Welcome to Week One

This is "Week 1" of Social Media Marketing online course. This quarter will cover all 15 chapters (and Appendix) in your textbook in sequence. The Weekly Schedule in your course syllabus shows when each chapter is covered. It is time to start an exciting journey together!

Social media marketing (SMM) uses social media platforms (sites) to positively influence consumers toward a company’s brand, product or service. In other words, the goal of social media marketing is to persuade consumers of the value of a company's offering. While traditional marketing tends to be interruptive by nature (e.g., a TV commercial), social media marketing consists of engaging and influencing people (e.g., enticing online users to participate in conversations and offering them something of value in hopes of eventually persuading them to view your offering favorably). Social media marketing often involves creating a “buzz” online, so that complementary content about the company, brand, product or service goes “viral,” with consumer-generated media endorsements spreading like wildfire across the Internet (--think of a highly watched YouTube video extolling the virtues of a particular product).

It is not hyperbole to say that social media marketing is fundamentally changing the way businesses communicate with consumers. In fact, social media marketing has become so powerful it is now driving search engine results. Today, people are using highly accessible social media tools to find, create, and share content online. Social media enables people to collaborate and form consensus opinions, connecting and forming relationships in ways never before possible. This presents a new challenge and opportunity for businesses—to positively influence this ongoing conversation about the company’s offerings.

Think of it this way, social media marketing is the 21st Century digital “word-of-mouth” promotion. However, instead of discussing a company’s offering in person or over the phone, Internet users have turned to social media portals to express their opinions.

Let's get started - we will go over Chapter 1 and Chapter 2 this week.

Chapter 1 provides an introduction to social media marketing, explaining what it is, how it differs from conventional marketing, and explores some of the major social media platforms. After studying this chapter, you should be able to:

Explain why social media is important
Define social media marketing
Explain the 7 myths of social marketing
Describe a brief history of social media marketing
Explain how social media marketing is different
Identify the characteristics of a successful social media marketer
Describe the careers in social media marketing

In Chapter 2, we delve into goal setting in a social environment. After studying this chapter, you should be able to:

Define a social media plan
Explain the social media marketing planning cycle
Describe each step in the social media marketing planning cycle
Identify five ways to listen and observe the social web
Explain how to set social media marketing goals
Describe how to create social media objectives
List the 8 C’s of Strategy Development
Detail how to link social media goals to actions
Explain self-promotion versus building army of advocates on the social web