There is a growing body of research on social networks, including studies that focus on how social networks are used on different platforms, how users move between platforms, and how platforms are integrated into the overall media diet of users.
A study by the Pew Research Center found that social networks are used by most Americans. The study found that 62% of Americans use social networks, and that use is increasing. The study also found that social media platforms are used for various activities, including staying in touch with friends and family, getting news and information, and connecting with others who share their interests.
A study by the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism found that social networks are an important news source for people in the UK. The study found that 43% of people in the UK get news on social media and that Facebook is the most popular social media platform for news.
Below we list the five main advantages and disadvantages of cross-platform social media studies.
Advantages:
- Cross-platform social media studies provide a comprehensive and more accurate picture of user behavior than a single-platform study.
- Cross-platform studies can help identify correlations between different platforms, allowing researchers to draw more accurate conclusions about user behavior.
- Cross-platform studies can provide information on how different social media platforms interact with each other and how users interact with them.
- Cross-platform studies can be used to compare different types of users. This can be beneficial for marketers who need to understand how different target audiences use different social media platforms.
- Cross-platform studies can also reveal trends in the use of social networks that can be used to inform marketing decisions.
Disadvantages:
- Cross-platform studies are more expensive and time-consuming than single-platform studies.
- Cross-platform studies require a greater degree of expertise from researchers.
- Cross-platform studies can be more difficult to interpret than single-platform studies, as they involve more data points and more variables.
- Cross-platform studies can be more difficult to replicate, as different platforms have different data sets and metrics.
- Cross-platform studies can be more difficult to generalize as different platforms have different users.
Aldous, K, An, J, and Jansen, B. J. (2022) Measuring 9 emotions of news posts from 8 news organizations across 4 social media platforms for 8 months. ACM Transactions on Social Computing. 4(4), Article 15.
Aldous, K, An, J, and Jansen, B. J. (2022) What Really Matters?: Characterizing and Predicting User Engagement of News Postings Using Multiple Platforms, Sentiments, and Topics. Behaviour & Information Technology. https://doi.org/10.1080/0144929X.2022.2030798