INF20011 Mobile Business and Social Media

Social Network Analysis (SNA) Report + Presentation

The main aim of this assignment is to start you thinking about social network analysis. Your first step will be to select a local firm (within Australia) which has active presence on Twitter. Once selected please consult your tutor for approval as your step 2. No two groups should feature the same firm in their analysis.

Step 3 is to understand the firm’s social media footprint. Here each group need to look into how many platforms the selected firm currently exist on (e.g. Facebook, Linkedin, Twitter, Instagram etc). Your team will need to understand how and what each platform is used for and how many accounts the firm has for each platform. This will also include details such as likes, favourites, followers, following etc. For example IBM may have 5 other (peripheral) twitter accounts apart from the main account. Groups will need to make note of each platform and carefully observe/analyse each account and the interactions within to interpret the social media footprint.

Your 4th step will require you to map a SNA on your chosen firm using NodeXL. To do this your group must be conversant with the software and be able to run analysis and interpret the data. It is advised that you run 8-10 analyses on each Twitter account before gathering enough information to write the report. This is because the NodeXL software that you have is the basic version and it have limitations when it comes data import and analysis. Your report should have the following:

1. Firm’s background and social media footprint
2. Agenda for each social media platform and account specific
3. An analysis on chosen account Twitter and the threads within

• What was the SNA based upon (and why)
• Number of network members and their interactions
• Clusters / Groups found
• Key network members

• Nature of interaction (in-degree and out-degree) within clusters and externally as well

The 5th step is to draw a conclusion for the firm from your analysis based on their current SNA mapping.

Once you have completed this component of this assignment you should have a better appreciation of SNA mapping the various critical components approaching social media strategy. This report needs to be analytical with good literature support. It is important to show critical analysis. Do remember that this assignment needs to be delivered in a report format with proper sections (executive summary, introduction, content by sections and conclusion).

The 6th step is to present the findings in class Week 11/12. This 10mins presentation is worth 10% of the final assessment.

Submission Requirements

As part of this assessment the following is required to be submitted:
• Names of all students and their student IDs
• A pdf file (word-processed report) of approximately 2000 words (+/- 10%)
• Combined appendices (all SNA mapping)

You must use the Swinburne Harvard Referencing style throughout your report and include an accurate list of references at the end of the report. You can access the correct style from the library.

1. Pages of the report should have appropriate headers and footers and should include printed page numbers
2. The report should be written in 11-12 point font size and should use no more than 1/1.5 line spacing between each line
3. Please make sure that your final submissions are saved in the pdf file format only.

4. Workload needs to be shared equally among group members.

Please make sure that if conflict occurs it is reported to the tutor immediately. A peer assessment review will be conducted for all teams to resolve the conflict before the final scores are released.

Late assignments will result in a lower grade for the assignment in terms of the University's Extensions and Late Penalties policies.

Any request for extension must be directed to the convener. You must include appropriate supporting documentation such as a doctor's certificate or a letter from your employer. These forms must be scanned and emailed to the convener as soon as possible.

Assignment Draft

Please ensure you take advantage of having your tutor look at a draft of your assignment only once. When doing so it is important to note the following:

1. The draft will represent an initial outline of what you propose to do in your assignment (if the draft resembles a final submission it will not be viewed except to be marked).

2. The tutor will provide general feedback only indicating if you are on the right track. More explicit feedback may be sought by asking specific and detailed questions but the tutor's role is not to correct the draft submission.