Research in Social Media

Reading for this week was over Chapter 5. This chapter consisted of all things research related. I thought this chapter introduced a lot of new concepts to myself, mainly because I have never dealt much with analytics on social media which is a big part of research. This is due to the fact I don't have a brand/company, so I don't really monitor how many people my personal social media posts are reaching. I found a lot of the information in this chapter to be interesting. For example, I did not know there are four different types of metrics including basic metrics, advanced metrics, channel metrics and behavioral metrics. I also really love that Freberg talks about strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats (SWOT) analysis in this chapter. SWOT is one of those topics you learn, and it is drilled into your brain so you never forget about it, specifically if you're a part of the communications department. I find that SWOT analysis are good to use for any scenario whether it's a communication issue or another. I like that Freberg includes a whole table of different metrics for different platforms to show the reader what they should really be looking at for each one, I think that is extremely helpful for people who are social media managers or have their own brand. This book has more topics that I find helpful than the last one. While it is textbook style, sometimes it's hard to find a self-help book that has as much helpful information that is usable like a textbook.