MKG375 Social Media Marketing
SPRING 2018: January 8, 2018 – May 3, 2018
Classroom: WB310
• MKG375 Section 1 – T/TH 9:30 AM – 10:45 PM
• MKG375 Section 2 – T/TH 11:00 AM – 12:15 PM
• MKG375 Section 3 – T/TH 12:30 PM – 1:45 PM
Eric Harvey
Director of Center for Advancement
of Digital Marketing and Analytics
E-mail: esharvey@bsu.edu
Phone : 765.285.3410
Office: WB 320
Office Hours: T/TH, 3:30 PM to 5:00 PM
Wed 10:00 AM to 1:00 PM
Other days/times by appointment
COURSE DESCRIPTION
Study of social media as a means of marketing products and services to both consumers
and organizational markets. Focuses on developing strategies for targeted social media
campaigns, implementing platforms and tactics to meet those strategic goals, determining
metrics and analytics for measuring success, and addressing current technology associated
with the social media environment.
MKG375 Social Media Marketing
SPRING 2018: January 8, 2018 – May 3, 2018
COURSE OVERVIEW
By now, almost everyone has heard the story of how the world’s most popular online social
networking platform, Facebook, was created by Mark Zuckerberg and his college friends in
a dorm room at Harvard in early 2004. Since then, Facebook has grown into one of the
world’s most valuable technology firms, becoming a public company in May 2012 and
reaching over a quarter of the world’s adult population (1.44 billion active users) by early
2015.
Facebook’s rise to become a household name around the world is part of a massive
and fundamental shift in how people communicate, interact, and share experiences and
information with each other. Facebook, along with a plethora of other socially interactive
digital platforms, communications services, websites, and apps, has sparked and continues
to drive the social media revolution. This revolution has changed how people communicate
and share information, and it has fundamentally altered not only how people behave, but
also how businesses interact with potential and current customers.
Marketers in particular have quickly adopted digital social media tools, in large part
because they have always known that word of mouth and person-to-person social influence
are strategically important for reaching and influencing consumers. To marketers, social
media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram provide ways to “scale up” word–
of–mouth marketing with the hope of achieving that elusive but potentially lucrative “viral
effect” whereby information spreads like wildfire. As you will see in this book, making
something “go viral” is not an easy thing to do and, in many cases, is not even an
appropriate marketing objective. Nevertheless, the rise of social media as a way for people
to communicate has been a boon for marketers who have been looking for better, more
engaging ways to interact with consumers.
Ultimately, our goal is to help you become a genuine expert on social media marketing.
Using social media for marketing purposes has many potential advantages for companies,
but such efforts often do not reach their full potential because marketers do not understand
enough about it to be truly successful. Let’s change that!
In summary, this course will aim to do the following:
• Cover state-of-the-art social media marketing principles from a strategic marketing
perspective, whereby a company’s social media activities need to deliver real value
for the company and its customers.
• Be realistic about what social media can and cannot do for marketers. We will not
sugarcoat or dumb down complex topics. Instead, we will tackle the complexities
directly and provide clear and relevant explanations and examples.
• Help you, gain more expertise as a social media marketer. This book should help you
get up to speed on many topics related to social media marketing, including some
MKG375 Social Media Marketing
SPRING 2018: January 8, 2018 – May 3, 2018
that go beyond the “standard” approaches that companies currently take when
using social media.
Topics Covered:
• Traditional Marketing and Digital Marketing
• Your Social Network
• Social Media Networks
• Social Media Marketing
• Social Media Listening
• Social Media Audits
• Social Media Management
• Content Marketing Strategy
• Social Media Engagement
• Social Media Analytics
COURSE GOALS & OUTCOMES
Students that successfully complete MKG375 will achieve/be able to do the following:
1. Complete a social media audit of a brand
2. Gain understanding of the social media strategy plan
3. Gain understanding in content marketing evaluation for a brand
4. Gain an understanding of an organization effective engagement in social
media in relationship to their marketing objectives
5. Engage in appropriate situational analysis (internal and external), customer
analysis and industry analysis in order to develop effective social media
marketing tactical and strategic plans
6. Identify the place social media marketing has within the context of an
organizations/business unit’s/product’s overall marketing strategy
7. Grasp the understanding of network mapping
8. Understand the required terminology and components of Social Media tactical
and strategic plans
9. Understand the different strategic purposes of using social media in the
marketing mix and marketing process with emphasis on its role in developing a
business overall as well as its role in the promotion of specific products
10. Apply research and understanding of the customer, the external environment as
well as the internal situation to a social media plan
MKG375 Social Media Marketing
SPRING 2018: January 8, 2018 – May 3, 2018
COURSE FORMAT
Apart from the contents of the discussed in class, additional material from different sources
may be covered in class. Additional readings may also be handed out in class, or posted on
the blackboard. The student is responsible for all material discussed in class, additional
readings assigned, and assignments announced in class. Assigned readings should be
completed before class. Students are expected to arrive to class on time and stay for the
entire period. Only select lecture slides/notes of concepts covered in class will be posted on
the blackboard. Optionally, students may find slides prepared by the publisher as useful
resources. These may be downloaded using the link provided on the Blackboard’s External
Links section.
