Dear Social Media Diary,

I found Facebook and Twitter to be the most effective tools in getting my survey out to the “masses.” I can’t say that my survey was a wild success. But I did get some positive responses.

What I found to be most interesting was that most of the people who ended up taking the survey are acquaintances of mine. By posting on Facebook, my closest friends were the most likely to see the survey and most likely to help me out by taking it — or so it seemed. Most of my best friends avoided the survey like the plague. It was actually people I hadn’t talked to in years and people who I didn’t believe would ever be interested in taking a survey who clicked the link and followed through. The lesson? People surprise you.

I posted my link on Facebook three times. The first two times, about 10 people took the survey. The third time, almost nobody did.

Then I went to Twitter, and got about five more people to take the survey (this information via Bit.Ly). Then I posted again, but nobody clicked on the link that time around.

Many of the people who follow me on Twitter are strangers, so I wasn’t expecting a big return. Twitter also moves very quickly and with a lot of competition. Unlike Facebook, which allows a few hours or even days for something that is posted to sink in, Twitter demands immediate reaction. Everything has a short shelf-life.

I decided against putting my survey in any online group. Since Facebook and Twitter are my two primary online communities, I believed I would be treated like a spammer if I waded into someone else’s group and posted a random survey. After all, there is a reason there are research groups that pay people to take surveys.

That’s all for tonight, Social Media Diary, but let’s talk again soon, K? K. Gotta go to Smock’s class now. I hope he shows us that picture he took of Kanye West again!

-Tristan