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A Research Study Conducted for JOMC 279 Group 3: Missy Fournier, Kaylee Baker, Arlena Ratli ,
Catie King, Tim Patron, and Sterling Cates
Executive Summary
College students are a commonly targeted group for public relations campaigns. As users of new media, organizations often have trouble targeting this sector of the public. In an e ort to discover how this particular audience becomes aware of events, our group focused on students and campus events at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, located in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. Through our study we hope to answer the following two research questions: What publicity method is the most e ective when promoting awareness of events on UNC-CHs campus? What publicity method(s) do college students think is most e ective when promoting awareness of campus events at UNC-CH? We hypothesize that Facebook is the most e ective medium to use in order to increase UNC-CH students awareness of campus events. In an e ort to test this hypothesis, we constructed a 12-question electronic survey that was distributed to a diverse group of UNC-CH students. We disseminated the survey using various tactics, including new media and convenience sampling. We surveyed 105 students, reaching our goal of surveying at least 100 students. Our data showed a discrepancy between UNC-CH students beliefs of the most e ective way to create awareness about campus events and what actually is most e ective when promoting campus events. Our results showed that although Facebook was the third most common reason for attending an event on UNC-CHs campus, survey takers perceived the social network to be more e ective than data showed. In actuality the top three most motivating factors that in uenced UNC-CH students to attend an event was membership in the events organization, friendship with a member of the events organization and thirdly, Facebook. In using our data to make future recommendations for public relations practitioners, we recognize that while social media is a vital way to create awareness about an event, it should be used as a follow-up tool to traditional word of mouth and networking publicity.
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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
LITERATURE REVIEW
Introduction
College often blurs the line between extracurricular and academic activities. For many students, extracurricular activities are just as much a part of the college experience as attending a two-hour lecture or cramming for a nal. College students are constantly bombarded with event invitations from campus organizations and frequently must decide whether or not to attend an event. A recent study reveals that individuals in the United States spend an estimated 36 percent of their time on social networking sites (Swartz). New media has changed the way marketers meet the needs of their consumers. As future public relations practitioners, and more speci cally event promoters, we are interested in understanding how students initially learn about campus events and why they choose to attend them. Through our research, based speci cally on UNC-CH students, we hope to reveal tactics public relations and advertising professionals can implement to cut through the clutter. Our research question is as follows: What publicity method is the most e ective when promoting awareness of events on UNC-CHs campus? People learn about campus events from various sources including Facebook, Twitter, websites, yers, word of mouth, campus organizations or club meetings, campus publications, campaigns, emails, posters, friends, etcetera. Preliminary research and observation suggest that people attend events for reasons such as social grati cation in the form of feeling better about oneself for supporting a cause, wanting to appear positively in the eyes of peers; hoping to socialize with friends or develop new friends; trust in the organizations mission, members, past events, or actions; a relationship with members of the organization whether academically related or otherwise; agreement with the organizations goals or mission; persuasion from an organizations publicity e orts or event attendance mandated by a professors classroom policy. Our hypothesis is as follows: On UNC-CHs campus, Facebook is the most e ective medium to increase awareness of on-campus events. For the purpose of this study,
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an on-campus event will be de ned as an event hosted and publicized by a UNC-CH a liated academic or student organization, professor or class. This de nition excludes athletic events and includes events occurring outside of the greater Chapel Hill area so long as the event meets the above speci cations.
LITERATURE REVIEW
LITERATURE REVIEW
Interactive Facebook pages proved to accrue the highest turnout to events. The ndings of this study suggest that users acceptance of Facebook Event invitations can in uence their actual intentions to attend an event. Another study conducted by a graduate student Meredith Metsker at California State University found that while Facebook is an extremely important tool in getting the word out about campus events, word of mouth marketing is just as e ective. It also found that while an organizations presence on Facebook is important, it does not matter how frequently the organization posts. These ndings seem to contradict the common theory that Facebook event promotion needs to be constant to be e ective. These ndings also seem to indicate that if word of a campus event comes from a trusted source, whether its from a friend in person or on Facebook, it is much more e ective in increasing event attendance (Metsker 68). In his report entitled, Have You Facebooked Astin Lately? analyst Greg Heiberger uses what he calls the Astin Theory to explain the positive relationship between the use of social media, particularly Facebook, and student involvement on college campuses. Heiberger ultimately ties this association to the idea that by creating smaller communities through invitations to campus organizations and events, students become more social and have higher retention rates (Heiberger 25). Comprised of ve elements, The Astin Model is a tool used to evaluate the individual development of college students by considering their use of communication through Facebook (Heiberger 22). The ve pillars in the theory include (Heiberger 22-25): 1. Involvement Requires Physical and Psychological Energy 2. Involvement Occurs Along a Continuum 3. Involvement Has Both Quantitative and Qualitative Features 4. Development is Proportional to Quality and Quantity of Involvement 5. Education E ectiveness is Related to Capacity to Increase Involvement
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Through the application of this theory, Heiberger further explains the data collected from Your First College Year Study, a report compiled of data from 31,500 rst-year students at 114 colleges and universities from all across the United States (Heiberger 33). Heiberger found that 78.1 percent of students who spent more than one hour on Facebook per day were members of at least one student organization compared to 63.3 percent of students who spent less than one hour on Facebook per day (Heiberger 33-35). Heiberger concludes his study by challenging this misconception that students who spend more time on Facebook allocate less time to studying. Heiberger instead resolves that students who engaged in more activity on Facebook do not spend more or less time studying, but that they are more active in their university community (Heiberger 36) . The study, Student Socialization in the Age of Facebook, by Louise Barkhuus and Juliana Tashiro of the University of California, focuses on Facebooks a ect on the o -line world of college students. The article looks at how social structures are created and managed through the social networking site. Among other conclusions, the study found that students use the event function available on Facebook to scheduled social gatherings and special events and that Facebook provides a good platform for casual communication. The reduced pressure and ability to ignore a Facebook message or event allows individuals to communicate freely. Examples of this study are clearly seen throughout UNC-CHs campus. Consider the event invitations used by campus dance groups like Carolina Style, Blank Canvas or Carolina Vibe. Some of these groups, including Carolina Vibe, have a page used to communicate events speci c to its group members and to outside members of the UNC-CH community. Kendra S. Bayne from Georgia State University explores the e ectiveness of social media marketing in relation to attendance by college students to a campus special recreation event. In her study titled, "E ectiveness of Social Media Marketing: An Experimental Inquiry on College Students Awareness of, Interest in, and Intention to Participate in a Campus Recreation Special Event," Bayne primarily focused on
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LITERATURE REVIEW
LITERATURE REVIEW
applications through Twitter and Facebook. Three groups, including Facebook, Twitter, and a Control, were used to track students awareness, intent, and interest of attending a special event. The study used 134 participants and a compilation of surveys. It found that awareness of events increased for students who were updated via tweets and Facebook status updates (Bayne). The study found an increase in intent for student participation for the Facebook group. However, the intention of participation decreased for the Twitter and Control groups. This study is helpful to understanding students responses to certain types of event advertising through social media. The ultimate goal is to determine what makes students more likely to attend certain events and how they are exposed to event information. This study supports our hypothesis through showing the strong correlation to student attendance of campus events and media marketing, particularly through Facebook.
The University of California, San Diego (UCSD) studied the use and e ectiveness of uno cial campus advertising. Examples of such advertising includes posters, banners and stickers posted everywhere throughout campus. The study discusses the importance of making such methods of advertising for certain events e ective by quickly attracting attention and conveying a certain message to the target audience. People should be engaged. By placing thousands of posters and other types of uno cial campus advertising on campus, the study tracked the e ectiveness. The goal of campus advertising is to rst, to gain attention, second, to give information, and third, to get the target audience to do something (i.e. attend an event). The study found that di erent characteristics attract attention from di erent types of people. Important factors include font, color, size and whether or not there is an interactive component. This is an interesting study because it focuses on more traditional methods of communication as opposed to social media.
LITERATURE REVIEW
Conclusion
The aim of our study is to expound upon current Facebook research and explore the various ways people learn about events on a college campus. The high volume of content studying Facebook e ectiveness among student populations on a college campus a ected the construction of our hypothesis. We created the following alternative hypothesis: Facebook is the most e ective medium in increasing awareness of on-campus events at UNC-CH. Our null hypothesis is as follows: Facebook is equally e ective or less e ective in creating awareness than other media. Thus, our hypothesis is one-tailed. A one-tailed test is appropriate because we believe that missing the consequences of an e ect in the untested direction is negligible and in no way irresponsible or unethical. Ultimately, we are seeking insight into the direction of the relationship between our variables. A one-tailed test best suits this intended purpose.
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RESEARCH QUESTIONS
Methodology
As previously stated, this study asks what publicity method is the most e ective when promoting awareness of events on UNC-CHs campus? Our group distributed surveys in an e ort to produce quanti able data to answer this research question. Because our project was part of a class assignment, which provides constraints, surveys were selected as the most appropriate data collection method. We were provided about a week and a half to collect research data with no nancial budget. Our group decided to appeal to students by making the survey convenient for their schedules and daily habits, such as checking email and using the Internet. To do this we created an electronic, 12-question survey. Our survey implemented a variety of questions to produce data. Due to time constraints our group focused on producing questions that provide quantitative data. The decision was based on our short timeframe to interpreting data and a realization that students shy away from lengthy surveys. The survey consisted of 10 nominal and ordinal structured questions and two unstructured questions. The question design ranges from multiple choice/single response, multiple choice/multiple response and ranking answers. Refer to Appendix A to view survey questions. A total of 105 UNC-CH students took the survey. For a more detailed timeline refer to Appendix B. The survey was disseminated via Facebook, Twitter, UNC-CH classes, word of mouth, organization listservs and email. This resulted in snowball sampling. In an attempt to survey a wide range of UNC-CH students with varying ages, sexes, races, class statuses, social realms, and academic majors, our group performed convenience sampling in UNC-CHs Student Union since it is a c ommon gathering place for students.
METHODOLOGY
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INTERPRETATION OF FINDINGS
Interpretation of Findings
After analyzing the data collected from 105 surveys, we accepted our null hypothesis that Facebook is equally e ective or less e ective in creating awareness than other media, and rejected our alternative hypothesis that on UNC-CHs campus, Facebook is the most e ective medium to increase awareness of on-campus events Membership in the events organization, Facebook and email listservs were the top three ways, in order, that people initially learned about the last UNC-CH event they attended. The graph below explains the top ve ways in which people initially heard about the last UNC-CH event they attended:
10% 31% 12% Membership Facebook Listserv 14% Friends w/ Member
Top 5 ways that respondents initially heard about their last attended UNC-CH event
11 22%
Other
On the other hand, the top three most motivating factors that impacted UNC-CH students decisions to attend their last event, in order, were membership in the sponsoring event organization, friendship with a member of the sponsoring event organization and Facebook.
13% 8% 27% Membership Facebook Listserv 19% Friends w/ Member Other 18%
Top 5 most motivating factors in decision to attend last UNC-CH event as indicated by respondents.
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STUDENT
SURVEY RESULTS
NON-STUDENT
ACADEMIC DEPARTMENT CLASS PROFESSOR OTHER
ORGANIZATION
OTHER
FLYER
SPONSOR WEBSITE
LISTSERV PIT PUBLICITY ANOTHER ORGANIZATION FRIEND WHO IS A MEMBER TWITTER MEMBERSHIP FACEBOOK
INITIAL IMPRESSION
OTHER
FLYER
SPONSOR WEBSITE
LISTSERV PIT PUBLICITY ANOTHER ORGANIZATION FRIEND WHO IS A MEMBER TWITTER MEMBERSHIP FACEBOOK
MOTIVATING IMPRESSION
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As stated in our null hypothesis, Facebook is not the top reason for event awareness and attendance, but rather the second most common way of initially hearing about an event and the third most common reason for actually attending an event. These results prove that involvement in an organization and word of mouth are the most e ective publicity skills for promoting UNC-CH students to attend an event. These ndings also correspond with the evidence found in the study conducted at the Clinton Global Initiative University. Researches in this review concluded that word-of -mouth serves as an e ective means of promoting college campus events. While not as prominent as factors such as membership and Facebook, these forms of communication including, friends with members and listserv, consistently ranked in the top ve of both motivating factors and initial discovery of campus events in our study. Friends with members, considered a practice of word-of-mouth, ranked second as a factor in respondents decision to attend their last UNC-CH event. Our results proved that although Facebook was the third most common reason for attending an event, survey takers perceived the social network as having a more e ective result for convincing people to attend UNC-CH events. Survey takers perceived Facebook as the second-most common motivator for attending an event, when in reality it was the third-most common motivator.
AVG: 4.49
INTERPRETATION OF FINDINGS
Membership STD DEV: .85 Facebook STD DEV: .79 Friends w/ Member Twitter Listserv
AVG: 3.81 STD DEV: .94 AVG: 3.36 STD DEV: 1.07 AVG: 3.33 STD DEV: 1.06 AVG: 4.31
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INTERPRETATION OF FINDINGS
We noted that the way in which people initially learn about events and motivating factors for attending those events change throughout students college careers. Our surveys showed that underclassmen, including freshmen and sophomores, initially heard about events via Facebook and email listservs while upperclassmen, including juniors and seniors, initially learned about events due to membership in organizations or their friends membership in organizations. This re ects the UNC-CH trend of less in-depth involvement in campus organizations as an underclassman, and more in-depth involvement with organizations as an upperclassman. Fifty-eight out of 78 times, a UNC-CH students initial impression for learning about a UNC-CH event matched his or her motivating impression for attending that event. In other words, a person was motivated to attend an event because of the medium in which he or she initially heard about the event 70.81 percent of the time. Some of the limitations we encountered when determining data were mainly a result of the short time period we had for researching. When we sent out the survey, the last four weeks of a UNC-CH students life included a week of Spring Break when students were, in general, not attending campus events. Therefore, the data regarding number of events attended in the last four weeks would technically translate to the number of events attended in the last three weeks of class sessions. In addition, the time constraint did not enable us to use a valid sample. As previously stated, we used sampling techniques such as snowball sampling and convenience sampling to gather our survey takers. These participants were mainly females who have been a student at UNC-CH for three years, which does not accurately re ect the demographics of students at UNC-CH. If we were to have more time for this project, we would have attempted to gain validity by performing a simple random sample using the UNC-CH SRS email database, which would have allowed us to send out the survey to a representative sample via email.
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APPLICATION TO PR
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APPLICATION TO PR
For the purpose of this study, it seems as though the most e ective means of communication are those that arent intrusive into the daily lives of the students. Our results prove to be interesting, as membership in the events organization, Facebook and email listservs were the most prevalent source from which UNC-CH students who participated in this study rst heard about the last particular campus event he/she attended. However, these ndings di er from what form of communication convinced the student to actually attend. Instead of Facebook being the top motivator to attend an event, we found that word of mouth forms of communication are most e ective in regards to our study of UNC-CH campus events. Beyond word of mouth, our data showed that Facebook is the next prominent method to promote for events on UNCs campus. The results of this study on attendance of UNC-CH campus events are important to consider in terms of public relations. Especially in todays changing roles of communication, organizations must understand how to e ectively build relationships with their publics. Public relations involve a variety of responsibilities ranging from crisis to communication, media events and public press conferences. Additionally, public relations can also be an e ort to in uence others. In this study, we examine how organizations on campus in uence students to attend events.v
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"Advice from Student Commitment-makers." Clinton Global Initiative University. Clinton Global Initiative Press O ce. Web. 13 Feb. 2012. <http://www.cgiu.org/commitments/commitment_basics/advice_from_commit ment-makers.asp>. Barkhuus, Louise, and Juliana Tashiro "Student Socialization in the Age of Facebook." In Proceedings of the 28th International Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI '10) (2010): 133-142. Web. 12 Feb. 2010. <http://cseweb.ucsd.edu/~barkhuus/barkhuus-chi2010.pdf>. Bayne, Kendra S., "E ectiveness of Social Media Marketing: An Experimental Inquiry on College Students Awareness of, Interest in, and Intention to Participate in a Campus Recreation Special Event" (2011). Kinesiology Theses. Paper 2. http://digitalarchive.gsu.edu/kin_health_theses/2/ Heiberger, Greg, and Ruth Harper. "Have You Facebooked Astin Lately?" 2008. Web. 13 Feb. 2012. <http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/sites/cyber.law.harvard.edu/ les/ Chapter%202%20-%20Facebook%20and%20Student%20Engagement.pdf>. Long Beach State University. California:ProQuest Dissertations and Theses (2011). Web. 14 Feb. 2012. Metsker, Meredith K. "Facebook: A Facilitator of College Student Involvement?" California State University, Long Beach, 2011. United States -- California: ProQuest Dissertations & Theses (PQDT). Web. 14 Feb. 2012. http://search.proquest.com.libproxy.lib.unc.edu/docview/902860102 Namsu Park, Kerk F. Kee, and Sebastin Valenzuela. CyberPsychology & Behavior. December 2009, 12(6): 729-733. doi:10.1089/cpb.2009.0003. Paris, Cody, Woojin Lee, and Paul Seery. "The Role of Social Media in Promoting Special Events: Acceptance of Facebook Events." Information and Communication Technologies in Tourism. (2010): 531-541. Web. 14 Feb. 2012.http://www.springerlink.com/content/lr55p5658u201357/fulltext.pdf>. Swartz, Jon. "Time spent on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube grows." USA Today 01 August 2010, n. pag. Web. 15 Feb. 2012. <http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/2010-08-02-networking02_ST_N.htm>. Weigle, Eric. "A Semiotic Analysis of Uno cial Campus Advertising." (2005): 14 Feb. 2012. <http://scholar.googleusercontent.com/scholar?q= cache:RmNr2MV3ElQJ:scholar.google.com/ e ective event advertising
WORKS CITED
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Survey Questions
How many years have you been a UNC-Chapel Hill student? 1 2 3 4 5 or more What is your sex? Male Female I prefer not to answer How many UNC-Chapel Hill events, or those organized by o cial UNC-CH organization(s), faculty, sta or classes, excluding athletic events and club meetings, have you attended in the last four weeks? None 1 2 3 4 5 6 or more List the name of the last UNC-CH campus event you attended. Which category best describes the individual or group that sponsored the last campus event you attended? UNC-CH student organization UNC-CH organization, not student UNC-CH academic department UNC-CH class UNC-CH professor Other ____________________ What UNC-CH organization, faculty, sta or class sponsored the last event you attended? How did you rst nd out about the last campus event you attended? Facebook Twitter Event sponsor's website Other website Flyer You are involved in the sponsor organization A di erent on-campus organization A friend that is involved in the sponsor organization Campus newspaper Campus magazine
APPENDIX A
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Activities or publicity in the Pit Listserv An o -campus outlet The cubes in the Pit or by the Campus Y Other ____________________ In your opinion, which of these forms of communications most impacted your decision to attend this event? Facebook Twitter Event sponsor's website Other website Flyer You are involved in the sponsor organization A di erent on-campus organization A friend that is involved in the sponsor organization Campus newspaper Campus magazine Activities or publicity in the Pit Listserv An o -campus outlet The cubes in the Pit or by the Campus Y Other ____________________ Please explain your answer for the question above. Please rank the following mediums according to their e ectiveness, one being a poorly e ective medium for publicizing campus events and ve being strongly e ective for publicizing events. ______ Facebook ______ Twitter ______ Event sponsor's website ______ Other website ______ Flyer ______ You are involved in the sponsor organization ______ A di erent on-campus organization ______ A friend that is involved in the sponsor organization ______ Campus newspaper ______ Campus magazine ______ Activities or publicity in the Pit ______ Listserv ______ An o -campus outlet ______ The cubes in the Pit or by the Campus Y ______ Other Please explain your answer for the question above.
APPENDIX A
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MARCH 2012
APPENDIX B
SAT SUN 3 10 17 24 31 4 11 18 25
Survey Created Consult with Professor Distribute Survey Analyze Data and Write Report
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CREDITS
Missy Fournier
Kaylee Baker
Arlena Ratli
Catie King
Tim Patron
Sterling Cates
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