Designing a Marketing Research Study

I would like to base my research around if asking for retweets on twitter works better than not asking. It seems like it does, but I need someone to come up with this in a design form.Here is the assigning guidelines”Social media research is still in its infancy. A wide range of questions have yet to be answered. As students at an R1 institution, you should be familiar with the research process. In my opinion, the best way to quickly learn how to research is to jump right in by thinking about a potential project. For an example, consider the following “Salted Watermelon” research project I’m currently engaged in. If you’ve never heard of people putting salt on their watermelon, I’m grateful that I’m the one that gets to introduce it to you.  It’s the only way to eat watermelon and anyone that says different is a fool. Enter my wife, Jamie. Jamie is quite foolish and does NOT like salt on her watermelon. That’s fine, divorces are cheap nowadays, but that’s not the real issue. The real issue is the dog, Sasha. Does the dog prefer salt on her watermelon, or not? That’s the research question.  So I offer Sasha a piece of salted watermelon and Jamie offers a piece of unsalted, disgusting watermelon. Sasha takes the salted watermelon from my hand.  Is that proof? No, but it is evidence toward building a theory.  The theory that “the dog likes salted watermelon.”  This would be similar to “the customers like candid photographs”.However, it could mean a few other things other than Sasha’s true preference. It could be mean:She likes me better and therefore chose what I offeredShe dislikes Jamie and therefore refused what she offeredShe saw my watermelon first and just ate it, knowing she would also probably get Jamie’s piece afterShe actually likes salt betterShe didn’t realize there was salt and it was randomThere are probably several other possibilities as wellWe simply do not have enough data to make an informed conclusion. So, we have to redesign our experiment.  We need to control it better.  We can:“hide” who is giving her the watermelonswitch up who gives her the salted watermelonmake sure she understands she’s only getting one piece and whichever she doesn’t choose will be taken awayrepeat the process until she makes the same, informed decision multiple timesThis simple (and a little silly) example hopefully illustrates the various considerations you’d need in a research project. For this assignment, you need to “design” your own research project in the social media world. This does not have to be a complicated research project –nor should it be –but it does need to be well thought out and implementable.  It should NOT be a simple A/B test of what customers prefer. Don’t worry, you will not actually be conducting the research (unless you want to continue with me in an independent study next semester), just coming up with the question and potential implementable (actually doable in real life) design for the research. In order to complete this project, use this guide, 6 Steps of the Scientific Method, from Anne Helmenstine, PhD (another researcher I’m familiar with) and respond to each of the steps to the best of your ability with a project in social media you consider important.  Consider organizing your assignment submission similarly to Dr. Helmenstine’s guide for clarity and conciseness.”