Virginia Tech Goes Social, Offers New Course for Students

Virginia Tech Goes Social, Offers New Course for Students Photo credit: Steven Voss In spring 2012,  Student Adviser  recognized more than 6,000 U.S. colleges, universities, and post-secondary schools that offered a mastery of public social media methods. However, it wasnt until this semester that Virginia Techs Pamplin College of Business began offering social media marketing (MKTG 4984) to students. Bloomberg Businessweek Favorite Professor recipient  and graduate certified social media professor Donna Wertalik campaigned for the new course. It started a couple of years ago when we were doing research for the Pamplin College of Business, Wertalik said.  [The focus] turned to social media and then [we] got into the discussion of big data and measurement and how important data is in creating marketing as a hard science. That’s how I rallied people to [support] this course. Emphasizing the importance of data and analytics, the class provides students with a 360-degree perspective and foundation of social media marketing and how businesses today actively use popular platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest to interact with both current and prospective consumers. Groups of students will also aid local New River Valley clients, such as the Blacksburg Farmers Market and Roanoke Community Garden Association, in social media marketing campaigns  as part of a semester-long project that involves creating and running Facebook, Twitter, and WordPress accounts for the nonprofits. By exposing students to every format of social media and real world application, Wertalik wants students to have educated conversations about data and gain hands-on experience in business marketing. For students especially business majors and minors that experience is increasingly important once outside the confides of Virginia Tech. In 2012,  88 percent of small businesses reported that social media currently does or has the potential to impact their business, according to the  New York Enterprise Report. But its not just small companies using social media today. In a  study  conducted by Burson-Marsteller, the number of Fortune Global 100 companies using at least one social media platform was found to have increased by nearly 10 percent to 87 percent since 2010. Individually, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube are each used by more than 74 percent of those companies. Clearly, social media marketing has emerged as an important marketing strategy, reads the course syllabus. Wertalik, who developed the courses curriculum, refers to the class as an offshoot of graduate courses taken as part of her recently  received masters of science in marketing at Southern New Hampshire University. I love marketing; I find it fascinating. There is always something going on it is really relevant, Wertalik said. It is that same passion for marketing that led Wertalik to found Pamplin ReInventing Social Media -  the first social media organization on campus and possibly in the world of which she is the faculty adviser. PRISM works closely with Pamplin Dean Richard Sorensen and other influential faculty to best serve and represent the college and its brand, which continues to rank among top undergraduate business schools in the nation. Wertalik believes the institution must embrace social media and PRISM to prevent inventing the past. There is a lot we can do through communication, social media, and data [to] measure the future, she said. We cant just say the words ‘Invent the Future, we really have to showcase it and do it. Lets back it up. Through the continued development of social media courses and PRISM, Pamplin plans to continue doing just that.