Jour615 Social Media in Strategic Communication

Professor Hyunjin Seo

Guidelines for Social Media Analytics Assignment

(March Madness 2013)

Deadline: Tuesday, April 16th (Email me your assignment before class begins)

Length: 3-5 pages including graphics (double-spaced, 12-point font, with 1-1.15 inch margin on all sides)

Purpose: The purpose of this assignment is to help students become more familiar with social media monitoring and analytics by applying concepts and tools discussed in class to a real-world topic.

Overview: Suppose you are a member of the social media team at the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA). You are asked to monitor and analyze Twitter buzz on March Madness 2013. Your boss asked you to write a summary report discussing trending topics, influencers and sentiment. You will use both Radian6 and Topsy for this assignment. We will discuss features of Topsy after spring break.

Your report should include the following components.

1. Please list all the keywords you used and explain why you chose those keywords.

2. Identify trending topics by using conversation cloud analysis. Discuss why and how those topic become trending. Include a screen shot of your main conversation cloud analysis and topic trend analysis.

3. Identify influencers for the conversation. Explain the metrics used in identifying influencers. Include a screen shot of your influencer analysis result.

4. Summarize sentiment of those trending topics.

5. Discuss what were the main differences you learned between Radian6 and Topsy in doing this analysis. Which do you think is more effective and why?