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Engaging Students with Social Media

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Bibliographic Details
Title: Engaging Students with Social Media
Language: English
Authors: Bal, Anjali S., Grewal, Dhruv, Mills, Adam, Ottley, Gary
Source: Journal of Marketing Education. Dec 2015 37(3):190-203.
Availability: SAGE Publications. 2455 Teller Road, Thousand Oaks, CA 91320. Tel: 800-818-7243; Tel: 805-499-9774; Fax: 800-583-2665; e-mail: journals@sagepub.com; Web site: http://sagepub.com
Peer Reviewed: Y
Page Count: 14
Publication Date: 2015
Document Type: Journal Articles
Reports - Research
Education Level: Higher Education
Postsecondary Education
Descriptors: Marketing, Business Administration Education, Social Media, Learner Engagement, Student Surveys, College Students, College Faculty, Computer Literacy, Knowledge Level, Business, Technology Uses in Education, Student Attitudes, Online Surveys
Geographic Terms: Massachusetts
DOI: 10.1177/0273475315593380
ISSN: 0273-4753
Abstract: The importance of social media for marketing professionals has grown immensely as consumers turn to it to connect with products, brands, and brand communities. Yet limited research investigates the uses of social media to teach core marketing concepts. This article analyzes coursework in foundational marketing classes, with a specific focus on the effectiveness of social media for teaching core marketing concepts. Through the use of multiple social media platforms, the courses sought to engage students in active learning and provide a medium for the students to apply marketing concepts and market real companies to a public audience. Survey data provide insights into the effectiveness of social media as a tool for teaching core course concepts.
Abstractor: As Provided
Number of References: 43
Entry Date: 2015
Accession Number: EJ1081047
Database: ERIC
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  Value: <anid>AN0110889558;mke01dec.15;2015Nov13.12:14;v2.2.500</anid> <title id="AN0110889558-1">Engaging Students With Social Media </title> <p>The importance of social media for marketing professionals has grown immensely as consumers turn to it to connect with products, brands, and brand communities. Yet limited research investigates the uses of social media to teach core marketing concepts. This article analyzes coursework in foundational marketing classes, with a specific focus on the effectiveness of social media for teaching core marketing concepts. Through the use of multiple social media platforms, the courses sought to engage students in active learning and provide a medium for the students to apply marketing concepts and market real companies to a public audience. Survey data provide insights into the effectiveness of social media as a tool for teaching core course concepts.</p> <p>marketing; social media; student engagement</p> <p>Social media allows consumers and companies to interact and engage in two-way communications. In line with their well-established expectations that companies maintain a social media presence, customers reward companies that do so ([<reflink idref="bib9" id="ref1">9</reflink>] ). They do so by actively interacting with those companies and gleaning a clearer understanding of their value propositions. Through social media, companies can generate excitement for the brand and communicate with their target market in a channel that the market likes ([<reflink idref="bib19" id="ref2">19</reflink>] ; [<reflink idref="bib32" id="ref3">32</reflink>] ), while also generating data ([<reflink idref="bib34" id="ref4">34</reflink>] ) and providing effective customer service ([<reflink idref="bib14" id="ref5">14</reflink>] ; [<reflink idref="bib19" id="ref6">19</reflink>] ), all of which lead to strong brand attachments ([<reflink idref="bib29" id="ref7">29</reflink>] ). These outcomes are possible because consumers rely on social media to achieve various goals, such as finding purchase deals, feeling uplifted, learning how to use products, solving problems, interacting with brands and other consumers, and so forth ([<reflink idref="bib9" id="ref8">9</reflink>] ).</p> <p>Among the most prominent users of social media are the current generation of college students. These digital natives are extraordinarily savvy with regard to social media platforms and how companies exploit them to engage with consumers ([<reflink idref="bib17" id="ref9">17</reflink>] ). As early as 2007, 94% of students engaged with social media to connect and socialize with friends and family ([<reflink idref="bib1" id="ref10">1</reflink>] ). But beyond its importance for students’ social lives, social media offers potential value as a source for education, and perhaps especially, for marketing education. Marketers recognize the need to meet users’ expectations with the services provided, and modern students widely expect that their schools will leverage the latest technologies to enrich their learning experiences ([<reflink idref="bib24" id="ref11">24</reflink>] ), so coursework that introduces social media into the classroom might engage students more effectively. Despite the widespread uses of social media for entertainment, though, harnessing this option to facilitate learning is often challenging.</p> <p>We present a social media student project that is required in all marketing foundation courses taken by students at Babson College. [<reflink idref="bib7" id="ref12">7</reflink>] highlighted the need for digital engagement in marketing foundation classes and illustrated the usefulness of Facebook fan pages. Building on this work, the current project involves developing a Facebook fan page for a particular company, supplemented by the use of a second social media platform (e.g., Twitter, Instagram) that the students choose. We detail the outcomes of this project in terms of students’ engagement and demonstrated understanding of social media marketing and marketing analytics.</p> <p>To begin, we detail the need to integrate social media into current marketing curricula before outlining the key aspects of the social media project at Babson. We conducted a survey of more than 170 students who had just completed the project to gain a sense of their learning experiences and level of engagement. Finally, we offer some insights about the importance of using project-based social media tools in marketing classrooms.</p> <hd id="AN0110889558-2">Integrating Social Media Into Curricula</hd> <hd id="AN0110889558-3">Student, Teacher, and Company Attitudes Toward and Uses of Social Media</hd> <p>Contemporary college students in developed nations, most of whom were born after 1990, grew up with a ubiquitous Internet and the presence of social media ([<reflink idref="bib38" id="ref13">38</reflink>] ; [<reflink idref="bib41" id="ref14">41</reflink>] ). The terminology used to refer to this generation thus tends to highlight that it is characterized by an unprecedented level of exposure to modern technologies, distinguishing it from prior generations: “net generation” ([<reflink idref="bib37" id="ref15">37</reflink>] ), “digital natives” ([<reflink idref="bib31" id="ref16">31</reflink>] ), and even “millennials” ([<reflink idref="bib26" id="ref17">26</reflink>] ). People who have grown up with constant exposure to computers and related technologies largely have woven those technologies into their everyday lives ([<reflink idref="bib28" id="ref18">28</reflink>] ). Over the past decade or so, the importance of the use of technology and social media in the classroom and to enhance teaching has been garnering increasing interest. A number of representative studies and their key insights are summarized in [<reflink idref="bib1" id="ref19">1</reflink>] .</p> <hd id="AN0110889558-4"> Representative Past Research on Use of Technology and Social Media in the Classroom.</hd> <ct id="AN0110889558-5"> ..CHT.-</ct> <p> <ephtml> <table><colgroup><col align="left" /><col align="char" char="." /><col align="char" char="." /></colgroup><tr><th align="left">Authors (date)</th><th align="center">Context</th><th align="center">Key takeaways</th></tr><tr><td>Ackerman, Gross, and Perner (2003)</td><td>Study 1: Instructor interviews; Study 2: 45 instructors, 55 students, 48 employees</td><td>The research highlights how instructors, students, and employers value critical thinking and how these assignments can be fun and enhance their liking of the course.</td></tr><tr><td>Buzzard, Crittenden, Crittenden, and McCarty (2011)</td><td>Survey 1: 17,117 faculty across disciplines; Survey 2: 765 students, 308 instructors</td><td>Study 1: Utility for the various teaching components was similar across disciplines. Study 2: Students (45%) and faculty (47%) felt that social and interactive learning was effective. Students also indicated twice as much agreement in recommending social networking as a digital tool that is engaging.</td></tr><tr><td>Dowell and Small (2011)</td><td>Grades from first year on-campus (n = 105) and distance education (n = 258) students after completing their introductory marketing subject</td><td>Study results highlight that use of online resources increases student performance.</td></tr><tr><td>Halvorson, Ewing, and Windisch (2011)</td><td>Semistructured (open-ended) interviews with students (n = 89)</td><td>Study provides qualitative insights into teaching using second life when the class is full versus partial immersed in Second Life (a virtual world).</td></tr><tr><td>Hollenbeck, Mason, and Song (2011)</td><td>In-depth interviews: graduate (n = 22) and undergraduate marketing students (n = 32)</td><td>The results highlighted the importance of student connectivity in online platforms.</td></tr><tr><td>Lowe and Laffey (2011)</td><td>In-depth interviews and questionnaire—123 postgraduate marketing students</td><td>Students found using Twitter as part of the class a positive experience. They found it easy to use and useful.</td></tr><tr><td>McCabe and Meuter (2011)</td><td>Surveys—195 business students.</td><td>Results highlight student usage and liking of the various Blackboard tools.</td></tr><tr><td>Payne, Campbell, Bal, and Piercy (2011)</td><td>Social Media Class Project and Survey—48 MBA students</td><td>Study discusses a project that involved creating a spoof video and posting it on YouTube. The students indicated that the social marketing lessons learned as the 2n was the most important element that they would remember. The study highlights how social media projects can increase engagement and technical skills.</td></tr><tr><td>Rinaldo, Tapp, and Laverie (2011)</td><td>Study 1—Survey: 113 marketing students Study 2—Survey: 87 marketing students; type of cellular phone: 100 marketing students; Study 3: Qualitative data from 22 students.</td><td>The various study results highlight that Twitter can be an effective medium for faculty to interact with students. Student perceptions of Twitter’s benefit increased from the 1st week to the 13th week of a 15 semester class.</td></tr><tr><td>Young (2014)</td><td>Survey—online survey: 321 students in the hybrid sections and 186 students in the face-to-face sections.</td><td>Study highlights how hybrid classes can enhance communication ability and responsiveness to student concerns relative to face to face.</td></tr><tr><td>Junco (2012)</td><td>Online Survey—1,839 4-year college students</td><td>The study results highlight that time spent on Facebook for socializing has a negative effect on GPA. However, Facebook activities such as collecting and sharing information can have a positive effect.</td></tr><tr><td>McCorkle and McCorkle (2012)</td><td>Case study and student feedback—54 students</td><td>The article examined the use of LinkedIn assignments. Students overall impressions of LinkedIn and the LinkedIn assignments were positive and 89% indicated that they would use it in their job search.</td></tr><tr><td>Schlee and Harich (2013)</td><td>Study 1—online survey: 163 marketing students Study 2—online survey: 81 marketing students</td><td>Highlights the extensive use of social media by students, especially Facebook. Students participated in an assignment where they created a blog using www.blogger.com and used social networks to publicize their blog. They use blogger and Google analytics to assess effectiveness. The student survey results highlight that they found the social media and analytic tools useful and important.</td></tr><tr><td>Tuten and Marks (2012)</td><td>Survey—531 marketing instructors</td><td>Highlights that faculty use social media personally but not as often for educational purposes. They do not perceive the tools as important for teaching relative to course management technology. Media-sharing sites had the second highest importance (mean importance of 3.09 on a 5-point scale).</td></tr><tr><td>Williams, Crittenden, Keo, and McCarty (2012)</td><td>Self-report of social media behavior—74 undergraduate Principles of Marketing students</td><td>Students provide insights into student’s use of social media platforms and providers. Highest use was for social networking and text messages. Most used providers were Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter; 59 out 74 respondents viewed their behavior as a spectator, while 31/74 respondents viewed themselves as a creator.</td></tr><tr><td>Bacile (2013)</td><td>Data from class project—174 students</td><td>Created a Klout challenge exercise. Students used various social media platforms (LinkedIn, Twitter, YouTube) and measured their impact using Klout before and after.</td></tr><tr><td>Faulds and Mangold (2014)</td><td>Case study of social media and marketing course over 4 years</td><td>Highlights learning and process of developing a social media marketing course. Provides an important overview of topics and activities covered.</td></tr><tr><td>Mao (2014)</td><td>Online survey and open-ended questions and semistructured interviews—66 high school students</td><td>Highlights the importance of social media in increasing positive attitudes toward education.</td></tr><tr><td>Atwong (2015)</td><td>Case study of 140 marketing students (36 teams)</td><td>Teams work on social media campaigns across platforms (e.g., Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and YouTube) and use the various industry metrics (Facebook insights and YouTube Analytics). The results highlight that such a campaign enhances interest in a social media career, interest in social media marketing, and ability to contribute social media skills to prospective employers.</td></tr></table> </ephtml> </p> <p>Educators need to meet students where they live and integrate technology and social media tools into their classrooms for several reasons. First, the ubiquity of digital connectivity throughout the entire extent of their lifetimes has fundamentally changed how students acquire and use knowledge ([<reflink idref="bib36" id="ref20">36</reflink>] ); so the learning patterns induced by the omnipresence of digital technologies require new patterns of teaching. Furthermore, these assignments and activities can stimulate critical thinking ([<reflink idref="bib2" id="ref21">2</reflink>] ) and increase student performance ([<reflink idref="bib10" id="ref22">10</reflink>] ; [<reflink idref="bib21" id="ref23">21</reflink>] ).</p> <p>Second, learning outcomes would likely improve if educators engage students through digital and social media, which represent the most popular and widely used communication methods for the current generation of students ([<reflink idref="bib41" id="ref24">41</reflink>] ). Students already spend a great deal of time on social media for fun and entertainment; so leveraging these channels to achieve specific learning objectives is likely to be an effective method ([<reflink idref="bib1" id="ref25">1</reflink>] ). Students relative to instructors find social networking very engaging ([<reflink idref="bib6" id="ref26">6</reflink>] ).</p> <p>Third, for modern students, learning often requires innovative social interactions and fun ([<reflink idref="bib36" id="ref27">36</reflink>] ; [<reflink idref="bib38" id="ref28">38</reflink>] ). Therefore, course curricula need to be modified to keep pace with these altered learning expectations. Recently, faculty have begun to experiment with a number of different technology and social media sites, such as Second Life ([<reflink idref="bib18" id="ref29">18</reflink>] ), Twitter ([<reflink idref="bib22" id="ref30">22</reflink>] ), YouTube ([<reflink idref="bib30" id="ref31">30</reflink>] ), LinkedIn ([<reflink idref="bib25" id="ref32">25</reflink>] ), Blogger ([<reflink idref="bib35" id="ref33">35</reflink>] ), Klout ([<reflink idref="bib4" id="ref34">4</reflink>] ), and across platforms ([<reflink idref="bib3" id="ref35">3</reflink>] ).</p> <p>Fourth, just as they have affected students’ expectations and learning tactics (e.g., [<reflink idref="bib23" id="ref36">23</reflink>] ; [<reflink idref="bib42" id="ref37">42</reflink>] ), digital and social media have “revolutionized how companies communicate with, listen to, and learn from customers. Their influence is far-reaching, whether firms are selling online or in stores, providing services or products, or dealing primarily with consumers or business customers” ([<reflink idref="bib16" id="ref38">16</reflink>] , p. 82). “The changes and advances in social, mobile, and online technologies have created a perfect storm, forcing firms to change how they communicate with their customers” ([<reflink idref="bib16" id="ref39">16</reflink>] , p. 84). Therefore, college students about to enter the workforce must understand how these media can be and are being used in practice to engage and interact with current and potential customers, so that they can enhance their hiring chances and job appeal.</p> <p>The real-world uses of social media can be described according to the framework proposed in [<reflink idref="bib15" id="ref40">15</reflink>] 4E model (see Figure 1). This framework highlights that social media has four main purposes: to excite customers with relevant and engaging offers; to educate them about the firm, products/services, and offers; to allow customers to experience the products/services in some fashion; and to continually stay engaged with them.</p> <p>4E social media framework. Source. Grewal and Levy (2014).</p> <p>Furthermore, because it exists outside of the classroom but can facilitate classroom learning, social media constitutes a series of personal learning environments (PLEs) for both formal and informal learning. A PLE is an externally hosted learning context or setting that has been developed for and exists outside the classroom, but that can be leveraged to enhance learning ([<reflink idref="bib8" id="ref41">8</reflink>] ). Because social media use comes so naturally to modern students, PLEs that incorporate extensive technology and social media use likely facilitate classroom learning, because students are more open to engage with educational material in situations they consider natural. Furthermore, these PLEs provide applied, real-world educational experiences that companies value in new hires ([<reflink idref="bib8" id="ref42">8</reflink>] ). In combination with digital natives’ own innate understanding of the various uses of digital technologies, gleaned through their continual exposure to constantly changing technologies, education derived from technology-oriented PLEs should make students particularly attractive to corporations that need to harness employees’ understanding of the Internet to market themselves to consumers ([<reflink idref="bib41" id="ref43">41</reflink>] ).</p> <p>Overall then, students and educators both need to leverage and use digital technologies and social media to encourage learning. In so doing, they can better achieve their own teaching and learning objectives, as well as address companies’ need for employees who understand the realities of contemporary business. To achieve the objectives of all three of these parties, the social media project at Babson College identified social media platforms as excellent resources for achieving both effective course teaching and student engagement ([<reflink idref="bib1" id="ref44">1</reflink>] ). Specifically, all the student groups participating in this project are responsible for creating a social media fan page on Facebook for a chosen company. The groups also chose a second social media platform, such as Twitter or Instagram, to expand the reach of their campaigns. We consider the functions of these three social media platforms next, before detailing the project.</p> <hd id="AN0110889558-6">Social Media Sites</hd> <hd id="AN0110889558-7">Facebook</hd> <p>Facebook has experienced exponential growth; as of March 2014, it had more than one billion active monthly users on its social media interface ([<reflink idref="bib5" id="ref45">5</reflink>] ). With 71% of the adult Internet population and 58% of the entire adult population using Facebook, its importance for connecting with consumers is undeniable ([<reflink idref="bib11" id="ref46">11</reflink>] ). In particular, the user networks available through Facebook are enormous; 87% of Facebook users indicate that they are connected with friends from the past through Facebook (e.g., high school or college friends), and more than 90% connect with family and current friends on the platform ([<reflink idref="bib11" id="ref47">11</reflink>] ). On average, Facebook users have 350 friend connections ([<reflink idref="bib12" id="ref48">12</reflink>] ). Furthermore, the general population of social media users indicates a strong preference for Facebook as the medium to use to follow brands ([<reflink idref="bib12" id="ref49">12</reflink>] ). Specifically, more than one third of users say that they employ social media to actively engage with brands and companies. Among the users who engage with brands and companies through social media, 76% prefer Facebook as the means of engagement ([<reflink idref="bib12" id="ref50">12</reflink>] ). Therefore, as consumers increasingly turn to Facebook to engage with brands, it is important that marketers pay attention to these consumer uses, in the form of social shopping through this social media platform.</p> <hd id="AN0110889558-8">Twitter</hd> <p>More than 288 million users generate 500 million tweets per day ([<reflink idref="bib40" id="ref51">40</reflink>] ). Because of widespread media coverage of its influence, more than 90% of the U.S. population is aware of Twitter, and 80% have read or seen at least one tweet, regardless of their own levels of Twitter usage ([<reflink idref="bib12" id="ref52">12</reflink>] ). Nearly half (47%) of all Americans acknowledge that they hear about a tweet at least once per day. Despite this high awareness, though, adoption of Twitter is still relatively low compared with Facebook, such that only 16% of those surveyed were actually Twitter subscribers. Furthermore, 37% of Twitter users indicated that they never post on Twitter but instead use it mainly to obtain information from others’ posts ([<reflink idref="bib12" id="ref53">12</reflink>] ). In this sense, measuring consumer activity on Twitter remains a challenge, because so many people use the medium only to read others’ tweets but do not tweet themselves. Therefore, additional research is needed to determine the true impact of Twitter on brand outcomes, such as customer interactions and purchase effects.</p> <hd id="AN0110889558-9">Instagram</hd> <p>The popularity and adoption of Instagram has grown immensely, such that as of 2014, it had garnered 300 million users, surpassing Twitter for the first time ([<reflink idref="bib27" id="ref54">27</reflink>] ) and tying with LinkedIn as the second most used social media platform, after its parent company Facebook ([<reflink idref="bib12" id="ref55">12</reflink>] ). This growth has been driven largely by the popularity of Instagram among young social media users, aged between 12 and 24 years ([<reflink idref="bib12" id="ref56">12</reflink>] ). Furthermore, though its adoption rates are still much lower than those for Facebook, engagement with Instagram is extraordinarily high. About half (49%) of all Instagram users engage with the website at least once daily, second only to Facebook, for which 70% of users engage on a daily basis ([<reflink idref="bib11" id="ref57">11</reflink>] ). One study suggests that user engagement with brands is as much as 50 times higher through Instagram compared with Twitter ([<reflink idref="bib27" id="ref58">27</reflink>] ), likely because of the ease with which Instagram users can interact with brands on the site. Regardless of the reason, Instagram is very effective in engaging consumers with brands.</p> <hd id="AN0110889558-10">Multiplatform Uses</hd> <p>In 2014, 52% of adult Internet users had adopted two or more social media platforms ([<reflink idref="bib11" id="ref59">11</reflink>] ). As we have detailed, Facebook continues to dominate as the primary social media website for adults; 79% of those who only use one social media website rely on Facebook ([<reflink idref="bib11" id="ref60">11</reflink>] ). Among those who consider more than one social media platform, though, the most frequent pairs with Facebook are Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn. Moreover, a clear majority of Instagram and Twitter users also engage through Facebook.</p> <hd id="AN0110889558-11">Social Media Strategy: The Class Exercise</hd> <p>As we have sought to demonstrate, social media is ubiquitous in students’ lives, because they spend so much of their social time on these platforms, whether consuming or creating content. Employers accordingly seek candidates for marketing jobs who—partly because of their age and digital orientation—can manage branded, firm-owned social media pages. However, managing social media from a marketing perspective is neither intuitive nor identical to managing social media for social purposes. Thus, the social media class exercise at Babson seeks to engage students and ensure they learn how to plan, design, create, and adaptively execute a branded social media campaign in a risk-mitigated environment.</p> <hd id="AN0110889558-12">Objectives</hd> <p>The social media project in the marketing foundation classes had a number of key learning objectives. First, we wanted to increase student engagement in the class and transform the students from passive learners to active participants both in and outside of class. Second, we wanted to provide them hands-on experience with various social media sites and an understanding of the sites’ marketing capabilities in generating traffic for the student-created pages, as well as the students’ own ability to engage customers who visited these pages through the posting of relevant content (text, image, and video). Third, we wanted to increase students’ understanding of the importance of marketing analytics and the effectiveness and return on investment assessment. Finally, we felt that active learning through social media projects, other projects (i.e., a simulation), and online exercises would enhance their understanding of core marketing concepts.</p> <hd id="AN0110889558-13">Structure of the Project</hd> <p>The social media strategy class exercise is a semester-long project, introduced on the first or second day of classes. A significant portion of the project involves assessments of the success of the students’ implemented strategies (i.e., driving audience and engagement) and their efforts to reformulate their tactical strategies as needed in subsequent posts and decisions. The iterative, trial-and-error nature and extended period for this project constitute core elements of the learning experience.</p> <p>In the first week of the semester, students receive the following general project outline, detailing the scope of the exercise: To be effective competitors in the modern marketplace, both startups and Fortune 500 companies must be social media savvy. Social media marketing is not only an important and fast growing area in marketing, but it also offers some of the highest salaries for starting positions outside of college. Working in teams, you will be required to develop and launch a social media marketing strategy. You will use the marketing and analytics tools taught to you in Principles of Marketing to create rich postings that drives traffic to your pages and engages your customers. Teams will launch and manage brand pages on two social media platforms, one of which must be Facebook.</p> <p>We required the use of Facebook not only because it is the most popular social media platform but also because it provides an automated, extensive analytics program for students to use, as we discuss subsequently. Furthermore, Facebook is the most dominant platform as more than half of adults online interact with two or more social media platforms ([<reflink idref="bib11" id="ref61">11</reflink>] ). This project sought to ensure hands-on learning about social media strategy planning and execution, so students were required to adopt a multiplatform approach. With this requirement, students learn not only about the nuances of different social media platforms but also about their interactions and relationships in the course of developing their integrated marketing plan.</p> <hd id="AN0110889558-14">Team Formation</hd> <p>Students were allowed to self-select teams of six to eight people. While students were generally comfortable with the various media sites, appropriate handouts were provided to facilitate further learning. Within the scope of the project, each student group formed two “SBUs” (strategic business units) within their “organization,” each with a focus on a different platform. Similar to a real-world organization, the groups must formulate their strategic planning and objectives at the “organizational” level, but the tactical execution and day-to-day operations fall to the functional teams. Thus, students ultimately work in groups of three to four, but they gain additional learning experience related to organizational management, time management, and cross-functional teams.</p> <hd id="AN0110889558-15">Firm Selections</hd> <p>After the teams were formed, the students were required to select a real, existing business for which to develop a social media plan. They were free to choose any business, large or small, with instructor approval. In a recent semester, some of the firms chosen included Nike, Tesla, Chipotle, Patagonia, HBO, Buzzfeed, Victoria’s Secret, Lululemon, American Express, adidas, Uber, Under Armour, Zara, Gap, JP Licks (a local ice cream chain), Panera, and Volante Farms. Students were tasked with creating “fan pages” for the selected business, which allowed us to avoid any possible opportunities for copyright infringement. The most important distinguishing feature of the students’ fan pages, relative to any corporate-managed page, was the page name itself.</p> <hd id="AN0110889558-16">Background Research</hd> <p>Because nearly all firms have some existing social media presence, the first task assigned to students was to conduct a 5C (company, customers, competitors, collaborators, and context/climate) situation analysis of their chosen firm, based on information available online. This preliminary internal and external situation analysis should help encourage a creative strategy for their fan pages, as well as emphasize to students that strategic development can never occur independently of the competitive environment in which the business operates. The fan pages, representing businesses in themselves, necessarily must operate in a crowded, competitive social media marketplace. Through this planning exercise, we aimed to help students craft a clear value proposition for their fan page that detailed the unique and specific benefits it would offer, relative to competitive pages.</p> <hd id="AN0110889558-17">Deliverables</hd> <p>The project was structured to have a number of key deliverables. First, the student teams had to write a one-page memorandum on the project. Second, they had to create their sites, post content, and drive traffic. Finally, they had to present key findings near the end of the semester.</p> <hd id="AN0110889558-18">Memorandum</hd> <p>In the second week of classes, following the planning exercise, students submitted a one-page memorandum to the instructor, in which they articulated their group’s responses to the following items:</p> <p>Which business have you picked and why?</p> <p>Which secondary social platform you’ve selected (in addition to Facebook) and why?</p> <p>What your goals are for the social media strategy?</p> <p>Who your target audience(s) is for the campaign?</p> <p>Your organizational structure (who is taking which roles within your SBUs?)</p> <p>Your organizational process (e.g., work back schedule, daily/weekly planning, milestones, meeting process and frequency, team communication strategy)</p> <p>The goal of requiring the submission of these memos was to encourage students to begin taking action on their project early in the semester.</p> <hd id="AN0110889558-19">Developing the Site</hd> <p>All student groups used Facebook as a primary platform and chose their second platform (generally, either Instagram or Twitter). After adding the instructor or a teaching assistant as a page administrator, students begin creating and posting content to their fan pages that reflected their group’s strategic targeting and positioning plan. To assist them with this task, we reviewed in class the methods required to set up a fan page and provided an illustration on YouTube (https://<ulink href="http://www.youtube.com/v/O9SDy58HBYo">www.youtube.com/v/O9SDy58HBYo</ulink>).</p> <hd id="AN0110889558-20">Project Presentation</hd> <p>In the final weeks of the semester, student teams made a presentation of the social media project. They were instructed to focus their presentation on a number of key questions pertaining to their target market, including how they generated traffic to the two sites, what types of content they posted and how effective was it (using their analytical capabilities), and important takeaways. A grading template for the project presentation is provided in the [<reflink idref="bib3" id="ref62">3</reflink>] .</p> <hd id="AN0110889558-21">Group Work</hd> <hd id="AN0110889558-22">Posts and Traffic</hd> <p>After generating their social media fan pages, the group members’ objective was to identify and provide relevant and engaging content that would drive traffic to their pages. They also were assigned with the task of driving additional traffic to their pages by encouraging access by friends and acquaintances through their various social media and e-mail networks. They could spread the word by posting links to appropriate blogs or by paying to generate traffic.</p> <hd id="AN0110889558-23">Facebook Analytics</hd> <p>Once they had generated 30 likes for their Facebook fan page, each group was able to access Facebook’s integrated analytics dashboard. Facebook’s integrated analytics are automated and rich, and the analytical dashboard allows users to monitor both the overall traction of their fan page and the efficacy of each comment they post on the page. Furthermore, Facebook’s analytics provide demographic information about any page followers, including age, gender, location, language, and times of use. We provide examples of how the students used these data in their project presentations in Figures 2 to 4. Specifically, the demographic map in Figure 2, gleaned from the analytics dashboard, reveals the gender and age distribution of one student group’s fan page, for example. The dashboard in Figure 3 demonstrates the country, city, and language preferences of the followers of another student group’s page. Figure 4 contains a summary of the times that fan followers appeared online.</p> <p>Facebook demographic dashboard illustration: Gender and age.</p> <p>Facebook demographic dashboard illustration: Country, city, and language preferences.</p> <p>Facebook analytics: Times fans were online.</p> <p>Beyond these demographics, Facebook analytics provide three key metrics that students needed to use for both the page overall and each individual post: reach, likes, and engagement. These useful metrics highlight the progressive levels of user engagement with the page content. Reach indicates the total number of users that have seen the content. Likes refers to the total number of those people who have seen the content and who then took action to follow that content, by clicking a “like” button. Finally, engagement is a tertiary level, indicating that users either commented on the fan page’s content or shared the branded content on their own personal pages. Thus, a single student team presentation contains the reach–likes–engagement analytics for the group’s overall fan page (Figure 5), as well as the reach–likes–engagement analytics for each individual post (Figure 6). In Figure 6, in the “type” column, an icon indicates whether the post was a picture, text, or a link.</p> <p>Fan page reach, like, and engagement analytics.</p> <p>Post-level type, reach, like, and engagement analytics.</p> <p>As many students found, the total reach and engagement levels tended to be higher for rich media posts, such as pictures and videos, than for purely text-based posts. In addition to the analytics that revealed the engagement level achieved by each particular post, Facebook provides a summary of engagement statistics for the overall page that is based on post type, as illustrated by another student presentation (Figure 7).</p> <p>Fan page type of post analytic.</p> <p>In social media ecosystems, page traffic and engagement are generated purely through brand–user interactions represent an organic form of reach. The students also could pay to promote their pages, which would constitute inorganic or paid reach. The cost of paid reach efforts on Facebook is relatively low (less than $25 for student teams experimenting with this option). In return for the payment, Facebook inserts the fan page or its posts into the news feeds of users who do not currently follow that page, to generate extra awareness and more traffic to the page. Similar to any form of advertising, engagement and conversion depend largely on the content, but on average, the student groups tended to see a 5% to 10% conversion rate from their paid reach among new page followers. For example, one student group, which selected Dunkin’ Donuts as the subject for their fan page, used paid promotion on Facebook, which enabled them to target promotions within Facebook on the basis of followers’ age, region, and interests (Figure 8). Moreover, Facebook provided them with a summary statement of their overall investment, return on investment, and conversion rate. By separating organic and paid likes achieved by the fan page overall on a timeline, these students also tracked the efficacy of their advertising promotions in real time (Figure 9).</p> <p>Dunkin’ Donuts project: Facebook target promotion results.</p> <p>Results for organic versus paid engagement.</p> <hd id="AN0110889558-24">Secondary Social Media Analytics</hd> <p>The analytics for Twitter and Instagram are less intuitive and straightforward than those available through Facebook. However, Twitter provides demographic information about a user’s followers, including their gender, country and city, top interests, and other pages followed. They also reveal impressions (i.e., reach), profile visits, new followers, and mentions, as outlined by Figure 10.</p> <p>Twitter analytics illustration.</p> <p>Instagram does not provide any integrated analytics capacity. Instead, students needed to rely on third-party tools, including Followers+, SimplyMeasured, Minter, SocialRank, and Iconosquare, which are free to use. These engines, available through either the Web or mobile applications, provide approximately similar information to that offered by the Facebook and Twitter analytics, namely, general demographic information, reach, and engagement. The student participants in this project found, particularly on Instagram, that the use of hashtags (i.e., searchable keywords) influenced both their page traffic and users’ engagement. Figure 11 contains screenshots from the Followers+ app for Instagram, as obtained by a student group whose fan page focused on Nike Running, which visually illustrates the numbers of Instagram users who follow the fan page, photos posted, and total photo likes, as well as user engagement.</p> <p>Assessing Instagram effectiveness using Follower+.</p> <p>This social media project, which required the use of both Facebook and a secondary social media site (e.g., Instagram, Twitter), aimed to provide students with first-hand experience regarding how firms can use these sites to excite their customers with offers (e.g., content posted on sites), educate them with content and URLs, help them experience the product or service in the form of discussions or posted pictures/videos, and engage customers with compelling content, as well as to assess this engagement through available analytical options. To determine the extent to which the students recognized the benefits of this first-hand experience and gained successful learning through the project, we undertook a brief survey of students who had recently completed their projects.</p> <hd id="AN0110889558-25">Survey: Student Perceptions of Social Media Engagement</hd> <p>With a survey, we sought to investigate what students did in terms of postings and generating likes, their perceptions of how engaging their pages were to their audience, and their perceptions of both the effectiveness of using Facebook analytics and whether it improved their understanding of key marketing concepts.</p> <hd id="AN0110889558-26">Survey Methodology</hd> <p>To measure the effectiveness of the social media exercise, we developed a survey on Qualtrics and administered it to students via e-mail, with a link to the survey. The 173 students (response rate = 69%) who completed the survey responded to multiple questions related to the number of posts their group added to their Facebook fan page and how many likes they generated. They also indicated their perceptions of the project on the multiple items contained in [<reflink idref="bib2" id="ref63">2</reflink>] .</p> <hd id="AN0110889558-27"> Survey Questions and Descriptive Statistics.</hd> <ct id="AN0110889558-28"> ..CHT.-</ct> <p> <ephtml> <table><colgroup><col align="left" /><col align="char" char="." /><col align="char" char="." /><col align="char" char="." /></colgroup><tr><th align="left">Questions</th><th align="center">N</th><th align="center">M</th><th align="center">SD</th></tr><tr><td>Working on the social media group project enhanced my understanding of the firm’s target market.a</td><td>173</td><td>4.75</td><td>1.38</td></tr><tr><td>It allowed me to understand which types of posts were most effective.a</td><td>173</td><td>5.33</td><td>1.31</td></tr><tr><td>It allowed me to understand how to generate traffic to the social media site.a</td><td>173</td><td>5.14</td><td>1.37</td></tr><tr><td>I found Facebook to be an effective way to engage customers.a</td><td>173</td><td>4.68</td><td>1.63</td></tr><tr><td>The analytics provided by Facebook were very useful.a</td><td>173</td><td>5.5</td><td>1.25</td></tr><tr><td>The overall project improved my understanding of how marketing can be used to engage customers.a</td><td>173</td><td>5.12</td><td>1.42</td></tr><tr><td>How effective were text posts?b</td><td>172</td><td>4.19</td><td>1.30</td></tr><tr><td>How effective were image posts?b</td><td>173</td><td>5.83</td><td>0.96</td></tr><tr><td>How effective were video posts?b</td><td>170</td><td>5.53</td><td>1.09</td></tr><tr><td>I found the second social media site an effective way to engage customers.a</td><td>162</td><td>4.49</td><td>1.71</td></tr></table> </ephtml> </p> <p>-1 Respondents answered the questions on 7-point scales where 1 = strongly disagree and 7 = strongly agree. bRespondents answered the questions on 7-point scales where 1 = very ineffective and 7 = very effective.</p> <hd id="AN0110889558-29">Results</hd> <hd id="AN0110889558-30">Overall Effectiveness</hd> <p>We examined several overall effectiveness measures and tested their means relative to the midpoint (<reflink idref="bib4" id="ref64">4</reflink>) to ensure a conservative test of how well the social media project produced key learning objectives. The student responses indicated that they believed the social media group project enhanced their understanding of the firm’s target market, M = 4.75, t(<reflink idref="bib172" id="ref65">172</reflink>) = 7.18, p < .001. Furthermore, they strongly believed that the social media project improved their understanding of how marketing can be used to engage customers, M = 5.12, t(<reflink idref="bib172" id="ref66">172</reflink>) = 10.39, p < .001.</p> <hd id="AN0110889558-31">Engagement and Traffic</hd> <p>The students who participated in this project considered Facebook an effective strategy for firms to use to engage customers, M = 4.68, t(<reflink idref="bib172" id="ref67">172</reflink>) = 5.46, p < .001. The different groups used various methods, from organic traffic to leveraging their own social networks to paying Facebook to generate more traffic. The analysis provided them with good insights into how to use these social media sites to increase traffic to their social media pages, M = 5.14, t(<reflink idref="bib172" id="ref68">172</reflink>) = 10.98, p < .001.</p> <hd id="AN0110889558-32">Role of Facebook Posts</hd> <p>The social media project succeeded in enhancing students’ understanding of which posts were more effective (M = 5.33). They also found that image and video posts were more effective than text posts (text:M = 4.19, image: M = 5.83, and video: M = 5.53). Relative to the midpoint of the scale (<reflink idref="bib4" id="ref69">4</reflink>), these values all indicated that students considered all the different types of posts effective methods for engaging customers, video: t(<reflink idref="bib169" id="ref70">169</reflink>) = 18.22, p < .001; image: t(<reflink idref="bib172" id="ref71">172</reflink>) = 25.16, p < .001; text: t(<reflink idref="bib171" id="ref72">171</reflink>) = 1.87, p < .10, and they also accurately recognized that some formats were more effective than others. That is, the students identified images and videos as more effective than textual posts, because these rich media were more likely to engage the audience. Most of the groups obtained similar insights, primarily through their use of Facebook analytics to understand how their various posts influenced engagement with the site (e.g., number of views and likes generated).</p> <hd id="AN0110889558-33">Analytics</hd> <p>These results indicated the importance of additional analyses and extensive uses of Facebook analytics. Regarding the item, “The analytics provided by Facebook were very useful,” students agreed strongly, M = 5.50, t(<reflink idref="bib172" id="ref73">172</reflink>) = 15.80, p < .001. These results are in line with reality, in that Facebook provides a comprehensive analytical capability that allows creators of Facebook fan pages to clearly understand their effectiveness in posting material and driving traffic to their pages.</p> <hd id="AN0110889558-34">Second Social Media Platform</hd> <p>The respondents also indicated which other social media site they used and whether they found it to be an effective way to engage the audience. Of the student respondents, 42 used Twitter, and 105 used Instagram as their second social media site. On the effectiveness item, 56% indicated some level of agreement, with a mean of 4.49. When we broke down the results for groups that used Instagram versus Twitter, we determined that the students found Instagram more effective than Twitter for engaging customers (M<subs>Twitter</subs> = 3.93, M<subs>Instagram</subs> = 4.76, t(<reflink idref="bib145" id="ref74">145</reflink>) = -2.63, p < .01).</p> <hd id="AN0110889558-35">Summary</hd> <p>The survey results confirmed that students gained an appreciation of the effectiveness of social media for engaging customers, and they also recognized the value of generating traffic. Perhaps most important, the exercise also highlights the usefulness of marketing analytics, especially those provided by Facebook.</p> <p>It is important to note that we collected data from students from one semester and one college. Additional research is needed to further assess the effectiveness of this type of social media project and other variations of it in stimulating student engagement over a longer period, such as tracking student engagement and performance over a period of a year.</p> <hd id="AN0110889558-36">Conclusion</hd> <p>The use of social media is gaining popularity among both firms and consumers. Thus, employers and corporate recruiters expect new college graduates to be well-versed in social media. Current students already are intimately familiar with the social and entertainment uses of social media, such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, but they have less experience with using social media platforms to market real-world products and services. They are even less familiar with the analytical capabilities available through these platforms and their benefits for companies with some social media presence.</p> <p>Although some marketing students gain such skills by taking an elective course on digital marketing, direct marketing, or social media marketing, the number of all business students who choose to take such an elective reflects only a small percentage of the overall study body. In contrast, at most colleges and universities, all business students are required to take a marketing foundation course. Thus, introducing social media, its practical uses, and the applicability of related analytics in a foundational course can create a much broader understanding and appreciation of the marketing applications of social media among modern students. As we show, through an analysis of the adoption of a semester-long social media marketing project at Babson College, students who develop social media fan pages gain a strong understand of their chosen firm’s value proposition and target market, learn how to post appropriate content (i.e., verbal, images, or video), and achieve stronger abilities to drive traffic to a specific page. They also obtain a broader appreciation of marketing analytics, because they necessarily relied on Facebook’s analytical capabilities to understand how to engage their audience to achieve successful project outcomes.</p> <p>Thus, this social media project delivers multiple key learning objectives: It leads to a more comprehensive understanding among students of central marketing concepts; it provides more hands-on learning pertaining to social media platforms and their marketing applicability; and it induces greater appreciation among students of the importance of marketing analytics. We confirm these outcomes with a survey of student perceptions.</p> <hd id="AN0110889558-37"> Social Media Project Grading Template.</hd> <ct id="AN0110889558-38"> ..CHT.-</ct> <p> <ephtml> <table><colgroup><col align="left" /><col align="char" char="." /></colgroup><tr><th align="left" colspan="2">Social media presentation</th></tr><tr><td>Group members</td><td /></tr><tr><td>Presentation of strategy</td><td /></tr><tr><td>Content/posts</td><td /></tr><tr><td>Engagement/likes</td><td /></tr><tr><td>Generating audience</td><td /></tr><tr><td>Marketing content</td><td /></tr><tr><td>Overall preparation</td><td /></tr><tr><td>Visual aids</td><td /></tr><tr><td>Within allocated time</td><td>Start: _________ End: _______ Total time: ___________</td></tr><tr><td>Q&A</td><td /></tr></table> </ephtml> </p> <hd id="AN0110889558-39">Footnotes</hd> <ref id="AN0110889558-40"> <title>References</title> <blist> <bibl id="bib1" idref="ref10" type="bt">1</bibl> <bibtext>Abe P., Jordan N. A. 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  Group: Ti
  Data: Engaging Students with Social Media
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  Label: Language
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  Data: English
– Name: Author
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  Data: <searchLink fieldCode="AR" term="%22Bal%2C+Anjali+S%2E%22">Bal, Anjali S.</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="AR" term="%22Grewal%2C+Dhruv%22">Grewal, Dhruv</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="AR" term="%22Mills%2C+Adam%22">Mills, Adam</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="AR" term="%22Ottley%2C+Gary%22">Ottley, Gary</searchLink>
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  Data: <searchLink fieldCode="SO" term="%22Journal+of+Marketing+Education%22"><i>Journal of Marketing Education</i></searchLink>. Dec 2015 37(3):190-203.
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  Data: SAGE Publications. 2455 Teller Road, Thousand Oaks, CA 91320. Tel: 800-818-7243; Tel: 805-499-9774; Fax: 800-583-2665; e-mail: journals@sagepub.com; Web site: http://sagepub.com
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  Data: Y
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  Label: Page Count
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  Data: 14
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  Label: Publication Date
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  Data: 2015
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  Data: Journal Articles<br />Reports - Research
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  Data: <searchLink fieldCode="EL" term="%22Higher+Education%22">Higher Education</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="EL" term="%22Postsecondary+Education%22">Postsecondary Education</searchLink>
– Name: Subject
  Label: Descriptors
  Group: Su
  Data: <searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Marketing%22">Marketing</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Business+Administration+Education%22">Business Administration Education</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Social+Media%22">Social Media</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Learner+Engagement%22">Learner Engagement</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Student+Surveys%22">Student Surveys</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22College+Students%22">College Students</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22College+Faculty%22">College Faculty</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Computer+Literacy%22">Computer Literacy</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Knowledge+Level%22">Knowledge Level</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Business%22">Business</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Technology+Uses+in+Education%22">Technology Uses in Education</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Student+Attitudes%22">Student Attitudes</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Online+Surveys%22">Online Surveys</searchLink>
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  Data: <searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Massachusetts%22">Massachusetts</searchLink>
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  Data: 10.1177/0273475315593380
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  Data: 0273-4753
– Name: Abstract
  Label: Abstract
  Group: Ab
  Data: The importance of social media for marketing professionals has grown immensely as consumers turn to it to connect with products, brands, and brand communities. Yet limited research investigates the uses of social media to teach core marketing concepts. This article analyzes coursework in foundational marketing classes, with a specific focus on the effectiveness of social media for teaching core marketing concepts. Through the use of multiple social media platforms, the courses sought to engage students in active learning and provide a medium for the students to apply marketing concepts and market real companies to a public audience. Survey data provide insights into the effectiveness of social media as a tool for teaching core course concepts.
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  Data: 2015
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  Data: EJ1081047
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        PageCount: 14
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        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Business Administration Education
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