ACOM 383: SOCIAL MEDIA: THEORY AND PRACTICE Final Paper Instructions

Your final paper is your opportunity to apply what you’ve learned this semester to a real-life
communication scenario. Your final paper will help you meet the following goals:

Develop your knowledge of social media beyond class discussion.
Demonstrate how the knowledge you’ve learned this semester can be used in real life.
Effectively communicate messages on social media through stakeholder analysis, platform

identification, and two-way communication.
Improve your ability to synthesize and articulate your thoughts in writing.

You need to pick one of the below scenarios as the basis for your paper. Your final paper will
consist of creating written social media content (i.e., Facebook posts, Twitter tweets, Instagram
photos, etc.) as well as analyzing the effectiveness of the posts based upon what you’ve learned
this semester from the readings and assignments. You will be coming up with hypothetical
content that would be appropriate for the communication scenario that you’ve selected.
Campaign Scenarios: Please choose one from the following three campaign scenarios:
1. Organizational Campaign
Imagine you’re in charge of the social media accounts for an organization. Your organization can
be a small business (i.e., Death Wish Coffee, Bread from Brooklyn), a corporation (i.e., Apple,
Amazon), a non-profit (i.e., Make A Wish, Things of My Very Own), or a professional
association (i.e., National Communication Association). Your organization can be real or
fictional. Your goal is to design effective two-way communication that is relevant to your
stakeholders.
2. Political Campaign
Imagine you’re in charge of the social media accounts for a politician. Your politician can be
holding a political office or can be running for political office. Your politician or candidate can be
elected to or running for local, state or federal office. Your politician can be real or fictional. Your
goal is to design effective two- way communication that is relevant to your stakeholders.
3. Health Campaign
Imagine you’re in charge of the social media accounts for a healthcare entity. Your entity can be a
local doctor or hospital, a governmental health department or agency (i.e., NYS Department of
Health, the CDC), a health insurance company (i.e., MVP, Aetna), or a public health campaign
(i.e., mental health campaign, anti-smoking campaign, anti-bullying campaign). Your healthcare
entity can be real or fictional. Your goal is to design effective two-way communication that is
relevant to your stakeholders.
Instructions:

Your paper needs to be at least 1,500 words (excluding your reference section) and double spaced.
You will not be penalized for going over 1,500 words. There is no maximum word limit. You must
use Times New Roman 12-point font and 1” margins. Only write your name at the top of your
paper and number your pages. You need a clear introduction and conclusion with transitions
between paragraphs. You need to use APA for this paper which includes in-text citations and a
reference list at the end of your paper listing all your sources. Your paper will be submitted through
Copyleaks to check for plagiarism against a database of papers submitted previously at UAlbany, a

national database of papers, and the Internet. Your paper needs to contain all of the following
elements:

1. Introduction: Your introduction gives a preview of what you’re going to discuss in your paper. The last
sentence in your introduction should be your thesis statement. (1 paragraph)

2. Thesis: Your thesis statement is your main goal for your campaign. Your thesis should synthesize your
four social media posts in some way. Your four posts should connect in some way to each other, all
related to the goals for your campaign. Your thesis should be the last sentence you write in your
introduction paragraph. The rest of your paper will provide support for your thesis statement. You need to
think about how each section of your paper relates to your thesis and connect each section to your thesis
as you write.

3. Campaign Description: In this paragraph, you need to provide a basic description of your campaign.
This includes the following: Which scenario did you pick? Why did you pick this scenario? Who is your
organization, politician, or health entity? What is the main goal for your campaign? (1 paragraph)

4. Platform and Stakeholders: In this paragraph, you need to state the platform or platforms you will be
using for your campaign as well as a justification for why you’re using this platform(s). You can use the
same platform for all your posts (i.e., four social media posts all on Instagram) or you can spread them out
on several platforms (i.e., one on Instagram, one on Twitter, and two on Facebook). You also need to
include a description of your primary stakeholders including their demographics and explain why your
selected platform(s) is a good strategic choice to target these stakeholders. (1-2 paragraphs)

5. Social Media Content: This section of your paper is your opportunity to be creative. You need to write
4 actual posts (hypothetical social media content) that would appear on the platform(s) you selected for
your social media campaign. Your posts need to be written text (but you can certainly and should add
visuals with the text). You can’t use TikTok for this paper (again, the focus is on written text and not
videos). One post needs to be an example of one-way communication. The three other posts need to be
examples of two- way communication as that is the goal for your campaign. In addition, your posts should
connect or relate to one another in some way (this relates directly to your thesis statement). There should
be a central theme around these posts. In this section of your paper, don’t tell me what you’re going to
say, but actually say it, word for word as if it was going to appear on social media. This content should be
written within the actual text of your paper. This includes written text and/or images. You can use social
media generators; however, you need to focus on the text and writing effective text that encourages
two-way communication rather than pictures, comments, shares, likes, etc. If you are using pictures
(which I highly recommend), you can embed the picture right into your paper and write the caption below
the picture (you should then analyze your content immediately following your post – see below).

6. Analysis: Your analysis is your opportunity to justify why you think the content that you created is
effective communication for your campaign. You need to analyze each one of your posts separately. In
your justification, you need to include content from at least four different course sources (readings,
videos, lectures, etc.) to support your choices. You should use more than one source to analyze each post,
but you can use the same source for more than one post. Your sources need to relate to why your content
is effective rather than justification for your choice of campaign. You should be analyzing the execution

of your posts and the specific content rather than your campaign as a whole or your marketing decisions.
Do not use direct quotes, but instead paraphrase content from the readings/videos to help support why
your content would be effective. This means that you need to use the concepts, tips and theories from the
various course materials and apply them to your own posts to explain why your posts are effective (again,
not why your overall campaign is effective). Make sure you use APA in-text citations when you
paraphrase. You do not need to do outside research for this part of your paper. Instead, the course
readings/lectures/videos should guide your analysis. You will be graded on the accuracy of the description
of the information from your sources, and the appropriateness of your selected sources for analyzing your
social media content. In addition, you will be graded on the quality, depth, and insight of your analysis. (at
least 4 paragraphs, one paragraph after each social media post)

6. Conclusion: Your conclusion wraps up your paper highlighting your thesis, your main goals for your
campaign, and why your social media content is effective. Your conclusion should not introduce any new
information. (1 paragraph)

7. Reference List: This is the last page of your paper. It includes a list of all your sources that you used in
your paper, in alphabetical order by the first author’s last name. The source citations must be in correct
APA format. You can find the APA citation for each reading/video/podcast within its module. Your
reference list should begin on a new page. All the sources that you cite in the reference list must appear in
the body of your paper. The reference list does not count towards your word count.

Submission Instructions:
You need to submit your paper TWICE. In order to do this, go to the “Content” link on the purple nav bar
and then the “Final Paper” folder. Here you will see all the information related to the final paper including
the two ways you need to submit your paper. Below are the instructions for each submission:

1. For “Final Paper Submission #1”, click the “upload” button to select your file or you can drag and
drop. Do not put your paper in the “comments”. This is an area to write me a comment, not to submit your
actual paper. By submitting your paper here your grade and comments will appear directly in the
gradebook just like they do for your weekly assignments.

2. For “Final Paper Submission #2”, you will be submitting your paper through Copyleaks, which is a
plagiarism detector. Here your paper will be checked for plagiarism against a database of papers
submitted at UAlbany, a national database of papers, and the Internet. You will receive a Copyleaks score
and a report based upon your submission. If you do not submit your paper through Copyleaks, you will be
penalized 10 points.