy(Qualman, 2009)

Instead of going to showing to Brick and mortar shops to feel the product we are considering to buy , now we go online and read reviews about it, instead of reading brochures about what is exactly that we need (King et al., 2014) today we rely on Electronic word of mouth (E-WOM) and recommendations from people we trust and whose opinion we hold high and that’s is the core of social Media Influencing(De Veirman et al., 2017)

At first we should examine the term “ Social-Media Influencer marketing “ and try to put it into context , the term is made up two terms, the first is social media which is defined in many ways ad forms for example Cambridge dictionary defines it as “websites and computer programs that allow people to communicate and share information on the internet using a computer or mobile phone” (SOCIAL MEDIA | definition in the Cambridge English Dictionary, 2019) as for the term influencer Marketing the Association of National Advertisers defines influencer marketing as “the marketing that focuses on leveraging individuals who have influence over potential buyers and orienting marketing activities around these individuals to drive a brand message to the larger market (Influencer Marketing | Common Language Marketing Dictionary,2019) so by putting these two terms together we can conclude that social media influencer marketing is about leveraging individuals who have influence over potential buyers to drive a brand message to the larger market through the use of the websites and application that allow people to communication and share information using an electronic medium.

According to a report published Business Insider , (79%) brands predominantly tap Instagram for influencer social media influencing campaigns and according to another study by Webfluential ,Instagram has been a part of 93% of all influencer campaigns in the 2019., many reasons are related to that, such as the visual nature of the platform , the various options it offers to visual content creators and the large active user base which was reported to around 1 billion active user (Instagram Revenue and Usage Statistics (2019), 2018) , the number of 500000 advertiser in September 2016 to 2,000,000 in September of 2017

And in 2018 the platform $5 billion were spent by brands on influencer marketing (State of the Industry – Influencer Marketing in 2019, 2019) and the number of advertiser grew to more than 550,000 influencers (State of the Industry – Influencer Marketing in 2019, 2019) and all the numbers are the estimations show that more investments and money is being allocated for influencer marketing.

One of the main reasons behind the mass adaptation of Instagram as an Influencer marketing platform is the ability to track and measure the effectiveness of the campaigns conducted as online activities are highly trackable and measurable, which makes it possible to target adverts and to track and gauge the efficacy of the advertising accurately. Each advert can be tracked for success.(Stokes, 2018)

When it comes to Instagram influencers, marketing books classify them into five major categories depending on the number of followers that follow their account , each category is well more suitable for different marketing goals and serves different purposes.

There are many critiques of this article as it fails to address its most important points. My first critique is the first argument made, where the article mentions there is a ‘positive relationship’ (Adejo, M.K. Ibrahim & O.A. Ogurinde, 2018). This argument isn’t supported by the article as there are three tables, but none of them mention any results that suggest that there is a “positive relationship”(Adejo, M.K. Ibrahim & O.A. Ogurinde, 2018). The main research method for this article was a questionnaire, but in the article there is no mention of what type of questions were asked, the article only states that the questionnaire was “well constructed”(Adejo, M.K. Ibrahim & O.A. Ogurinde, 2018). As a better method of research the article could have selected a smaller group of students and compare their exam results to their social media use.This method is reliable as it was used in other similar studies that were done by Kolan and Dzandza (2018) and Mingle and Musah (2015).

The article supports its second argument, “social media enhances their studies”(Adejo, M.K. Ibrahim & O.A. Ogurinde, 2018), by referring to Lenhart, M. and Madden, M (2007) who stated “students use social media to keep each other informed.” But the same article also states that “64% of the students who said they use social media to inform each other, also admitted using social media for chatting and entertainment” (Lenhart, M. and Madden, M,2007). This statement clearly contradicts the argument of the article and is also supported by statistics that were taken from primary sources.

Finally, two similar studies that were conducted contradict this articles argument. The First study is by Kolan and Dzandza (2018) who stated “ 165 students (82.5%)’ indicated that they primarily used social media for chatting and entertainment.The second study by Mingle and Musah (2015) also stated that social media causes ‘negative effects’ such that lead to poor academic performance. Therefore this shows that this article is missing key information and the methods that have been used to conduct the research are not suitable.

Conclusion

In conclusion the article is unsuccessful at supporting the argument that there is a ‘positive relationship’ between social media and academic performances of students. It’s unsuccessful because it fails to link its research and the argument that has been made.It also fails to provide evidence that there is a “positive relationship” between social media and students, and that social media enhances their studies.(Adejo, M.K. Ibrahim & O.A. Ogurinde, 2018).Other similar studies clearly disagree with this article as all three of them state in a way that social media doesn’t enhance students academic performance but rather have “negative effects on their performance” (Mingle and Musah, 2015).