Due Friday, September 18 by 11:55 p.m.
Search #SM on Twitter and persue the 20-120 most recent tweets. Discuss what your search reveals by commenting on this post outlining the following:
- What do you notice? Is there anything surprising?
- Who is tweeting?
- Are there any recurring topics?
- Are there citations/links to other sources?
- Do many tweets include (links to( images or videos?
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The first thing I noticed when searching #SM on Twitter, was the trend of social media and marketing topics being covered. I was surprised that the context of #SM did, however, change the topic, often from social media to sports. This was typically done through my search as #SM with an ‘add on’ such as #SM-who which was a Denton Texas game of some sort. “The evolution of Social Media” - @VladoBotsVadze is a clear use of SM as social media. Other messages, however, such as “#SM-who The #MeanGreen are coming!!” - @chickenEdenton are less prescriptive in their use of the hashtag. A single hashtag can easily be edited, added too, or use in different contexts.
ReplyDeleteUsually individuals seem to be tweeting about this hashtag with some marketing or social media background. Companies also use it, and even one classmates tweet showed up!
Sports, social media, opinions, marketing (and advice on marketing) were the overall most common and recurring topics. Sports tweets often had ‘add-ons’ previously discussed.
21% of these tweets had images, videos, or links to them (such as Instagram), while 37% linked to other sources (4/19 and 7/19 respectively).
I was actually a bit surprised that more posts didn't link to outside sources, but I suppose social media doesn't require opinions to be backed by reason :P
The majority of tweets consisted of links to article and blogs that provided information on how to use social media. Topics ranged from, nurturing partnerships, marketing, and the don’ts of social media. I was surprised to find that about half of the Tweets were for other topics, sports came in second and then there were a few random ones (including animal pictures). The # is suppose to label groups of information to separate information providing the reader with convenience. However, in this case it appears to have complied unrelated topics.
ReplyDeleteTweets, were either posted by individuals or businesses, including marketing and news companies. I saw a few post with #COMM597 up there!
Reoccurring topics consisted of social media, marketing, and sports.
I found that 70% of the tweets included links that lead to additional information and reflected the social media topics. 20% of tweets included images that mostly reflected the sports topics. The remaining 10% only had the tweet.
I am off to China tomorrow so will be offline until Oct 5/15.
Being new to Twitter, I noticed that when you search, there’s the option to view your search results by “Top”, “Live”, “News”, “Photos” or “Videos”. For the purpose of this exercise, I searched #SM by “Top”.
ReplyDeleteTo be honest, going into this exercise, I didn’t know what #SM was. I use hashtags often on Instagram, but never came across #SM. Luckily, some tweets also included the full hashtag (#socialmedia) along with the acronym!
I noticed that a lot of the tweets were about improving one’s social media experience in one way or another, but I also found other topics such as sports. I was surprised to find a poll to vote for the better girl band!
Most of the #SM tweets were from individuals, but there were a few from organizations (e.g., Ninja Social Media, razorsocial, etc.).
I did not see any reoccurring tweets.
A number of the tweets had links/websites included in the tweet. I noticed that sometimes the actual website would be listed (e.g., Amazon.com), whereas others included a “bit.ly” link.
Only 3 of the tweets included images. There were no videos tweeted.
As many of my classmates noted - I was interested to see that most tweets including the hashtag #SM were marketing related. It seems that #SM is used more for professional use than that of tweets related to one's personal life. Buzzwords and phrases like "make connections" and "branding" were common, which perhaps sums up #SM well.
ReplyDeleteThere seems to be a wide range of people tweeting to #SM, though most tweets appeared to be coming from individuals, for professional purposes. My impression was that most of the tweets were from social media enthusiasts/professionals, who used various social media sites for promotion and branding.
Several of the tweets that I looked through did include links to articles, often giving tips for social media use, or writing about people and businesses doing social media well (ex. one article titled, "Social Media Marketing: Top Influencers and Brands"). Less often, these tweets would actually include images or videos. Of the 20 most recent tweets at the time I looked, 11 of them linked to other sites or articles, 4 had video or images attached, and only 6 had neither. Almost always, the tweets were promoting something - be it a video, person, organization, business, etc. It's very interesting to observe the way that different hashtags have evolved for different purposes!
I am writing this again as my initial post seems to be missing...
ReplyDeleteLike my cohorts, I too was struck by the number of advertisements on #SM. There were a lot of individuals/entrepreneurs claiming to be experts in the field and willing to sell you their advice as to timing of your campaigns, the content and finding an audience (followers/following advice). It's a wonder to me how these, self-described, on-line guru's are able to make a living. Two of them had their photos attached, as some sort of proof positive of their expertise. Granted I'm new, so some of them may be, but my impression was they had a lot more in common snake oil salesmen than professionals in the field.
The recurring topic of Social Media Insight seems to be a winner based on the number of times its repeated. On it's face, it seems to be a catch-all phrase with a meaning that varies depending on the advertiser/small business upstart. Their content was minimal to make room for links to their websites, where all their insights are available for a nominal cost. Some were even offering an exclusive opportunity to become a private member and thus have executive access to cutting edge marketing materials specially designed for social media.
My timing is definitely off! Not only am I a day late, but when I searched Twitter for #SM on the live feed I was very surprised to see a barrage of Tweets from Japan that were definitely supposed to be in the S&M section. It was very unfortunate, and this is a good example of the sampling frame issues that Chen (p758) and others discuss. I switched to the Top Tweets and found more of what everyone else was seeing: social media consultants/writers, sports, politics, and our class discussions.
ReplyDeleteThere were three links:
The 10 Best States to Start a Small Business
7 Secrets to Becoming a Social Media Guru
Who’s Listening to Podcasts in 2015?
There were 3 images (2 sports, 1 dance), and one Vine dance video.
Overall, the biggest impressions I had from this experience were the vulnerabilities of random sampling on an unmediated platform. If I would have stuck with the original sample I would have had a terrible result. Sampling techniques like Chen's snowball convenience sampling (p758) will help to avoid some of these issues.
My apologies for posting late. I'm hoping to get a better grip on e-learning soon.
ReplyDeleteI also switched from sorting "Live" to "Top" tweets in order to be able to contribute more meaningfully to this conversation. I wouldn't say I was surprised by anything. With popular hashtags you tend to get advertisements, porn, and people crashing the hashtag. For example, I started a Twitter account for my friend's iPad math app company. I was active in engaging with educators who had a weekly scheduled chat on #satchat. In one particular chat session a spammer started flooding our hashtag. The moderator created a new one so we could continue the dialogue. Spammers will oftentimes use popular hashtags or hashtags of trending tweets to try to reach a wider audience.
The #satchat group is a great example of fulfilling the four dimensions of McMillan and Chavis' strength of community model (Chen p 756). The members participating in this group have formed a strong tie offering emotional support as they share their struggles and offer solutions to the challenges they face as educators. From what I witnessed #sm did not appear to have the purpose of building community however it does have the ability to provide content gratification through offering advise and information about social media marketing.
More than half of the tweets were about social media. Of those tweets all were by marketing professionals or by @contmktg - "An automated feed curating only high-qulity news, trends, tips, successes, and guides for content marketers." The remaining tweets were comprised of religious quotes, ads, and non-English tweets.
75% of the tweets had links to other sites or articles, but none were linked to images or videos. There were links to other sources but mostly content the social media consultants and consulting firms created themselves. The remaining 25% were tweets without a link. A hashtag I like to use to source information about trends and insights into marketing is #cmo (Chief Marketing Officer). These tweets tend to be specific to digital marketing.