Catherine Wiedman, Dakota Stroup, McFarland Murph

Dr. Finney
Critical Media Studies
4 May 2015

Final Project: Survey Group

Results:
For our survey group we had the task of developing survey questions related to
the City of Bristols social media sites. Some of the questions included whether
respondents use social media, how often they use their social media, awareness of
Bristols social media sites, and how they found out about each of Bristols social media
sites. We conducted this research by handing out surveys to Bristol residents, making
phone calls, and creating online surveys so that residents could respond online. By
doing our research like this we hoped to get as much feedback as possible so that we
could help the City figure out how they can get more views on the social media sites.
After conducting the research, my classmates and I were able to get some good feedback
from the residents. With this, we were able to analyze the data, develop percentages and
display the data. Asking these questions helped us analyze the residents thoughts on
Bristols social media page, while recording data as well.
After analyzing the data we have drawn out some relevant statistical results on
Bristols social media sites. The first question we analyzed was whether they use social
media. Out of 74 respondents, 95% of them said yes while only 5% said no. After

analyzing the social media usage of Bristol residents, we then calculated the data for the
type of social media they used. After analyzing the data we found out that a majority of
the responses from Bristols residents thought the Facebook platform was the most
popular at 41%, followed by Twitter at 32%, Instagram at 23%, and lastly other social
media sites at 3%. The next question we analyzed dealt with the residents awareness of
Bristols social media sites. Throughout careful observation we found out that 48% of
Bristols residents knew about Bristols Facebook page, 15% of Bristol residents knew
about the Twitter page, about 5% knew about the Instagram page, and 32% of Bristol
residents were not aware of any of the social media sites Bristol had. After analyzing the
questions based on the residents awareness of the social media sites, we began to
calculate the data on how people found out about the different social media sites Bristol
had. When we observed how the residents of Bristol found out about the Facebook
page, we saw that 39% of Bristol residents were not aware of the Facebook site, whereas
36% of residents found out about the social media site using online sources. For the
Instagram page 87% of residents from Bristol said that they were not aware of the site
with only 4% of the residents saying they found out from an online source. Finally we
looked over the data for how people found out about the Twitter page. After close
revision we came to the understanding that 89% of Bristols residents did not know
about the page and that there were only 4% of Bristol residents who aware of the
website, who found out from their friends or family. Moving forward in our research we
began to focus on whether people have previously visited the website or not. After finally
calculating the data we found that out of 71 people 76% said they had visited the website,

with only 23% of the residents saying they have not. The last question my classmates
and I analyzed dealt with the layout and whether it captures the residents of Bristol
attention. During our thorough evaluation we came to the conclusion that out of 54
residents that 37% of the residents said that the layout was somewhat effective, 33% said
that it was effective and 30% said that the website was not effective at all.
The data shown helps understand why Bristols social media sites are not getting
enough views and what people feel about the websites in general. Asking research
questions such as these will help us figure out whats going on with Bristols website and
social media and determine our thoughts on how we can make it better.

Discussion:
When brainstorming about our survey, we faced the difficult task of deciding how
many questions to ask. We needed to weigh convenience against quantity in order to
strike a balance. We knew we could not ask every question for which we wanted
answers, but we also needed to ensure that we had solid data. Ultimately, we decided
upon 26 questions that most effectively covered the information we needed for our
study.
The majority of the survey focused on specific questions about the City of Bristols
website and social media. Most of these questions either asked how often respondents
interacted with these sites or what they thought of certain aspects of them. The
opinion-based questions were answered on a scale of 1 to 5 so we could easily analyze
the data and draw conclusions.

Social Media:
Our results showed a few interesting statistics about social media users. While a
huge majority of respondents do use social media (95%), a large minority of them (32%)
were not aware of the Citys social media pages. Facebook was by far the most
well-known with 48%, but Twitter and Instagram trailed far behind with only 15% and
5%, respectively. Although our questions did not give indications as to why these social
media sites are not getting attention, we do know how often people engage with these
social media. According to our results, respondents have only engaged with the
Facebook, Twitter and Instagram pages occasionally over the past year (an average
response of 2.96, 2.77 and 2.70, respectively, on a scale of 1 to 5).
Website:
Our research on the City of Bristols showed some helpful findings as well. We
found that 77% percent of respondents had visited the website before taking our survey.
However, only a small percentage visited the website once a week, and none visited
more than once a week. Regarding the websites layout, responses were evenly
distributed across the scale from very unsatisfied to very satisfied. Most respondents
found the website to be somewhat informative to very informative regarding the City of
Bristol. Most respondents were at least somewhat satisfied with the website overall.
Limitations:
This project saw its share of issues and limitations. The major source of concern
was simply getting people to take our survey. In order to have an accurate
representation of Bristols population, we needed 267 respondents to our survey.

Unfortunately, we only had 74 responses in total. Our numbers were greatly hindered by
the fact that we had little direct access to the City of Bristol. Due to time constraints and
group scheduling issues, we were unable to survey people as often as preferred.
Additionally, our phone call surveys were unreliable and inefficient. Another issue we
faced was deciding what data was relevant and which questions needed to be asked.
Practically, we knew we could not have a 100-question survey because respondents
would not take the time to complete it thoroughly or accurately. We were forced to
sacrifice some important questions for the sake of conciseness. Overall, we believe our
survey was relatively successful in providing a glimpse at the population's opinions of
Bristols social media and website. More importantly, we were able to gain useful
knowledge and skills from the experience.
Recommendations:
Having analyzed our results and coordinated them into pie charts from the
survey there are some recommendations to be made to help improve Bristols social
media and web presence. To begin out of the 74 respondents we surveyed 70 of those or
roughly 95% use Social Media. So based on our results is incredibly popular. This was a
predictable result and one that shows Social Media is definitely viable platform in
promoting interaction and involvement with the city. If an increased level of
involvement is desired then increasing awareness of the city of Bristols Social Media
presence is the key. A simple look at the results of our survey shows a startling lack of
awareness. The question is how to increase this awareness?

Before answering this, it is worthwhile exploring what is the most popular social
media platforms. The answer as seen in the results section was Facebook, followed by
Twitter in second, and Instagram in a distant third. The popularity of Facebook makes it
the most viable option to increase awareness. The best way to do this is to market
Bristols Facebook presence and provide incentives for its use. This is not something
that will just happen over time. If true desired increase in activity with Bristols web
presence is desired, then that message needs to get to the general public. Marketing
would be the obvious choice but that is not enough the city needs to provide incentive to
capture those new and younger users. If a Facebook post is used to promote a local
business coordinate with that business so that the first 20 people to like the post gets
10% off of goods or services. Incentive based marketing would be very helpful.
The question of how to market and increase awareness of the various social
media Platform is directly related to how people become aware of them in the first place.
This is why some of our survey questions were targeted at finding out how users learned
of the various Social Media platforms. For example of those responded on how they
became aware of Facebook, 39% said they were not even aware of Bristols Facebook
(which highlights the need to address this issue) followed by 36% who said they found
out via an online source and 18% from a friend or family member. This indicates and
serious lack of awareness and shows that online sources are the most common method
leading to awareness amongst those who knew about it already. So electronic marketing
would appear to be key.

The only true way for Bristol to meet its goal of increasing activity and drawing in
those young professionals is to get that message out there. As mentioned before the lack
of awareness is astonishing and that needs to be addressed before any real changes will
made. This is why I suggest the use of incentive based marketing to get the word out.
Once it is out there it can be self-sustaining as word of mouth will spread from person to
person. People will see that Bristol is actively seeking more involvement and that will
stir interest.