The survey I created was two-fold: to learn how people in search of careers kept abreast of new developments and skills in their field and which tool was the most useful. Interesting that we were instructed to use social media to gain responses on our surveys because the survey I had was, in part, about social media.

Of the choices I provided as tools used to either network for business, learn about opportunities and new developments, Facebook was overwhelmingly the most popular platform. About 18 people as a tool that they used to “keep up to date with developments” in their career. I also gained the most respondents from Facebook, albeit the majority of them seeking survey responses themselves.

I also used Twitter to some degree but relied on a smaller base of followers, whereas Facebook provided me with at least 200 friends, family and colleagues from which to draw. I used Tumblr as well, but seeing as how my followers there are largely anonymous, I received no responses there.

Getting people to respond via Facebook was challenging still, despite being the sole platform that provided me with respondents. A large portion of the respondents were from the class or from CUNY, though I was also interested in past coworkers and other friends who are underemployed or seeking other work. I tagged friends in a note and also sent out a status to various groups.

Looking back on the survey now, I notice several things I’d like to change. I’d like to add Linked In as an option on the different social media tools. I also noticed that I repeated the last question, whereas I could have asked why people use social media to keep up with their field.