Posted on September 23, 2009 - by Wayne Sutton

Teaching Social Media at North Carolina Colleges

Last week I the opportunity to speak to a group of MBA students at NC State University about Social Media. Since the second half of 2008 I have been asked to either lead session or sit on panel covering various topics such as social networks, video blogging and using social media for journalism at Duke University and the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill (UNC). I have actually spoken at UNC 4 times in the last year and when I was asked to speak at NC State I felt as though I was completing the big 3 Triangle (Raleigh, Durham, and Chapel Hill) university loop. (past speaking events)

I was asked to join a list of other guest speakers as part of MBA Social Media and Management class. A few of the other guest speakers includes Andy Beal, Joseph Jaffe, Katie Morse, Jeff Cohen and Polly Pearson covering various topics such as Blogging and micro-blogging, social networks, creativity, reputation management and B2B marketing using social media (schedule). My topic was social media etiquette, video and community building. The class was 1:15 long and to prepare I made a content outline and a list of questions to ask. One of the first things I told the students was that I wasn’t going to stand in-front of the class and talk for 1:15 and show them a bunch of slides. Not that there is anything wrong with having a presentation ready but if I’m leading a session on social media we’re going to be social.

A few talking points were:

• Why is video important?
• Example of video shows
• Best practices for creating online video
• Why online communities matter
• Comparing various communities
• Creating valuable content
• Conscious content posting

I’m glad I had an outline and was prepared but after an introduction from Professor Claudia Kimbrough, who introduced Chis Moody who then introduced me, I looked into the eyes of the students they all gave me that here comes another boring social media talk look. So then I decided at that moment to switch things up and as they say in the hip-hop world, freestyle it. I wanted to see what was on the students mind, what they have previously covered in social media and what was at the core using social media effectually. Therefore I asked the diverse room of students a series of questions about what happens during a period of time of online conversations between two new individuals using social media. The outcome was a relationship and trust using various tools such as Twitter, Facebook and Linkedin.

Other topics we touched on were the value of location based sites like Brightkite, uses for Linkedin and Facebook fanpages. While discussing Facebook fanpages we talked about brand engagement and why it’s important for companies not to just post / push content but really make an effort to communicate with their fans. Surprisingly we spent very little time focusing on Twitter and more time on social networking etiquette and what role students online content and behavior could affect their future in the job market.

Near the end of the class I suggested they look at creating a social media policy and I did touch briefly on how much it doesn’t cost to launch an online video show. Then I showed the students Jeff Cohen’s daughter new video blog called Grace Talks about Food to where she’s talking about a Hannan Montana Cereal in a video on YouTube. The reason I showed the class the video is because it’s a classic example of how simple it is to create videos about any topic you’re passionate about and how brands should reach out to their customers who are online posting content about their products. In other words, I’m expecting Grace to get an email or comment from Disney soon.

After the class I thanked Professor Kimbrough for having me and Chis Moody for the invite. While I was leaving I was wondering what the students thought of the session and by the way of tweets, I think they enjoyed it. Take a look.

LindsayCrawford: Thanks @waynesutton for an engaging presentation! He knows his stuff!

MacMan34: sitting in class listening to @waynesutton talk about video, social media, & communities.

lshawtter4: @waynesutton Thanks for dropping by NCSU. Informative and energetic presentation!!

Before the class started I did recved a few tweets from Paul Jones @smalljones a professor at UNC about more Social Media classes being taught by him and Fred Stutzman @fstutzman which can be found here and http://ibiblio.org/pjones/jomc449/wordpress/ and that Richward Waters @rdwaters teaches another class on social media at NC State too on Social Media and Public Relations http://ncsupublicrelations.wordpress.com

For more information on the NC State Social Media MBA class, see the links below.
Class syllabus: http://www4.ncsu.edu/~cbk/schedule.html
Class blog: http://ncstatesocialmedia.wordpress.com/
Professor: Claudia Kimbrough @calliekuhn

Again I would to thanks to Professor Kimbrough and Chis Moody for the invitation. Chris also has a blog post with a few notes from my session that can be found here: How to ACE Social Media: Alignment, Control, and Engagement

If you had the opportunity to tell college students one thing about social media what would it be?

Related Posts:

@JuliaRoy at #SXSW about the @Pepsicosxsw Pla...

iPhone 4 Launch Day at Crabtree Valley Mall (...

War has been declared on Twitter Auto DM and ...

#28DaysofDiversity: People of color impacting...

Share post bit.ly url: http://bit.ly/aMUjr

About the Author

Written by Wayne Sutton

Wayne is the business development/marketing strategist for TriOut and partner at OurHashtag. For more, follow SocialWayne.com on Twitter, Buzz, and Facebook. Also check out the SocialWayne Podcast in iTunes. See all posts by Wayne Sutton.