With the tremendous growth of social media in public relations, using research and insights to guide decision-making and strategy relating to social media has never been as important as it is today. Along with the increase of social media research, more organizations are making their research publicly available. Similarly, colleges and universities are adopting open access policies allowing research to be freely accessible and disseminated. Allowing research to be publicly available at no cost is a win-win for practitioners and academics.
With the public availability of many research studies, public relations professionals should be familiar with the latest studies that benefit both their organization and the profession, and share them with a larger audience. Using research to understand and target stakeholders saves time and money.
Thanks to the availability of these studies, we, as research editors of the Social Science for Social Media Research at the Institute for Public Relations, have identified the top 9 social media research reports by companies, firms, and individuals for the first half of 2013. The criteria we used for selection of these studies were the rigor of the methodology, robustness of the sample, key findings, and its benefit to professionals.
Make sure to review the list and let us know what you think about the studies we selected. Plus, help us select the tenth social media research study by nominating a study published in 2013.
Dr. Marcia W. DiStaso is a Research Editor for the IPR Social Media Research Center, a Senior Research Fellow for the Arthur W. Page Center, and an Assistant Professor of Public Relations at Pennsylvania State University.
Dr. Tina McCorkindale is an Associate Professor at Appalachian State University, a Research Editor for the IPR Social Media Research Center, and Chair of PRSA’s Educators Academy.
