Research Social Media: Key Insights and Strategies for Success

Misinformation and disinformation are shared all too easily in the fast, far-reaching world of social media, where the latest news can feel like the most critical of updates. This is nothing new. Indeed, human societies have long struggled with concepts of truth and falsehood. What is different now is the sheer scale and speed of information sharing, when, with a click, we can also share the next big lie. Sharing is the enabling act, and social media platforms have made sharing synonymous with being human.

The adolescent years are a time when individuals often grapple with defining their self-identity. For some, social media provides an outlet through which they can express their creativity and curate their digital persona. Platforms like Instagram and Pinterest are often places where that kind of visual and virtual artistry can be found. The kind of personal projects that one might document on those platforms can be seen as parallel to the real-life artistry that one might engage in when no one is watching.

How Relationships and Communities Are Affected by Social Media

Using social media can totally reshape your personal and business relationships. But they can also raise some serious red flags. People now form their personal and business relationships with the help of social media. We can say that social media is now involved in building our personal and professional lives. But is it really a good thing? I don’t know—I totally debate this with myself.

Social Connections in an Online World

Online platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter furnish users with myriad methods of connecting with friends, family, and people they kind of know but not really. For most people, these digital spaces serve as “supplementary” to the real-life social interactions in which they engage. And what kind of work do these digital supplements do? For starters, they help maintain the “weak ties” that can be important for the kind of social mobility and resource-sharing that many of us need to get by.

The bond that teens have with social media makes their association with it more complex. On one hand, some pieces of research indicate that using social media heavily can lead to having few face-to-face conversations. On the other hand, the social media critics of these youth say that the norms of society or even parenting push kids toward their phones because it’s a safer space to express themselves, at a time when in-person relations are so fraught.

Is Social Media Displacing Us?

Spending time on social media, we are told, comes at the expense of engaging in offline relationships. Yet the evidence is far from clear. Some researchers find that social media use contributes to feelings of loneliness or fosters a lack of satisfaction with the kinds of interactions one might have in a traditional friendship. But other research suggests that the use of social media might enhance one’s sense of connectivity, not just with friends but with a broader community.

A distinctive feature of social media is its capacity to cultivate online communities. On platforms such as Reddit, Facebook, and LinkedIn, one can find intimate spaces of conversation with groups who share their interests or experiences. This is potentially life-changing for the many souls who occupy the intersectional margins of our society, as well as for those who, because of circumstance, live in geographical isolation (think, for example, of a person who lives alone in a rural area). These digital communities are vastly important because they provide the kind of conversational space that is often in short supply for many of their members.

The Consequences—Good and Bad—of Virtual Connections

The psychological and emotional impacts of social media have received heightened scrutiny from researchers and mental health professionals in recent years. Precious little is known, however, about the actual dynamics at play. Studies to date have tended to focus on two easily measurable dimensions—how often people use social media and how happy they feel. Neurobiologist Sebastian Dieguez has offered a more nuanced interpretation of social media’s effects on the psyche.

Positives of Social Media for Mental Health

Social media brings several positive aspects, such as better communication and access to information. Some even argue that the platforms are a net positive for society, thanks to the ease with which people can express themselves.

What Could Go Wrong?

On the flip side, excessive or uneven use of social media can have some pretty heavy repercussions—like the anxiety, depression, and low self-esteem that can come from making bad comparisons (or being compared badly) on networked platforms. Those same platforms are also places where a lot of nasty things go on, from cyberbullying to the exposure of what’s being euphemistically called “content not suitable for all audiences.”

Using Social Media for Business and Branding

The personal side of social media is only half the story. For businesses, social media represent a new frontier in the burgeoning landscape of digital marketing. While Silicon Valley might be the heart of the digital revolution, Madison Avenue isn’t far behind. Platforms such as Instagram, LinkedIn, and TikTok afford companies a potent mix of branding and engagement relatively unfettered by the advertising we encounter on traditional media.

The Practice of Creating a Solid Social Media Strategy

Formulating a sound social media strategy necessitates knowledge of audience proclivities, choice of platform, and content that compels the viewer to take action. If the action in question is, “Look at my products,” then Instagram and Pinterest are the places to be. If the action is, “Take this strategic business step,” then there’s nowhere better than LinkedIn.

Use Automation Tools to Your Advantage

Tools such as WoopSocial can greatly simplify and enhance the business of not just “being” on social media, but of achieving tangible results from that platform. With WoopSocial, for example, you can schedule and automatically publish posts, thus attaining an illusion of constant activity across the various profiles you’re managing. And with all your social profiles managed from a single interface, you’re bound to engage more effectively and efficiently, if only because you’re not spreading yourself so thin across so many virtual spaces.

Automation tools enable businesses to ensure that their online presence is coherent and that their audience is expanding, irrespective of the medium they are using—text, image, or video. Above all, these instruments permit a clear scaling of digital marketing strategies.

Returning Investment from Social Media Campaigns

Proving the worth of social media is essential for companies if they wish to continue funding it. But how on earth do you put a price on something as intangible as “social”? Up to now, the methods for assessing a return on social media investment have ranged from the reasonable to the ridiculous. While some companies have used tools like Google Analytics to determine what kind of lead or sale a click from SmugMug’s Facebook page produced, other firms have done things like comparing the number of “likes” a post generates to the number of people who claimed to have purchased a product after seeing it recommended on Facebook.

Future Directions for Research on Social Media

As social media continues to change, so must the research associated with it. This research needs to keep pace with current developments and anticipate future innovations—if only to understand what those innovations might mean for the already fraught relationship between social media and society. Two areas for future research seem particularly notable. One is the use of AR in social media and its impact on an almost visceral form of user engagement. The second, related area is the use of AI in both the social media user experience and in the production of content that users interact with.

To sum up, social media is a simple yet complicated tool with a big reach in today’s world. Most of us have an almost religious devotion to our smartphones, and what we do on these devices mostly centers on social media. What concerns me is, given the tool’s richness, how easily we can use it to impoverish ourselves, by neglecting to strengthen those close to us, by engaging in personal social media detours that at best distract us and at worst lead us to befriend our fantasies.