Follow / Explore a private business or an organization or a public institution’s social media presence for one week and on one social media platform (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Tik Tok, Flickr, etc.) Your essay will express your major findings and present a well-written, interesting analysis of your chosen subject’s social media effectiveness.
As you follow the social media account, take notes on the following:
· What are the product(s) /services / ideas / etc. offered?
· Where / how are these things offered?
· Who is the target audience? (Be as specific as possible about audience; no product or service is aimed at “everyone.” Find demographic information for customers, include it, and document it.)
Consider the overview of the social media presence of your chosen subject. What platforms do they use? How actively? etc. Why did they choose these social media platforms? In other words, how do these platforms help them connect with their target audience? Note: to be eligible, your chosen private business / organization / public institution must use written language as part of its rhetorical strategy, but you should also consider: What other sorts of compositional strategies dominate? (Videos? Images? Memes? Links to other social media sites or web pages? Etc.) The consider which platform you will choose to focus on, and why.
In your analysis of the social media posts address things like:
· Are posts appropriate for the brand? Why or why not?
· Is there interaction between the subject and its audience? How about between followers of the social media account? Is this interaction useful? Should there be more or less interaction?
· How many followers /fans / likes, etc. does the account have? Does this seem like a successful number to you? Why or why not?
· How could the subject improve its social media presence? Be realistic in terms of budget constraints and audience. (Wrong answer: “there is no way they could improve.”)
· Include examples in your paper (screenshots of posts, links, quotations from posts, etc.).
Organizational Approach to the Essay:
In the Introduction:
· Begin by energetically introducing your business / organization / institution, and smoothly stipulating the chosen social media platform, as well as the timeframe of your analysis;
· Deliver your dominant impression of how your subject uses its social media platform: this is your thesis, in which you articulate the essence of your analysis;
· Indicate the points of analysis to come in your body paragraphs.
In Each Body Paragraph:
· Begin with a strong, claim-driven topic sentence that establishes the main idea of your paragraph;
· Spend the rest of the paragraph backing up / defending that claim by citing / quoting evidence, and through your own strong writing work.
In the Conclusion:
· State why you chose your particular business / organization / institution to follow and analyze.
· Tell a story to elaborate on your personal interest / stake in the topic.
· Highlight what findings most surprised or interested you.
Your Paper Should:
· Be at least 1,150 words in length (not counting elements such as screenshots, Works Cited page, etc.)
· Correctly document / credit sources from the business / organization / institution (social media sites and, if applicable, website pages) both in-text and on a Works Cited page, and incorporate at least one good online source you find on your own (one not about the business or organization you are looking at) that you can use to deepen / enhance your analysis.
