Social Media hard questions
August 16, 2009 2:24 PM Subscribe
Next semester I am teaching a class on Social Media Marketing. I want to deliver a relevant, high value course, and I am organizing each of the 12 workshops to address hard questions about social media. What questions do you have?
How do I get social media influencers to pay attention?
How do I know when my social media marketing campaign is effective?
Why should I invest in social media as a marketing strategy?
What do I do if my brand is under attack in social media?
Which social network should we develop a presence on?
How do I find out who is talking about me online?
How do I get social media influencers to pay attention?
How do I know when my social media marketing campaign is effective?
Why should I invest in social media as a marketing strategy?
What do I do if my brand is under attack in social media?
Which social network should we develop a presence on?
How do I find out who is talking about me online?
Ethics—what are the ethics of social media marketing?
posted by trotter at 2:40 PM on August 16, 2009
posted by trotter at 2:40 PM on August 16, 2009
What are social media?
Why are some social media successful? What is required to make an online social network successful (e.g. network effects, etc.)
Why is it important to market my brand in social media?
How can I get ahead of the curve in new social media (the NEXT Facebook, Twitter, etc)
How do I know when it's not worth it?
What are realistic expectations of social media marketing, and what are not?
posted by chesty_a_arthur at 2:42 PM on August 16, 2009
Why are some social media successful? What is required to make an online social network successful (e.g. network effects, etc.)
Why is it important to market my brand in social media?
How can I get ahead of the curve in new social media (the NEXT Facebook, Twitter, etc)
How do I know when it's not worth it?
What are realistic expectations of social media marketing, and what are not?
posted by chesty_a_arthur at 2:42 PM on August 16, 2009
How do you measure the ROI of social media?
Why do some brands fail at using Social Media successfully?
How to handle Social Media Brand name squatting?
How does geograhical location affect Social Media marketing?
How can I build a customer persona / profile using Social Media marketing?
How do I measure how affective a competitors Social Media marketing campaign is?
Is Social Media community or technology driven?
Hope this helps! If you ever write a follow up article or release anything under a creative commons please let me know as the course sounds very interesting.
posted by errspy at 2:53 PM on August 16, 2009
Why do some brands fail at using Social Media successfully?
How to handle Social Media Brand name squatting?
How does geograhical location affect Social Media marketing?
How can I build a customer persona / profile using Social Media marketing?
How do I measure how affective a competitors Social Media marketing campaign is?
Is Social Media community or technology driven?
Hope this helps! If you ever write a follow up article or release anything under a creative commons please let me know as the course sounds very interesting.
posted by errspy at 2:53 PM on August 16, 2009
Response by poster: Thanks for your input guys. So far, here are the questions that I have:
How do you get social media influencers to pay attention?
How do you respond when your brand is under attack in social media?
How can you make yourself marketable (to be hired) using social media?
What concentrate business results are companies seeing from social media?
How do you launch a product with social media?
How do you create a blog that produces business results?
How do you translate social media conversation into sales?
How do you measure when social media is effective?
How do you use Twitter to market a business?
How do you use Facebook to market a business?
How do you uncover actionable insights about the way consumers view my company and competitor?
posted by quiverandquill at 3:14 PM on August 16, 2009
How do you get social media influencers to pay attention?
How do you respond when your brand is under attack in social media?
How can you make yourself marketable (to be hired) using social media?
What concentrate business results are companies seeing from social media?
How do you launch a product with social media?
How do you create a blog that produces business results?
How do you translate social media conversation into sales?
How do you measure when social media is effective?
How do you use Twitter to market a business?
How do you use Facebook to market a business?
How do you uncover actionable insights about the way consumers view my company and competitor?
posted by quiverandquill at 3:14 PM on August 16, 2009
What textbooks (really, not real texts, but perhaps online references) are you using? You should perhaps look at this as a multichannel marketing class, rather than strict social media. You'll run out of actual hard-core references after the first few workshops.
I took a social media class as part of my MBA last year and it was awful. Our professor signed up for his first Facebook profile DURING our first class, and it ended up being a class that was taught by guest speakers, which is usually great, but those speakers were never told what other speakers covered so each speaker did the same thing: What is social media, how can you use it, recommended sites, etc. The best part of the class was meeting the guest speakers, but the three hours of class each night were complete blow-offs.
Also, along with all those "how do's" I think you need to have some "don'ts". It would also be helpful for you and for your students if you did a pre-class survey on their existing social media knowledge and habits.
Good luck, feel free to MeFi mail me if you want any additional information.
posted by MeetMegan at 3:50 PM on August 16, 2009
I took a social media class as part of my MBA last year and it was awful. Our professor signed up for his first Facebook profile DURING our first class, and it ended up being a class that was taught by guest speakers, which is usually great, but those speakers were never told what other speakers covered so each speaker did the same thing: What is social media, how can you use it, recommended sites, etc. The best part of the class was meeting the guest speakers, but the three hours of class each night were complete blow-offs.
Also, along with all those "how do's" I think you need to have some "don'ts". It would also be helpful for you and for your students if you did a pre-class survey on their existing social media knowledge and habits.
Good luck, feel free to MeFi mail me if you want any additional information.
posted by MeetMegan at 3:50 PM on August 16, 2009
What actions taken in social media are prone to backfire? What reactions?
posted by adamrice at 4:51 PM on August 16, 2009
posted by adamrice at 4:51 PM on August 16, 2009
I am unclear why this class is being called a "workshop" if it is for undergraduates.
A "workshop" is usually something that people go to in order to carry something back to their jobs.
If I am the teacher, I would want to have every student "workshop" a project that could be marketed over the internet through facebook, linkedin, etc and grade them on planning, performance analysis, and project outcomes analysis.
The goal would be, over the course of the class, that students would spend the last six classes or six weeks essentially running marketing campaigns in groups. I am guessing you can find campus groups who would go for it but you would need each student to put in $50-$100 for campaign costs.
This could be a very exciting class if you don't suck.
posted by parmanparman at 8:08 PM on August 16, 2009
A "workshop" is usually something that people go to in order to carry something back to their jobs.
If I am the teacher, I would want to have every student "workshop" a project that could be marketed over the internet through facebook, linkedin, etc and grade them on planning, performance analysis, and project outcomes analysis.
The goal would be, over the course of the class, that students would spend the last six classes or six weeks essentially running marketing campaigns in groups. I am guessing you can find campus groups who would go for it but you would need each student to put in $50-$100 for campaign costs.
This could be a very exciting class if you don't suck.
posted by parmanparman at 8:08 PM on August 16, 2009
Surely all your students need is to sign up here? ;)
I think it's important to include a big dollop of scepticism and ethical discussions, and that can be done without seeming like a wet blanket. Most social media marketing is ill-conceived and often rather spammy, so hopefully by highlighting mistakes (which can be entertaining in a LOLcluelessOldMarketers way) you can lead on to more positive aspects and try to get across that care and creativity are needed.
(Personally I see the whole area of social media marketing as a bit of an artificial distinction, and when the gimmick wears off I'm not sure it'll be seen as fundamentally different from any other online marketing where clever brands communicate effectively and consumers spread stuff they like via email/sites/blogs/etc.)
posted by malevolent at 1:30 AM on August 17, 2009 [1 favorite]
I think it's important to include a big dollop of scepticism and ethical discussions, and that can be done without seeming like a wet blanket. Most social media marketing is ill-conceived and often rather spammy, so hopefully by highlighting mistakes (which can be entertaining in a LOLcluelessOldMarketers way) you can lead on to more positive aspects and try to get across that care and creativity are needed.
(Personally I see the whole area of social media marketing as a bit of an artificial distinction, and when the gimmick wears off I'm not sure it'll be seen as fundamentally different from any other online marketing where clever brands communicate effectively and consumers spread stuff they like via email/sites/blogs/etc.)
posted by malevolent at 1:30 AM on August 17, 2009 [1 favorite]
When is social media marketing appropriate? What are the common mistakes companies make when marketing through social media (think SEO spammers, twitter bots, etc)?
posted by Phire at 10:09 AM on August 17, 2009
posted by Phire at 10:09 AM on August 17, 2009
I don't have a specific question, but you should check out the book / blog Wikinomics as it deals with many of these questions directly and in quite an intelligent way.
posted by Weng at 9:12 PM on August 17, 2009
posted by Weng at 9:12 PM on August 17, 2009
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 2:31 PM on August 16, 2009 [1 favorite]