Social Networking: Harm of Help Business and Consumer Communication? Bethany Pisulak Katie DiLeonardo Tyrell Porter Andrew Philippou

Our purpose  To determine whether social networking harms or helps communication between businesses and consumers.

Importance/Background  Technology is booming  Finances are being cut, programs are free  Simple, fast and easy  Unique, companies can differ from other businesses  Enables companies to promote themselves and their services

“This use of online, friend/associate-based networking will prove to be one of the most valuable business tools the Internet has yet provided.” -Michael Jones, President of Userplane

Statistics  1997: Internet had 50million users in the U.S.  : FaceBook gained over 100 million users; 145% growth rate within one year  80% of companies use social networking sites to attract customers in 2009

“If you’re a business owner that hasn’t embraced social media networking as a major component to your success strategy, it’s due time to hop onboard.” - J.J. McCorvey

Relative to our Major  ITM: may control the social networking process  BE: will teach about social networks and their benefits and implications  Management: cut back hiring new employees for advertising  Finance: cut back expenses

Social Networks

Question of Inquiry  Does social networking harm or help communication between businesses and consumers?

Scope  100 Bloomsburg University Students/Professors  3 Local Bloomsburg Businesses

Ethical Considerations  Taking or not taking survey  Businesses wanting to stay private  Confidentiality  We stayed anonymous and had our participants fold their surveys, face them down, and shuffle them after all were collected.

Methodology  100 random quantitative surveys  3 random qualitative interviews

Data Collection Process  Form surveys (Bethany)  Distribute surveys at random (Katie&Andrew)  Collect surveys, face down and shuffled (Tyrell)  Organize data by sex and grade level (All)  Process data from surveys by answers (All)  Obtain survey results (All)

Findings  Social networks help businesses more than harm them; 96% Agreed  Participants said they believe businesses should have these sites  Only 4% of participants think social networking harms communication

Key Findings From Questions  100% of participants had social networking sites  96% said social networks help businesses  100% of businesses we interviewed had social networks

Discussion  96% of the findings were similar, businesses should have social networking sites.  “Technology is a growing importance, it needs to be accepted and used.”  “Some people don’t use technology, they must learn in order to succeed.”

Conclusions and Recommendations  Having social networking sites is important for a business.  Most people felt that businesses would profit more.  Advertising on a social networking site is a free public resource.

Works Cited    