Effective Internet Research

[olivertan1997-blog]

Video Curation

Selected website:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KJfdj-IPVBg

Website accessed on:

27 July 2016

Currency

The video was posted on YouTube, a well-known video sharing website, on 17 January 2013. The video has an age of about 3 years old.

Relevance

This is a video of social media marketing plan. The video includes 10 steps to setup social media marketing. The following screenshots shows some of the 10 step and relevant information to take note of when setting up social media marketing.

How long it would take? OR time frame?

Goals to be achieved.

Step 1:

Step 2:

Step 3:

Therefore, this video is relevant to social media marketing as it gives me a rough idea and information such as how long I should expect the process in setting up social media marketing and what are the goals to achieve success in social media marketing.

Authority

The authority of this website belongs to John Wiley & Sons, Inc. It is a legitimate organisation that made a video of the topic, social media marketing plan. Therefore, reliability of the contents in the video is very high as it is from a reputable organisation.

Purpose

The purpose of the video is to give tips to people who are new to social media marketing. It is used to also serve as guidelines for reference purposes to achieve better results from social media marketing.

Recommended? if so why?

Yes, I would recommend the video. The main reasons are: the video is highly likely to be reliable according to the author’s reputation being placed in the line and the information such as goals and guide points are highly relevant to the video topic.

[olivertan1997-blog]

News Curation

Selected website:

http://www.lexisnexis.com.ezproxy.tp.edu.sg/hottopics/lnacademic/

Website accessed on:

20 July 2016

Currency

The news was posted on February 20, 2012. It has been more than 4 years since the post was put online.

Relevance

The news is relevant to my research topic of “Social Media Marketing Plan”. As the news tells me about information about social media marketing. Such as, “What is social media marketing?”, “ How can my small business compete on social media with the likes of Starbucks, who have large, widespread campaigns? “ and “ What is the one most important thing I should remember when starting a social media marketing campaign?”. Hence, these points are relevant to marketing in social media and so, the suggested ways to carry out social media marketing will have some form of success. Therefore, the news is useful.

Authority

The authority of the news belongs to Corinn Hilbert, president of Crystal Lake-area based Be XSible LLC and instructor of Harper College's social media marketing certificate program. As the author of the news is known and reputable, the contents of the news is likely to be reliable.

Purpose

The purpose of this news by Corinn Hilbert is to explain social media marketing and how a focused plan can help a business achieve its goals.

Recommended? if so why?

I would recommend this news for social media marketing plan. It is because the information on the news  had told me some things that I didn’t know about social media marketing. Such as “...the most important it would be identifying the right audience, your Target Market. Many businesses believe everyone is their potential customer. And although that could be true, it rarely is.” Although it is not very current as it was a post from 4 years ago, and social media has been ever changing, but the contents of the news are still applicable to current social medias.

[olivertan1997-blog]

Website Curation

Selected website:

http://marketingland.com/

Website accessed on:

13 July  2016

Currency

The website is kept up to date because one of the latest post was on 11 July 2016.

Relevance

This website is relevant to my research topic as it includes the different tabs on  what are the possible marketable categories. Such as Social, mobile and  retail. Inside the social media marketing tab, under “HOW TO GUIDES: SOCIAL  MEDIA”, there is an article named “10 ways to increase your social media engagement like never before” by Jordan Kasteler. Through some of these ways such as the following: 

1. “Know why your audience is on social media.” 

2. “Know what your audience does away from social media.”

3. “Be funny.”

A social media serve to capture online users’ attention and gain reputation through it. And through word of mouth, it makes social media marketing successful as more people know about what you are marketing.

Hence, this article is relevant to social media marketing.

Authority 

This website has appropriate authorities as this can be seen under  "staff" of Marketingland, the main editor or editor-in-chief is a person called Matt McGee. He experience in marketing for more than 15 years. And he works with 16 other staffs in managing the website.

Purpose

The purpose of this website is to feature articles on marketing topics and share  with online users who wish to find out more about soci

Recommended? if so why?

Yes, I would recommend the website. The news in the website are very relevant and kept up-to-date. Using these sources of information from the news articles on this website would have a higher level of reliability or credibility as the authorities are defined in the website.

[olivertan1997-blog]

Social Marketing Plan 4

To compare the search experience of using both Google and Library’s Database, I have come up with 3 factors. They are: search speed, search accuracy and search guidance.

Firstly, search speed. Both Google and Library’s Database executes my searches very quickly, within less than 5 seconds. However, I find that using Google to search for information is more more convenient because Google need not have an account to be able to access to the information available from the search results. For example, when I was using Library’s Database, I have to login as a student of TP and requires me to be within campus otherwise via virtual private network hence the conveniences it has brought to me.

Next, search accuracy. I would say both Google and Library’s Database has similar accuracy in my search. But I would say that Google is better because there are more results available on Google compared to Library’s Database, this means the likelihood of me finding what I want is higher compared to the limited search results by Library’s Database. For example, when I want to search for my research topic, before I reach my search results, the information that I want to find has already gone through multiple layers of filter such as the one from “Journal & magazine articles” & “ProQuest Business Science & Sociology”.

Finally, search guidance. Both Google and Library’s Database provides search guidance by having search options. To compare, Google has a clear sets of search options but not as specific search options as Library’s search options. On the other hand, Library’s Database has a more sophisticated approach to search for what I want to find out. An example of the Library’s Database with sophisticated approach to search is the first step of how the resources are categorized then moving on to what type of information that I am looking for before entering what I am looking for into the search bar with options to set.

To conclude, from this comparison, I have found that both ways of searches has both their advantage and disadvantages. Google’s advantage to search for my research topic is having more search results, fast and easy to use. While Library’s Database’s advantage is specific results and specified search options. Disadvantages of Google are not all search results are relevant and not specified search options. And disadvantages of Library’s Database are takes a longer time to find what you want due to sophisticated search function and less results. Therefore, if I want to look for general information otherwise multiple sources, I would choose Google. If I want to look for specific information, I would choose Library’s Database as it gives a much more in depth or accurate search result.

[olivertan1997-blog]

Social Media Marketing Plan 3

When I entered into Temasek Polytechnic’s online library website, I clicked on “databases by content type”, under “E-resources”. This link redirected me to the page where I can choose from the different categories of online resources by TP library as shown below.

Then, I selected “Journals & magazine articles” which shows me a list of options of categories of resource that I would like to look for. In this section or list, I selected “ProQuest Business, Science, & Sociology” as my research topic is very relevant to the category “Business”. Hence, I was redirected to the page as shown below.

On that page, the search titles on top of the page captured my attention the most. Especially the search title that says “Databases (3)”. So I decided to try it out. I have also clicked on the “ProQuest Entrepreneurship” database because within the description box below it says that it includes “... market data, books, templates, plans ...”. It brought me to the page as shown in the image below.

Now, I felt that my search category has been selected, I decide to start my search using the advanced search to give narrow search results. As the image below shows the following.

In this Advanced Search, I was prompted the “or” and “and” search function in my search bar, along with where the area of search I want it to be executed. Right below the search bar, there were options for me to select the publication date but I was not interested in it.  Moreover, the Advanced Search also includes the “More search options” function to allow me to include more specific details with regards to my search area. In there, they included company, NAICS code, classification code, location and person details. But none of these are within my knowledge so I ignored them. Next, I was able to choose from the source type, document type, language type and market segment. As “market segment” is part of my research topic, I have unintentionally found some idea of what it is. While my interest was on document type, I selected “Business Plan” because it is relevant to my research topic. Moving on, they also included how I want the search results to be displayed to me. However, these are not to my interest so I left them out and I clicked search after I used “online marketing or social media marketing”. The image below was my search result.

There were 242 results found. As I scroll down to look for the highlighted descriptions, there were more relevant sources. But I felt that the search could have been narrower. Because not all the results were related to my research topic. So I added in my search option “Abstract - AB” which further narrowed down to 124 results. Now, the highlighted descriptions are much closer to my expectations or more relevant to my research topic as more sources with descriptions that revolves around “marketing” and “media” as shown below in the image.

Therefore, I conclude that doing my research over Library’s Database is much more complex and more of a hassle due to the numerous settings to be selected before getting the search results. Although there were fewer results, but the sources are similar to Google’s search whereby some sources are what you are looking for while others are not. In addition, the search speed was comparable to Google’s as it took me less than 5 seconds before getting my search results.

[olivertan1997-blog]

Social Media Marketing Plan 2

Firstly, I searched on Google using the search option: “all” for “marketing plan”, “target segment”, “ways to market product” and “social media marketing”. Then, I selected a search tool called “verbatim” under “all results”.

For the first item I searched was marketing plan. Without using the search tools, this was my result:

As we can see from these 2 screenshots taken from the first page of my search, on the first screenshot, there are advertisements, Wikipedia information and templates on marketing plan. While on the second screenshot, we can see there are images, website of guides or how to create a marketing plan, templates as well and also news on marketing plan.

Then, I went on to search on Google using the option “all” but this time I selected “verbatim” under “all results” in search tools by Google. According to the definition by Google, I’ve found that “verbatim” allows me to proceed with my search terms in exactly the same words as I used originally. Thus, I predict that the results will be more relevant to what I desired on guides or how to create a marketing plan. And this was the result I was given taken from the first page as well:

As we can see from these 2 screenshots, on the first screenshot, there are advertisements as well but there are more templates or guides to create a marketing plan compared to Wikipedia information of marketing plan. While on the second screenshot, there are no images on marketing plan but again there are more websites on guides or templates to create a marketing plan. In addition, there is a section that tells me what “people also ask” such as what is a marketing plan?, what should be included in a marketing plan? and what is the purpose of a marketing plan? As expected, the result after I used “verbatim” has provided me with more guide or how to create a marketing plan, hence its more relevant and useful for my research work.

To conclude or evaluate the effectiveness of using Google for my research, I feel that Google is very suitable for my research topics especially when my topics are considered to be general, where I just need information on how I should do my things. Also, especially when I used the search tool “verbatim”, it really better helped me in giving me the results that I most wanted to see such as for marketing plan, I needed the guides or templates to create a marketing plan, verbatim narrows my search and shows better and more results of how to create a marketing plan.

[olivertan1997-blog]

Social Media Marketing Plan

I am to create a social media marketing plan IT store online.

So, first, I need to know the following. What is a marketing plan?  Who is our target segment? Why market in social media? How to market the IT products? How to attract or capture people’s attention on social media? 

Then, I will be using these search terms to find the answers to my questions: “Marketing plan”, “Target segment”, “Ways to market product” and “Social media marketing”.