My Research Questions:
Being involved in communications and marketing for collegiate teams at the University of Richmond, I understand the every-changing and evolving realm of social media in collegiate athletics. This topic is fascinating because I believe there are so many different audiences that consume social media of a particular team, school, conference, etc. Is it family members, potential recruits, current student-athletes, alumni, etc. I am going to focus on schools in the Atlantic 10 to narrow the field.
- Who is consuming/following Atlantic 10 Conference teams on three platforms (Twitter, Instagram and Facebook? (current student-athletes, alumni, prospective student-athletes)
- Which social media platform does best in the Atlantic 10 in terms of followers, engagements and views?
- What type of content is being viewed the most and how has that changed over the past three years?
- How does the Atlantic 10 schools compare to schools in similar conferences across the country?
My Audience
Those who will be interested in this research will be colleagues at the University of Richmond, in the Atlantic 10 Conference and similar sized schools with similar level athletic teams across the country. Additionally, this information will be interesting to coaches of all teams at the University of Richmond since social media has become a lifeblood for programs in terms of recruitment, communications and public relations. Finally, with the Name, Image and Likeness (NIL) ruling for student-athletes, this would be interesting research for our student-athletes and student-athletes in the Atlantic 10. With the NIL, social media brand building for student-athletes is at an all-time high. Knowing more about social media consumption and where to focus investment, will help our student-athletes understand where the investment needs or should go to receive the greatest return.
So What?
Almost everyone in our country uses social media and it continues to grow daily. There are entire departments on college campuses dedicated to social media. The ability to know how it is consumed and by who will pay dividends to schools, teams, staff and student-athletes. Social media has a part in every aspect of American lives and it continues to grow in the collegiate realm. There has been research done on the highest levels of professional sports and top NCAA programs, but not much has been done about the impact at schools on the level of the Atlantic 10 Conference.
You will not be surprised at my recommendation to narrow significantly your approach. I want to be sure you’re able to develop a research question that’s sufficiently academic while practically applicable. The heart of your investigation appears to be whether social media has a positive or negative impact on student athletics. Rather than focusing simply on metrics (e.g., number of visits, engagements, and the like), your study seems to seek a qualitative results: What attitudes about social media do various stakeholders have? What impact does social media have on the lived experiences of student athletes? These might be questions you could consider taking up and working toward your project. I want to be sure you’re asking questions that you can developing practical approaches to address, but that engage in more than “market research” (which, from my perspective, can be deep and attitude-driven, too, but based on business statistics rather than humanistic or social scientific methodologies). I’m especially drawn to your interest in understanding the impact of the NIL rule as it relates to social media, and I think a question that focuses on impact (something that will have to more clearly defined, of course) might be a useful starting point for that inquiry.
Thank you for the feedback and I have known I need to narrow the scope of the questions after our discussions in class. I have adjusted the questions with some of your feedback and let me know if this is narrow enough?
• What impact does official social media channels at a school, impact current student-athletes?
* How will the NCAA NIL rule impact student-athletes’ need for social media?
These are two of the more interesting questions but not sure if I need to focus on one only or if there is a correlation between the two that make sense to have both together.