(This page is only one section of the thesis. To view the full thesis, click here.)

Overview of Research

When reviewing the research conducted for this thesis, there was an informative and definitive outcome after the analysis of the social media accounts for I am Belmaya. Having a conclusive outcome is a positive result when conducting any research. Having a conclusive outcome allows for the research to be viewed and applied into other scenarios by other individuals.

The topic of this research presented a unique opportunity to combine multiple aspects of research in order to find practical data that can be used immediately by filmmakers who are running social media accounts right now. This thesis combined aspects of society, filmmaking, statistics, and media all into a useful assembly of information.

When reviewed, the results gathered from the data supports the research gathered within the industry analysis, and other sections within the thesis. It is important that independent documentary films utilize social media as a way of establishing a strong relationship between themselves and their followers. The data gathered from emotional posts and workplace posts supports this method of social media campaigning.

Improvements to Be Made

Although the data gathered was enough to make a definitive result about which content would work best, improvements can always be made to further confirm the result, or perhaps find a new outcome altogether.

In order to have a more accurate representation of data to find what type of posts should be made, the possibility to create more categories for posts a viable option. It would allow for an even more detailed analysis of the posts being made. For example, instead of only using open promotion posts as a category, that category can be divided into subcategories such as one for posters, one for trailers, and one for fundraising. Having the exact information through subcategories would allow for filmmakers to know what to post in greater detail. Though this method of categorization would be helpful, it would be most useful for accounts with a larger amount of posts to extract data from, and also a larger amount of followers (combined, I am Belmaya had less than 1,000 followers through all social accounts).

The final two improvements that possibly could help give a more accurate representation of the data would be using more than 100 tweets to review, and using the same method of categorization from this study on a traditional film account. Adding these two improvements to the research can help confirm the results or even find new results, but once again, these two improvements would work best if the I am Belmaya social media accounts had more followers and posts for a fair and accurate comparison.

Looking Into the Future

Overall, the results from this research can be beneficial for filmmakers to understand and use immediately, especially if these are independent documentary filmmakers. The method of research can also be used on larger accounts that have a higher rate of engagement with their followers. These findings can also be applied for future films once more research is done and more accurate results are discovered. In fact, the I am Belmaya social media accounts should view and apply the findings of this research immediately and for the foreseeable future, even past the release date of the film in order to encourage discussions about the topic of the film—even after it has been released. Ultimately, the motive of a documentary is not to gain profit or just provide entertainment. A documentary provides important discussions about serious topics and the engagement between a filmmaker and followers of their film are important to the insightful foundation of society through the use of media.