A study of the cultural environment of social media

Over the past several years, social media has emerged to redefine the way people communicate. A new communications environment was formed during this process. Language, communication style and power distribution have changed in this new environment. New ideas, activities and norms form a new kind of culture that is unique to social media. The researcher used both quantitative and qualitative research methods to analyze the tweets of the top10 brands on Twitter ranked by the social media analytics platform SocialBakers. By digging deep into the cultural roots of identified patterns, the researcher mapped out the cultural environment of social media and made recommendations on how companies should communicate and interact with audiences on social media. How do the top 10 most-followed brands manage their Twitter accounts? Does content creation work? If so, what kind of content is well received? What do brands compete for on social media: the number of followers or level of engagement? Why does BlackBerry still thrive in the social media environment? Why following-back is proper etiquette? Questions like those will be addressed.