Social media posts and comments provide a rich source of text data for academic research.
The following journal article is written for researchers seeking to analyze social media. It presents a comprehensive review of software tools for social networking media, wikis, blogs, chat apps and news feeds.
Using APIs
Many social media sites have APIs (application programming interface) that provide access to textual content, including Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube. Using these APIs requires, generally, some technical know-how and an access key from the data provider.
Please note: costs may be incurred for using these services.
Using tools built by others
Using Code
LinkedIn - Social scientists working with LinkedIn data
Weibo - How researchers around the world are making use of Weibo data