Literature Review - the joy of

Well, it's been a while but I've finally got through (read, absorbed, had nightmares about) all the literature gathered regarding the use of social media in the business arena. Submitting a literature review as part of my research project has proven to be a very good excercise though, as I've found some great writings, despite being a relatively new topic.

I would put the literature found into three broad categories: development; trends; and advisory. Development, in terms of new media companies, applications, devices and mediums. Trends, as in the changing interactions and relationships between companies, communities and individuals. Advisory, where people at the forefront of social media either as consultants or users are sharing their knowledge and offering guidance. Not a lot of academic literature amongst it all but this was not unexpected, academic publications can take 12-24 months to get out there so watch this space I guess.

From my review of the available literature it seems futile to centre my research around if companies should be utilising social media but rather what a social media strategy should consist of and why. This has helped shape my hypothesis as follows, which will be tested by further, more localised research: today's business must design and implement a social media strategy based on listening to and engaging with their customers.

This hypothesis may sound rather broad and underwhelming but what has become blindingly obvious is that for the most part "today's business" still doesn't get it. There is still a reluctance to accept social media, a reluctance to invest resources into social media and/or a temptation to see social media as another sales or marketing channel. Hence to words must, design, listening and engaging in the hypothesis above.

MBA Research Project Proposal

The first deliverable for my MBA research project is a project proposal, consisting of some rationale and objectives behind the topic. Not a huge component of the project, but getting this down on paper plus working through a provenance table has helped to narrow the focus.

Rationale: Social media use among the global internet-using community is growing at a rapid rate and managers throughout the world are looking at ways to utilise social media applications and websites such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and YouTube etc in various ways to enhance their businesses. The growth rate of social media usage and new application development is out-stripping companies’ ability to learn and experiment with these new tools, deeming ‘best practice’ in social media a fast-moving target.

Already companies have had huge successes and huge failures through (mis)using social media and there appears to be a lot of fear and uncertainty surrounding it. There is no denying the potential and power of social media, suggesting if it can be harnessed effectively, will be beneficial in a number of areas of businesses, such as marketing, public relations, recruitment and product development. Discovering if there is a best practice or better practices will help create a direction for companies who would like to develop a social media presence to enhance their businesses and increase profitability.

The research project will not focus on a particular company, industry or sector but will have a natural bias towards those companies that are using social media as part of their business strategy. The project will not be a case for or against social media, comparing companies that do and do not use social media, but rather look at those companies that are using social media and the experiences, successes and failures they have had, and why these have occurred.

Objective: The objective of the research is to firstly ascertain if there is a ‘best practice’ for the business use of social media. If so, what this best practice consists of and if not, what practices are more likely to have positive effects on areas such as brand perception, employer reputation and competitor analysis – what the better practices are.

By researching and comparing a variety of companies’ strategies in social media use, trends can be discovered as to what they’re doing, how and why they’re doing it and the results of their efforts. Immediate observations as a result of conducting the research will be which companies and industries are actually using social media, uncovering who are the adopters of what are a relatively new set of business tools.

What is Social Media?

Two weeks into my research project, the topic still needs a lot more narrowing down and focus. As a six month MBA project, we're encouraged to narrow it down as much as possible to make it manageable, however my concern was the (small) amount of literature out there on Social Media and its application to businesses. Our class was introduced to the power of the University of Auckland Library which absolutely blew me away, millions of dollars a year spent on subscriptions bringing the world of literature to your fingertips. Some preliminary searches on the Library website have turned up masses of information on Social Media so no issues there.

This week's class had a few students present their topics for others to offer ideas on how to investigate from different perspectives. Definitely a worthwhile exercise from my point of view, got lots of good ideas from the class on my topic. One simple but important question that was raised was "What is Social Media?", which I'm going to have to define for the purposes of my project. There seems to be many different definitions of Social Media, which differs from digital media and social networking and an important distinction I have to make is the difference between Social Media and traditional media. I'll also have to make a call on whether I include forms such as email as part of my definition of Social Media.

In terms of producing a research project of value, there seems to be a common target destination of "best practice" in Social Media. By this I mean, whether looking at the topic from a financial perspective (ROI for example) or an organisational behaviour perspective (change management for example), knowing what is "best practice" when developing and implementing a Social Media strategy is where great value lies. As a 2008 study by The University of Bath states in its conclusions on Twitter usage, "it does highlight the need to shift the emphasis of the research towards disseminating case studies of effective practice". Once I have defined Social Media, this area of effective practice is what I will be focusing in on.

Game on!

There seems to be a range of perceptions and stances regarding social media in the workplace: complete ignorance; a vague understanding; prohibition; and utter confusion to name a few. Where does it fit in? Do we need it? How would we use it? Should we ban it? WTFacewhat?

There appears to be two separate issues. Firstly, social networking applications and websites could be deemed a distraction to employees in their daily working lives, which could lead to poor productivity and the sacking of one’s bottom. Secondly, organisations could utilise these same applications and websites to promote their products and services, communicate with their customers and keep tabs on their employees.

There’s no doubting the power of social media but organisations seem slow, or wary in their uptake of the technology. Is there a demographic issue i.e. would a funeral home have a twitter account? Is there a stigma issue i.e. would a snooty law firm have a facebook page? Or is the technology simply moving too fast i.e. is the intelligence of our organisations too low, or more specifically, are the decision makers of our organisations still getting to grips with text messaging?

I’m going to dive into these issues and probably a whole lot more over the next six months, hopefully developing some insights that could offer some value to New Zealand businesses. But I’m going to need HELP because there’s not a lot of prior research out there. HELP! If any of this floats your boat or you know of some good examples from your business let me know - I’ll trade your info for beer, wine or coffee. Confidentiality is assured.

Right now, I need to email my lawyer regarding that last sentence.