Business Writer
Social Media Analysis Final Draft
Resources
Social Media Analysis Final Draft Scoring Guide.
Microsoft Office Software.
Executive Summaries: Where Less Really Is More.
APA Style and Format.
The Fourth Stage of Writing: Revising and Proofreading.
Smarthinking.
SWOT Analysis.
Turnitin.
Writing Feedback Tool.
The Writing Center.
Activity Context
This assignment helps you develop the skills to master the following course competencies:
Apply critical thinking to business-related activities.
Demonstrate the use of tools that support business management, analysis, and decision making.
Analyze factors, issues, and ethical considerations associated with business activity.
Communicate in a manner that is professional and consistent with expectations for members of the business professions.
Activity Instructions
Complete the following two parts to this assignment.
Part 1: Social Media Analysis
Respond to instructor feedback by making appropriate edits to your social media analysis draft from Unit 4. Incorporate the following additional elements:
Executive Summary.
Ethical analysis: Briefly describe an ethical issue, current or impending, that is related to social media use in your chosen company or industry.
Prepare a written 8–10 page analysis of your company's social media presence for company leadership that provides a clear appraisal of the company's social media properties and compares them with its competitors. The paper should contain the following well-defined elements:
Executive Summary.
Introduction.
A description of all social media platforms currently deployed by the company.
A summary of the company's and competitor social media sites using qualitative and quantitative measures (inspired by your work in your Unit 2 assignment).
A SWOT analysis.
Ethical analysis.
Conclusion: Include your general impressions regarding the state of your company's social media presence. Also include a paragraph that describes an emerging area of concern or opportunity that you have identified, and why it merits further investigation.
You must submit your paper to Turnitin, which you will find in the left hand navigation bar under “Course Tools.” Turnitin is a text matching tool. It will give you a report that will help you find errors in your use of source material so that you can ensure that everything is properly cited. Let your instructor know if you have questions about your Turnitin report.
Part 2: PowerPoint Presentation
Create an 8–12 slide PowerPoint presentation intended to accompany an oral presentation of your written analysis to corporate leadership. It should contain all the elements found in your paper and incorporate appropriate charts or graphs, as well as cite academic resources appropriately. See the Basic Tasks in PowerPoint 2013 tutorial in the Microsoft Tutorials link in the Resources. Also, review the second study in this unit for further details on how to create your PowerPoint presentation.
Submission Requirements
Resources: Use a minimum of five in-text citations and references in your paper.
Formatting: Use current APA formatting and style for references and in-text citations.
Length of analysis: Write 8–10 pages double-spaced pages (excluding front and back matter such as cover page and references).
Length of PowerPoint: Create 8–12 slides.
Font and font size for analysis: Use Times New Roman, 12-point font.
Review the assignment scoring guide to be sure that you have fully addressed the grading criteria.
Optional Help – Brushing Up On Skills
As mentioned in earlier writing assignments, you have access to a variety of resources to assist with your writing. If you encounter difficulty with any aspect of your project, chances are good that the following could help:
Instructor comments on your draft: Have you acted on the feedback on your draft, provided by your instructor in Unit 4?
Capella Writing Center: If you encounter difficulty with any aspect of your project, chances are good that you can find specific help in the Writing Center.
Abstracts and Executive Summaries: Need to know more about these? Check out this source in the Capella Library: Vassallo, P. (2003). EXECUTIVE SUMMARIES: Where Less Really is More. ETC: A Review Of General Semantics, 60(1), 83. (Linked in the Resources.)
Smarthinking: Review the global feedback you received on your annotated outline in Unit 3 and the local feedback you receive this week.
Peer reviews: Go back to the comments and suggestions provided by your peers on your outline in Unit 3. Is there anything there that might be helpful?
PowerPoint. If you encounter difficulty with PowerPoint, use the Microsoft Tutorials on Campus.
Not quite sure what this difference is between an abstract or executive summary, and an introduction or conclusion? The following gives some good information about these important paper sections:
Executive Summary
Executive Summary’s main goal is to provide a condensed version of the content of the complete paper. Typically, it is no longer than 10% of the original document. Executive summaries are written for an executive who most likely DOES NOT have the time to read the original. Executive Summary condenses the analysis, makes a recommendation, and is essential because decisions will be made based on the Executive Summary by people who have not read the original.
HINT: Write the Executive Summary last and use parts of the Introduction and Conclusion.
Abstract vs Introduction
An abstract is a brief summary of the entire paper. It should stand on its own; a reader should not have to read the abstract in order to understand the rest of the paper. Instead, an abstract should provide a summary of the four to five main points of the paper without using any cited material or personal pronouns (i.e., I and We). An executive summary is similar, but often a bit longer and more thorough than an abstract.
On the other hand, an introduction is the first paragraph of the body of your paper. It provides the necessary background of your topic to the reader and by the end provides a thesis statement (i.e., state your social media recommendations based on SWOT Analysis), which will direct the flow of the entire paper. The introduction moves from the general to the specific, providing the necessary information the reader needs to follow the paper. The introduction also usually tells the reader what to expect of this paper.
Introduction
Use the Introduction section to tell your reader the purpose of the paper, what it is about, including important sections to expect in the paper. Additional suggestion: use words from the project objectives such as Analyzes the implications of social media for the future of a business and Analyzes strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. This assures a focused paper that meets the Unit 6 assignment scoring guide competencies.
Conclusion
Use the Conclusion section to reiterate the findings from the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats analysis, describe a social media-related opportunity or threat that merits further investigation, describe ethical considerations, and summarize recommendations.
Note: Your instructor may also use the Writing Feedback Tool to provide feedback on your writing. In the tool, click the linked resources for helpful writing information.
