Studying social media platforms - key data analysis methods?
The kinds of tools you will use will vary based on the problem you are trying to solve. Social media data is rich and therefore many questions can be asked - and many tools can be used.

However, there is a general pattern you might keep in mind. Typically, you will have to use the platform's API to gather data. You will then have to normalized and store the data in a data warehouse. Finally, you will access and analyze the data with the tools you desire. Keeping the end goal in mind, you will have to strategically choose the best technologies for the job you are doing.

For example, let's say you wanted to study the relationships between users on a social network - a question like "Who are the mutual friends of the most popular individuals in this social network?" In this case, you would gather data using the social media platform's API, normalize it into a CSV, import it into a Neo4j database, and then use Cypher to make queries.