K Sharp led a team comprising of 2LXG and Aston University to deliver a project that developed an evidence base and dynamic evaluation of how culture and behavior affects the success of social media campaigns. The project was completed in early 2016 and was delivered in conjunction with BAE Systems as part of the Defence Human Capability Science and Technology Centre.
The study provided valuable insights into the implications of cultural factors in creating a successful social media campaign. It highlighted that a successful campaign is one that is well-received by the target audience and encourages the intended behavior or attitudes.
The project began with K Sharp developing a framework called the Portfolio of Case Studies (PoCS) that provided a structure for recording the analysis of social media campaigns. The PoCS framework enabled access to and interaction with summary information about the case studies analyzed for different cultures dynamically. The framework included social media campaigns from different cultures, languages, and domains.
The study went on to collect and analyze over 200 additional case studies, evolving the Portfolio of Case Studies (PoCS) into the Social Media Effects Library (SoMEL), a relational database tool that facilitated deeper analysis of the data and enabled further expansion.
The SoMEL tool was further developed throughout the project to improve the robustness of the database interface for the analyst creating the evidence base and the usability of the interactive dashboard for the end-user interrogating the evidence base.
