Impacts of Social Media in Organizations

Research Population and Purpose of Study

The population of the study is people working in nonprofit organizations and county department in a six-county area, in South-central New York State. The sample was made of 25 county departments and 168 nonprofit organizations, that is, 17 from funders and 151 from providers (Campbell, Lambright & Wells, 2014). The purpose of the study is to analyze the use of social media in the two organizations. Most specifically, the research evaluates how organizations use social media to market their activities, remain relevant, and raise awareness among the community. Along with that, it seeks to understand how most organizations view the use of social media, as well as any barriers that may prevent them from utilizing the social networks at their disposal.

Research Question

The research seeks to answer the following questions

1. The extent to which nonprofit and public organizations are using social media
2. Why are the organizations using social media and the extent to which they engage stakeholders
3. The vision the two distinct organizations have for the use of social media in the future and some of the barriers they encounter when using social networks.

Independent and Dependent Variables

The independent variable is the use of social media in nonprofit organizations and county departments. The dependent variable is the impact of social media in these organizations. 

Interpret the results of the study.

How are reliability and validity discussed?

The research was designed to assess the use of social media in nonprofit and county department organizations. The assessment tools used was interviews and the sample data analyzed. In this case individual measures on various organizations were displayed reliability in that save for a few cases, the results were highly consistent. Validity in the study was represented by the fact that the findings truly represented the phenomenon that the research sought to investigate the research questions.

Are there limitations?

The study relied on both small and medium-sized organizations. This was one of the study’s limitation as most of the organizations interviewed were relatively small in budget and staff size. This element limited the generalizability of the study to organizations that may have more access to technology and greater use of technology. Besides, generalizability would be impossible when relying on virtual organizations or those that have an extensive use of social media. Another limitation was the data collected which was mostly based in 2011 and 2012 findings, which may not correlate with the current patterns.

Was the research question answered?

Yes. Organizations mostly use social media to market their organizational activities, remain relevant, and increase community awareness about their existence. Regarding the use of social media in the future, the majority of the study population were not confident about its potential. In fact, most of them were still developing their future vision for social media, while others were not bothered. Several barriers to the use of social media were also identified. 

What did the researcher find in the study?

Along with answering the research questions, the researcher findings also highlighted several areas requiring further research in the future, which formed the implications for further study.

Implications for Further Study

The research was limited to the analysis of public and nonprofit organizations offering human services. However, several other characteristics are likely to affect the use of social media in these organizations such as the age of target populations, size of the organization, and accessibility of information technology (Campbell, Lambright & Wells, 2014). Besides,  social media keeps on evolving, and as organizations become comfortable with using it, they are more likely to integrate it into their service delivery. 

ReferencesCampbell, D. A., Lambright, K. T., & Wells, C. J. (2014). Looking for Friends, Fans, and Followers? Social Media Use in Public and Nonprofit Human Services. Public Administration Review, 74(5), pp. 655-663.