In this course students will explore and utilize techniques for integrating Social Media marketing as an integral component of marketing campaigns, serving as listening and outreach tools for building brand awareness and promoting business. Through an investigation of tools which include internet forums, message boards, blogs, wikis, podcasts, picture sharing, video sharing, and social networking, students will learn how social media can be leveraged as a powerful alternative to traditional interruptive advertising. Students will have the opportunity to create and present a written plan for achieving business goals through the use of a social media marketing campaign.

Understand how to use the Internet and social media to create audience profiles. Through qualitative research methods and monitoring social media demographics, you will learn to identify the social media applications and strategies best-suited to reach specific targets. The course will address the techniques and best practices for identifying and engaging your audience to ensure the effectiveness of resources spent on social media, public relations, branding and marketing efforts.

Social media is part of the marketing mix for many organizations today and provides them with unprecedented opportunity to engage stakeholders and consumers in direct ways. The unique nature of this medium and the disparate nature of the technologies requires a specific measurement and evaluation plan. This course will provide students with an in-depth and hands-on exploration of current trends and tools including quantitative and qualitative measurement methodologies.

Develop a social media strategy as part of gaining a complete understanding of the POST (people, objectives, strategy, and technology) strategy process. The market forces resulting from the expansion of the web are impacting the competitive landscape and business processes. Business leaders must be prepared to manage the accompanying fundamental cultural and process shifts. They should build cohesive strategies that integrate social media into sound business practices. In this applied strategy course, understand how to provide a methodology to approach and plan a social media strategy in your organization. Learn how to apply technographics and social computing behaviors as more appropriate audience profiling techniques than traditional demographic profiling. You will contrast traditional and non-traditional strategies and communications practices, learn how to present a strategic methodology for social media, and effectively implement social media channels and venues for achieving business or brand objectives.

Designed to address the specific needs of today's public relations and corporate communications professional in a new media environment, this course includes 5 practical modules of study that will empower PR professionals at all levels in their career to implement social media in their work, and be innovation leaders in their organization. Students will be left with practical, hands-on experience and a deep strategic understanding of the role social and new media serve in the PR mix.

A good story is the key to marketing, public relations and social advocacy because it is essential to audience engagement. Stories and narratives provide the context that audiences need so that information, actions and emotions have persuasive impact and personal relevance. Transmedia storytelling applies the ancient art of storytelling to new media forms, bringing new opportunities that dramatically impact marketing strategies and brand value. Storytelling-always the power behind successful marketing-must be adapted to this new, interactive media landscape. Transmedia storytelling engages audiences across media, multi-dimensionally. Critical information, back story and details of an ongoing narrative are provided through multiple media means-such as comic books, films, television programs, web content, mobile content, social networks, and games-creating a more expansive and immersive experience than traditional marketing approaches. Examine the role and structure of narrative in audience engagement, and how this dynamic new trend in media content development impacts consumers. You will use case studies and, upon completion of this course, evaluate and develop a transmedia story-strategy for a product, company, or campaign to take advantage of this new environment to engage and persuade.

Google has created an algorithm that rewards websites who regularly post fresh, relevant content, and punishes sites that post syndicated content, copied content or worse yet, nothing at all. Blogging is the best way to update a company's website with pertinent and original content, while also creating an effective sales tool. This course will not just show you how to blog, but how to do it for businesses, in a marketing context, including how to choose topics, and how to effectively blog for measurable results. This hands-on course will teach you why blogging is important, how to navigate around Wordpress, how to create and maintain a successful business blogging campaign, how to choose and write the material that will best suit your client or business, how to manage workflow, how to post in Wordpress efficiently and effectively, what plugins to use, why you should respond to comments, and why it's necessary to incorporate social media posting into your blogging strategy.

New media is any form of electronic communication that takes place over the Internet such as blogs, wikis, social networking and bookmarking sites, portals, life streaming, and social annotation. This course helps you navigate the new media landscape and better understand how these tools can be applied in business and in personal situations. You'll gain an overview of the current tools available, as well as the technologies that drive them such as Rich Internet Applications, cloud computing, and software service. This course also examines the structure of a Web 2.0 company and strategies for monetizing websites. Marketing professionals, engineers, sales and customer support staff who want to harness the power of new media for enhanced business success will benefit from this course. Others with a personal interest in learning about new media can also benefit from this course.