Appendix A: Review of Literature
Additional research is found below that includes data over the use of social media among STEM majors, becoming a top competitor in social media and the best type of advertisements to use. This is research founded outside of the analysis and recommendations used for the report.
Social Media, spam encounters, and STEM majors most desired reason of social media:
Experts on social media marketing that target stem majors correlate with how a relationship can be built through networking or therefore the lack of building a relationship. While researching social media and spam, Thomas Kyanko, author of the article: On Factors That Influence User Interactions With Social Media Spam: Empirical Exploration Based On A Survey And Experiment (2017) says “In general respondents reported encountering spam on social media more often than in email” (pg. 17).
Kyanko claims that social media allows for a greater chance of spam to be viewed showing no relationship can be built between the user and the company. Debra Major, Jonathan Holland, and Kurt Oborn complement this article by confirming that STEM majors prefer having a relationship built with the use of proactive personality as they say, “High proactive personality employees establish higher quality exchange relationships with their leaders; such relationships are linked to an increase in organizational citizenship behaviors and job satisfaction.”
According to Major, Holland and Oborn(2012), relationships can be built off of proactive personalities that are present in the workforce to ensure increasing positive behaviors. Together, these authors provide information and research to prove that relationships being built through social media can improve how stem majors work instead of providing some piece of spam via social media where it will most likely get ignored because of the lack of relationship.
Stem Majors Reacting with a Specific Personality to Receive a Better Relationship:
Experts on marketing confirm that opportunities give a way to build a relationship and connect on social media. In writing about how opportunities influence STEM majors, Debra Major, Jonathan Holland, and Kurt Oborn, authors of The Influence of Proactive Personality and coping on Commitment to STEM Majors(2012), says “Results show that proactive personality was positively linked to commitment to STEM majors, indicating that the workplace findings concerning proactive personality are generalizable to an academic setting” (pg. 1). The authors claim that if personalities are proactive, they are more likely to make a commitment because of their major being STEM related.
If an opportunity presents itself, such as marketing for jobs or information about the company, STEM majors will be more involved. Author, Dongni Wang, agrees with the authors above about showing social media opportunities in a way to build relationships as he says “women engineers use social media mostly for information exchanging and maintaining pre-existing relationships” (pg. 1). Wang claims that if there is already a relationship built from previous experience or opportunity, they will keep in touch via social media. It is obvious that these authors are complementing one another’s work by confirming that if opportunities arise STEM majors will commit to them and have a relationship form that can be followed up with social media
Interacting with customers to become a top competitor using social media:
While researching how companies become a top competitor on social media, Asta Black, author of the article: How Researchers Use Social Media to Promote their Research and Network with Industry (2017) says, “An organization can be present in social media at different levels: as individuals, teams, projects/topics, and as the whole organization. However, given that social media is person-centric, it gives users the opportunity of "personal branding" - the distinctive presentation of a person's character and capacity.” By being active and constantly updating and advertising the social page, steps are being taken to become a top competitor.
The unknown author of the second source compliments this by stating, “it’s all about interaction and conversation. They will come to your page with questions, concerns, and reviews.” According to this guest author, by interacting with customers via social platforms, this can go a long way towards creating a loyal customer and securing repeat business. These authors provide helpful information on ways to maintain your social platforms and become a top competitor using your social platforms.
By monitoring competitors social media platforms, the more your company will succeed :
Dakota Shane, author of Social Media Is Getting More Competitive By the Day - Here's How to Stay Ahead, states that (2017), "For companies and creators of all kinds, social media used to be a bonus — a leg up on the competition — today, being active on social media is nothing more than a prerequisite." This indicates that in order to even want to become a top competitor with other companies, being active on social media is an absolute must.
James Guard, author of Competitor Analysis For Social Media Strategies (2018), compliments this by stating, "It’s important to know what other organizations in your market are doing on social media, to give you context for the current role social plays in customer communication. The aim of competitor analysis is to learn from the state of play and identify strategic opportunities." This indicates that you need to stay up to date on what other competitors are doing, and try to stay a leg up on them.
Paid Recruiting Advertising is More Successful:
When it comes to social media recruiting, organic vs paid recruitment strategies are what companies lean on to connect to potential employees. Amber Gort, the author of an academic journal and also an expert in employee relations, said that " Social recruiting has proven to be beneficial for both the recruiter and the candidate, as it is a resource for both parties to learn more about each other" (pg. 8). So creating a relationship with these possible employees online is not only cost effective but it is beneficial for recruiting for jobs. Steve Pearson, CEO of Friendemic, says in an article about organic vs paid social media marketing that "59% of social media marketers say a paid approach is most effective" (pg. 1).
A research study from Kenshoo social agrees with Pearson saying that "organic posting is the most popular social media tactic, but paid advertising is the most successful" (pg. 1). Paid advertising for job opportunities is shown by these studies to get more attention and get better results in job applications. Both of these articles and authors agree that paid advertising is the best way to gain attention to their companies and the best way to recruit possible candidates and that there is a cost effective way to do this.
Paid vs Organic Recruiting Strategies:
Experts that research the type of social media that best reaches out and connects to possible employees for business recruiting have proved that the best recruiting techniques involve social media applications that focus on creating relationships with people. Hilde Voorveld, the author of an academic journal on expert advertising, explains these relationships through social media by saying "consumers' engagement with social media platforms drives engagement".
This shows that through people's engagement with companies on social media websites is a superior method of outreach compared to paying for advertisements on social media.
Shahid Wazed, an author of another academic journal that was published over expert social media recruitment, says that " employers actively engage with students to enhance their employer brand". This agrees with Voorheld in the idea that building personal relationships and reaching out is the best way to recruit people to their businesses when compared to just paying for and displaying advertisements. Both of these authors conclude that it is important to build relationships with possible employees.