Artefact 4 - Findings

From the focus group, the main information I gathered was; - all of the participants use their local services, however the students didn't use the village businesses as much as the others they tended to use bigger brands. The older participants would recommend by word of mouth, and the students and mum would often use twitter or facebook to share or retweet the information to their friends. Mixed view on preferring leaflets or website, the older generation prefer leaflets and they can easily hold on to them to regain information. One of the students uses websites for information for everything whilst the other enjoys looking at leaflets if creative like the 02 academy flyers but also enjoys sites such as urban outfitters for creativity. The older generation prefer leaflets because it's easy to see what you're getting and the price, however big brands such as Asda have easy navigation sites which they use to shop on-line for occasionally. All participants had some form of smartphone or tablet they use on a regular basis. Talking to the participants about businesses having to keep up with modern technology they came to the conclusion that businesses already well established didn't need to advertise themselves on-line as much as they already had a good customer base which is what I can relate back to in my research document with David Ross Fabrications.

This conversation then led to one of the young students explaining her friend had started a tanning business and twitter had helped her massively and she solely used this to promote the business, using business cards with the link to the twitter and website but didnt use any leaflets or flyers. The older participants argued that she should also create leaflets for the less technical generation but the base of business being tanning had a young market but other businesses should take this into consideration for all ages of people in the market of the product.

There was then a conversation about how emails are used massively to sell special offers and how discount codes can easily be sent out to provide advertisement for the business. Groupon and Moonpig are based on line but have no actual shop, Asos is massive for selling clothes but again there is no shop. Will it be like this in the future? The mother stated how she much prefers to go to the shop to try clothes on and see the food she is buying rather than get it all online.

Focus Group - Artefact 4

Questions for the focus group, I'm aware that being in a group will allow the participants to talk freely about what I ask which may lead to other questions, so mine may not keep to the structure I plan but I will have a fantastic insight to their views on the matter of how they feel - "local business have reacted to the opportunities of digital media"

Participants
female student aged 21
male student aged 19
mum of 2, part time job, aged 36
dad of 1, full time job, aged 43
female, retired, aged 86
male, part time job, aged 65

I can get a good insight on all generations.

I need to relate the questions to everyone in the focus group, for them to be able to open up and provide opinions within the group.

"I'm here for my university looking into the public consumers/customers of local businesses and how you think they have reacted to the opportunities of digital media"

- Do you all use services and products provided by your local businesses? e.g hairdressers, health and beauty, food, pets, electrics
- Are you regular customers or do you like to try somewhere new
- How do find out about new businesses?
- How do you recommend a business to a family or friend?
- For businesses you use regularly do you follow them on twitter & Facebook
- Do you prefer to look at a website for information or a leaflet/poster?
- Do you think technology growing rapidly means businesses have to adapt to it?

Thinking About Artefact 4

Although I found artefact 3 really interesting and gave me a good insight of a future job career I feel I have gone a little off track from my research project and want to now study on the effect the digital media can have on the customer.

lack of motivation has led me to youtube.

Artefact 3 Evaluation

After much research into Leicester Police and how they have adapted to social media sites to allow them to interact with the public I have come to the conclusions that Facebook and Twitter are used by all age groups, but a largely within the 16-25 year old age bracket. The use of the police using social networking sites means that although this group is probably the hardest to communicate with to enforce the law, the force can now have communication and dialogue with teens and understand them more now they have more interaction. Looking through the followers @leicespolice have a large number of them are from the younger generation, who may not want to read local newspapers to find out what's happening in the community but can easily access it from social networking.

Social media is also an helpful tool for educating the public. Tweets I saw covered topics from crime reports to tips, traffic updates, and even weather updates. This is now spread to the public quickly and efficiently. Crisis communications can also reach community members quickly and efficiently. There may be a missing person, and these social networking sites become an active way to get information out within seconds. Times have moved on from having to update the homepage on the website. Although this is still done it also provides information about the police, what to do in emergencies whereas the social networking side covers incidents all day every day.

In terms of my research project this has allowed me to see not only local businesses reactions to the growth of digital media but how it can effect the community, I feel for my next artefact I really want to focus on the consumer/customers point of views on how the opportunities of technology have effected them in terms of businesses they use. Obviously I know it will differ within g generations but to what degree will this be?

Artefact 3 Presentation

More On Artefact 3

Been doing some more research into the police and how they are reacting to the opportunities of the digital world. Way Back Machine is a site allowing the user to view websites from the past.

A screen shot from 1st Feb 2003 of the Leicester Police site. Looking away from the design which will obviously have improved massively over the years, the actual content shows no advertising of the social media sites unlike todays version. I am unable to view the actual news that was displayed but the layout of it doesn't seem as up to date with how it is today.

A shot from May 2007, a improvement from 2003, the latest news is on show to the user, job vacancies are on the home page, links to other sites such as crimestoppers. Shows how much digital media has improved over 4 years from the site looking so bare with hardly any information on the site to where similarities can be seen from this site and now today, 6 years on.

The Facebook page, surprises me that it only has 6000 likes on the page whereas the Twitter page has over 25,000. The page doesn't display as many issues and reports as the Twitter, just more information on how to reduce crime like locking your house securely because of robberies within the area.

http://www.youtube.com/user/leicspolice

The YouTube channel for Leicester Police. Created Jan 2009, it now has 146 video uploads and 201 subscribers. Used to mainly show footage of crimes such as assaults and robberies, this enables the community to be able to try and help if they have seen anything, which from 5, 10 years ago would have just been a photo capture in a newspaper. Technology improving has clearly massively helped the way the Police not only try and reduce crime but also involving the community to help with any information they may have.

Artefact 3

I have started artefact 3,looking at the Police as a community as this is the job I hope to enter after graduationg & Simon said it would be both interesting and beneficial to me. I have looked at @leicspolice for this artefact as I have applied for this force.

With over 25,000 followers it makes it easy for people living in the small community of Leicestershire to keep up to date with the crimes and news happening. The tweets contain information about small crimes such as a robbery in a village to murderers being sentenced. Five, ten years ago without twitter this information would have been seen not as important to publish in the papers or on the news so wouldn't have been mentioned.

The local newspaper, The Leicester Mercury still keeps the community up to date on crimes for people whom may not use twitter, for example the older generation - who can still keep up to date with the local news on the TV and paper.
Also looking at Leicester Police website:

This shows the latest news along with job opportunities, I noticed the twitter account was used massively to advertise jobs coming up and seminars about roles for the Police. After applying for the force myself and learning how to difficult it is to gain a role within the Police, the fact they now advertise it on social networking sites allows so much more people to apply.

Pinch, Punch 1st Day Of The Month

completed both internal and external client projects now, context 3 images are to be submitted soon for mm degree show. Presentation is on 20th may so around 6 weeks away, only done 2 artefacts need to crack on with the third.