Exploring Student Perceptions and Usage of Social Media: A Marketing Research Study

Preparing for Your Focus Group

Scenario: Our consulting group has been hired by the Okanagan School of Business (OSB) to explore student perceptions, expectations, and usage of social media tools, such as Facebook and Twitter. Specifically, the OSB wants to understand students’ expectations related to the OSB’s use of social media, in addition to learning more about how students use, or would like to use, social media for communicating and collaborating with their school friends, peers, and faculty. Some possible questions include: What social software tools do students use most frequently? What features of these social software tools are important to students? Do students see any educational benefits in using these tools at college? Do students expect their professors to "friend" them on Facebook/LinkedIn? Should the OSB have a "Fan" page on Facebook? If so, would you join? Should school resources for creating and managing social media profiles be allocated to OSB groups, such as Enactus and other clubs? Do you believe that new or prospective students would expect the OSB (including professors) to have a Facebook, LinkedIn, or Twitter profile? The primary question faced by the OSB is to determine whether it is important to foster a social media presence. If so, in what form (e.g., which tools) should this presence take place, in order to meet the needs of prospective and existing students, professors, and the administration? Before investing more time and money into discussing this issue, the OSB has asked you to clarify the potential pitfalls, challenges, and opportunities associated with engaging prospective, new, and existing students through social media, both inside and outside of the classroom. Part A: Preparing for Your Focus Group What is the management problem and the marketing research problem faced by the Okanagan School of Business? Define your target market or population that has the information you need. Conduct secondary data research to gain some background expertise and perspective. What are the issues, concerns, challenges, and opportunities faced by other institutions interested in adopting social media? Provide references and citations for the information you collect. Write down your research purpose or questions, with numbered research objectives. Prepare some initial comments for introducing your group, the issues to be discussed, the rules of engagement, confidentiality, audio/video recording, and other general information. Write down some general and specific questions that you will ask your focus group. Write down your concluding comments that you can use to summarize the session.   Part B: Conducting the