Frequently asked questions about 'School of Social Media'

Q. What is your project about, exactly?

Ans. Through this project, our aim is to study the common trends and patterns of usage of social media among Indian youth. As we have seen in recent times, be it political parties or big and small brands everybody has been trying to reach out to the mass through this new platform. Every political party, every consumer brand now have a clear, separate social media strategy, some of them even has separate (and well-funded) social media wings.

Since everybody is trying to play catch-on, the question arises whether it is worth it? Is the social media really influencing opinions? Is it really effective in brand-building, more effective than traditional means?

Through this project we aim to study just that, ‘The Impacts of Social media’. Whether ‘Likes’ turn into votes? Whether ‘shares & retweets’ mean more sales on the ground?

To what extents the Indian youth relying on the content available on social media when formulating their opinion about brands, issues & leaders?

First, our aim is to study the patterns and trends prevalent among the Indian youth and then analyze the impact of these trends.

Q. How is your project innovative and unique?

Ans. The project aims to map the online activities of Indian youth on pan-Indian as well as regional basis, and then find the common as well as contrasting trends and patterns. The study would enable us to evaluate the on-ground impact of social media. This approach is unique in a sense that it would lead to a better and far-more balanced analysis of social media usage & its impacts since we are also focusing on regional variations and regional trends.

Q. What are your sources?

Ans. We have so far included secondary as well as primary sources and intend to base this study on primary sources.

Q. Social media is also responsible for the negative impacts on the youth, how do you see that?

A. In our study, we are only concerned with the trends, patterns and impacts. We are not making assumptions or judgments, the study is solely dedicated to facts and analysis whether it is negative or positive is not for us to judge.

Q. How relevant is your project?

Ans. In the age of Twitter, Facebook and millions other Social networking sites, the notion of relevancy for the impacts of these sites on people in general is quite apparent. When a national level politician spends fairly large amount (500 crores to be precise) to build his image on SNS’s, the first question which pops up is, ‘is it worth it?’ The project is dedicated to this question.