Crowdsourcing and Social Media: Marketing a Class (MKTG 2350) on Campus

How Should St. Kate’s Advertise Integrated Marketing Communications MKTG 2350?

St. Kate’s has just added a section of Integrated Marketing Communications for the summer. Every Tuesday from May 31st through August 2nd.

The next step is marketing it to St. Kate’s students. The class is open to ACTC students and other adult learners, but the max is 18-20 students and it fills up quickly.

Challenges?

It starts on May 31st, so Spring Term WEC (Weekend College Students) would have a one month overlap.

For registration purposes, the class will be listed as Topics: Integrated Marketing Communications instead of the current INDI 2090 Promotional Communications or the soon to be MKTG 2350 Integrated Marketing Communications. How confusing!

Where Does Crowdsourcing come in?

With this blog, I’m asking current and former students (any anyone else reading this blog) to tell me what I should say about this class for on-campus advertising.

As the instructor, I have goals — theories and skills I want my students to master, but they don’t necessarily correlate to why students take the class. I’ve heard the class is fun, it’s relevant, it’s hard, it’s a lot of writing, and it’s applicable among other things. It’s required for Marketing/Management majors.

I think the class would be even more interesting if students from other departments took it as part of their required writing intensive coursework. Diversity is always more interesting.

At St. Kate’s we believe:

Clear, eloquent writing opens doors to worlds students aspire to enter.

But is that enough to persuade someone to sign up for my class? Probably not.

Here’s what I think the on-campus advertising should emphasize:

Headlines:

So you Want to Work in Social Media?!
Writing for the Internet
Use Social Media in Business

Supporting Details:

Learn how to apply interactive marketing and social media tools in business
Curious about Twitter?
Write a blog. Get noticed.
Learn how to market yourself
Create a Integrated Marketing Communications plan for a local business using social media
Write about what inspires you…for credit

Frankly, I’m not impressing myself.

Students, give me your feedback! What would persuade someone like YOU to take this class?

Saralitta

March 21, 2011

Blogs, Minneapolis / St. Paul Marketing, Social Media Marketing, St. Catherine University, Students, Word of Mouth

Crowdsourcing, MKTG 2350 Integrated Marketing Communications

13 responses to “Crowdsourcing and Social Media: Marketing a Class (MKTG 2350) on Campus”

rebeccarabb

March 21, 2011 at 7:05 pm

I think what you have is good. It’s good to point out what Social Media is. I noticed when I said social media to peers they weren’t always sure what I was talking about. Also, “What Does Social Media Mean to You?” Whether we like it or not we need to have a better understanding of information on the internet can hold.

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1. Sara Geneva Noreau Kerr
  
  March 21, 2011 at 7:54 pm
  
  Thank you! I really like: “What Does Social Media Mean to You?”
  
  Reply
promcom

March 21, 2011 at 7:05 pm

Hi! I’ll trade you my opinion for that Powerpoint sample 🙂

One of the most useful take aways from this class, for me, is how to use social media to market yourself for future jobs (or for anyone who owns/wants to start a small business this class would be a great advantage).

Also the fact that we learn so much about social media in this class that is going make us marketable is another huge point.

To be honest, I never knew I had an interest in working in social media until I started this class, so that wouldn’t have been as big of an attraction for me as being better prepared for my next marketing job.

Hope that helps!

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Jen Powell

March 21, 2011 at 7:57 pm

How about understanding what all the hype is about and using it to your advantage. Reach your target market with confidence and relevance. Learn how the use of Social Media has been instrumental with aiding the peoples of Egypt get their country back by and create global awareness. Social Media is not just for companies to market their products and services or individuals to communicate with their friends and followers it’s becoming a tool for change.

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1. Sara Geneva Noreau Kerr
  
  March 25, 2011 at 8:51 am
  
  Good!
  
  Reply
Susan Taylor

March 21, 2011 at 11:06 pm

I agree with my colleagues. In addition, since Social Media is such an important facet of today’s advertising society, it is important to be able to slow down and go deeper with what is being presented. If the curriculum is going to focus on this growing area of marketing, will that be identified. Our class moved through this at such a break-neck speed, it was hard to really absorb as much as I wanted to. I like the lay out of the course. I would love to audit this in about a year.

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1. Sara Geneva Noreau Kerr
  
  March 25, 2011 at 8:52 am
  
  I think you hit on something very important with: “…it is important to be able to slow down and go deeper with what is being presented.”
  
  Reply
Kathleen

March 22, 2011 at 9:37 am

I don’t know “how” to do this but I do know that expressing the relevance of this course in terms of “today’s world” would be important. Some of the questions to think about might be: Why would your employer be happy if you took this class? How does this class prepare you for your next opportunity? What does it do for you in your current job? Why at the age of 40, should I take this class? Blogs are intimidating and scary to most, as we found out in class, so why is creating a blog a good thing?
Making it writing intensive isn’t going to draw people to the class, most students run from those classes unless it’s required.
I took this class initially because I needed to fulfill a course requirement and quickly found out how beneficial the class was to my current job and the world of “social media”.
I probably didn’t help much here.

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Leah Michele

March 22, 2011 at 10:21 am

Initially I think an email should be sent to students, I know the business dept. send emails when relevant classes become available. This way the students will get the notice in their emails, especially for WEC students that might not be on campus as much as a traditional student. As far as the overlap, as a WEC student, I’m always aware of an overlap in the spring term and summer term classes, so it’s always something I keep in mind with my personal and work schedule, too!

As far as the class, for me, the class really promoted having a healthy internet presence. I recently heard a speaker say that social media is here to say, we need to embrace it. This is so true. There are so many positive and good things with social media. I think the greatest is the option for networking. Since SM is so big in the marketing and advertising industry, pretty much everyone in the industry is on SM and are talking about things that are relative to the industry. But, I digress! Back to the marketing of the class, I like the idea of making it clear that social media is here to stay – learn to ROCK it. Good luck, Sara!

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Charles Wankel

March 24, 2011 at 6:35 pm

I have several books on teaching, student recruitment, etc. using social media. Sort my Amazon page by “publication date” and they will go the top of the listings of my books: http://amzn.com/Charles-Wankel/e/B001JPAE5Q/

Reply
1. Sara Geneva Noreau Kerr
  
  March 25, 2011 at 8:52 am
  
  Thank you! The book list is fabulous.
  
  Reply
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