Mini-MBA™: Social Media Marketing

The Rutgers Mini-MBA: Social Media Marketing certificate features an innovative learning environment that delivers course content on a program-supplied Apple® iPad™.

Mini-MBA™:  Social Media Marketing Session Descriptions
 

How to Architect a Social Media Marketing Strategy Blueprint for Your Business

The world is racing to keep up with social technology.  To gain a competitive advantage, marketers need to think big, but plan in stages.  After all, you wouldn’t build a house without a blueprint—so why jump into social media marketing without a strategy? Participants in this module will learn to apply an actionable 12-step social media marketing process designed to better connect with audiences, deepen relationships and drive profits. 

Moving beyond traditional outbound marketing approaches, this course will demonstrate how inbound marketing strategies earn consumer interest by humanizing your brand.  The module will also touch on the rise of the social business and provide interactive work sessions designed to help you develop your process-driven blueprint using a case for a leading Internet marketer. 

Listening Channels in Social Media

Social media usage is exploding. All the cool kids are doing it. But how do you keep up with what people are saying about your brand? How do you know if they are positive or negative? Or how the conversation is trending? And how do you pull that off in every country around the world? To answer those questions, and many more, you need a social media listening program. You could start with a basic tool, such as Google Alerts, but many businesses find that they need more.

You will learn:

•  Why social listening is important
•  Real-world case studies that show social listening in action
•  How different countries use different social media venues
•  How social media listening tools are evolving
•  What tools are available today
•  How today’s tools work, including their shortcomings

The class contains several interactive exercise that allow students to experiment with several social media listening tools and develop their own conclusions about how well they work and how they can be used within their own businesses.

Social Business: Governance, the Law, Reputation Management and Crisis Communications in Social Media Marketing

Social media has evolved to “social business”, creating new opportunities, as well as challenges, in digital marketing and corporate communications.  This module will explore, from the perspective of digital marketers and business leaders, the development of best practices for social media governance, brand reputation management, regulatory compliance, and crisis communications preparedness and response in social media marketing.  Case studies using leading businesses will help participants develop best practices for robust, yet compliant, social media marketing in the worlds of Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Foursquare, Google+…

You will learn: 

•  Understand the evolution of “social media” to “social business” and its impact on corporate communication
•  Develop skills of efficient brand reputation management in digital marketing: auditing, monitoring, and managing your digital footprint
•  Master the art of social media governance:  how to create a successful social media marketing corporate governance team and sustainable best practices
•  Recognize the legal landmines of social media marketing and how to avoid them
•  Know to how to prepare for and respond to a communications crisis in social media

Social Media Content, Power and Influence

This is a unique and fast-paced exploration of the surprising new sources of consumer and brand influence, a deep dive into the special importance of blogging, and a practical exploration of Twitter.

You will learn:

•  How content is creating new marketing channels, PR opportunities, and personal influence
•  Fundamentals of content marketing strategy and its critical role in the marketing mix
•  Blogging best practices, tips, and tricks that deliver tangible business results
• The insider's view of Twitter and how this platform can create powerful business benefits through customer service, business intelligence and professional networking.

Measuring & Tracking Social Media ROI

How do I measure social media ROI?” is the #1 question people ask to understand how social media builds business, according to Social Media Examiner. But do Friends, Followers, Likes and Re-Tweet build brands that not only stand out on social media but generate sales and profitability?

This module identifies the measurements, tracking and analytic tools (many widely available for everyone on “open source” platforms) to prove return on investment of social media on your business. Best practices, case studies across B2B and B2C brands that have integrated social media into their business plan are discussed. There are team-based exercises to determine the Key Performance Indicators (KPI’s) that are right for your business. You’ll leave with an understanding of the principles plus the work plan to measure and prove ROI of social media for your brand.

Social Platforms and Business Strategy

Everybody loves Facebook but how does it translate into a practical strategy for business? Can you really create measurable results or is it a waste of time?  Through case studies and lively discussions, this class looks at unique and actionable strategies to apply three popular social networks – Facebook, LinkedIn and Google+ to real business issues.

You will learn:

•  The ins and outs of using Facebook for business marketing and community development
•  Ideas to set up an effective business presence on these major social platforms.
•  Fundamentals of community management
•  Social networking business case studies and discussions
•  Step-by-step guides to optimizing social media channels for business

Building Stand-Out Brands Through Social Media

Through social media technologies, today’s companies are wielding a powerful new weapon in their branding—and the benefits are as impressive as they are diverse. Through this module, students discover how a wide range of companies are leveraging social media to increase awareness, build buzz, grow brand advocates, improve customer service, attract top talent, innovate new products, and craft unique brand personalities to further endear these companies to their customers.

You will learn:

• Diverse Branding Successes: Real-world success examples across B2C and B2B brands that have integrated social media as a core strategy in their branding plans and programs.
• Branding Imperatives: Best practices to follow in building and maintaining a strong brand through social media.
• Mapping Strategies To Benefits: Team-based exercise to develop social media strategies that support various branding objectives including increased awareness, generating buzz, improving customer service and innovating new products.

Engaging Influencers Through Social Media

Advanced practitioners of social media marketing understand that engaging influencers through social media is a strategic initiative.  They also know that influencer engagement is a two-way relationship where both parties need to see the value for it to work.  But calculating the return on marketing investment for influencer outreach campaigns is the key measurement challenge that even the leading pioneers in the field are still trying to overcome.  This module will provide participants with insights from the frontier of social media marketing on the practice of influencer discovery, engagement, and measurement.

You will learn:

•  Identify who matters most to your business: Understand your influencers based on their reach, resonance, and relevance to your market.
•  Discover most relevant influencers for your campaign: Find your influencers.  They may not be who you think they are around a unique topic.
•  Follow influencers’ contribution on your issues: Gain insight into what your influencers say about your brand, products, competitors, and market.
•  Build engagement strategies based on intel: Learn where influencers are talking, what they are saying, how they feel about your topic, who influences them and more.
•  Engage the most relevant influencers and optimize returns: Build relationships with the right influencers to maximize the impact on your products, brands, and business.
•  Measure the results of your outreach campaign: Effectively track the success of your outreach campaign with data-rich feedback that brands and agencies can both use.

Intergrating Social Media Stratgey & Change Management

In this module, students will take a step back and see the "big picture" changes in the marketing landscape that social media has caused and then get into the "nitty gritty" of social media such as the various tactics, best practices, measurement and analytics, etc.

As we wrap up this mini-MBA, the all-important question is how do we integrate social media into the marketing mix immediately? What is appropriate, what is not, and when? This module will offer frameworks and processes with which to evaluate and prioritize social media and digital tactics. More importantly students will see, and work through, examples where "digital" is woven into every aspect of marketing, even impacting traditional channels and tactics. Finally, as a class, we will discuss how to start the process of integrating social media into the organization and techniques to keep this "change management" on track.