These are the questions that I have sent out to various senior business communicators; where their answers deem necessary I will follow up with further questions.
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Questions for Business Communicators
Thank you very much for agreeing to take part in my Doctoral research. I will be sending a separate University form that requires your signature, if you can send me your postal address, please.
Questions
Background
What’s your background regarding business communication? How long have you been in the field and what sort of activities, prior to social media, have you been engaged in?
Social media
When did you first come across the term (one of many) “social media” and what was your view of it at first?
Do you see any value for an organisation to engage in the social media environment? If so, when did you first come to that point of view and why?
Have you noticed any similarities between social media as a communication channel (or set of channels) and other, more traditional communication channels?
Conversely, have you noticed any differences?
Experiences
What have been the positive experiences you have enjoyed with social media: personally, professionally and on behalf of your clients/employer?
Conversely, what negative experiences have you encountered and how have you dealt with them?
Measurement
Do you measure your social media activities on behalf of your clients/employer? If so, what factors do you measure?
What results have you had, and have you had any surprises (positive or negative?)
Is measurement an important part of your overall social media activity, or does it only play a small role?
Strategy
Are you aware that there are strategic models for considering and rolling out social media initiatives? Is there a strategic model that you follow?
Do you follow a set process for rolling out social media initiatives?
Where does social media currently fit as part of your overall communication mix? Are there plans to scale back or increase the level of social media activities?
ROI
In the past, how have you argued for resources/budget for social media activities? Are you still having to argue for resources for your initiatives? What sort of arguments are you using to have funds/resources allocated/approved?
Where your requests for funding/resources have been denied, what do you think you could have done differently to increase your chance of funding success?
What ‘wins’ have you had against the sceptics who said that social media was a ‘waste of time’?
The future
Where do you believe your social media strategy be in 3-5 years time?
Do you foresee a decrease in the use of other communication channels?
Do you foresee an increase in the provision of resources for social media initiatives?
Thank you for taking the time to complete this survey.
If it is ok with you, I may ask you some further questions at a later date, depending on the answers you have kindly given me here.
Lee Hopkins
Doctoral Candidate
School of Communication
University of South Australia
St Bernard’s Road
Magill 5072
South Australia
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