I was recently asked by Richard Bailey what I think first year students studying PR at Leeds Met should be taught about social media. Well to be honest at the time of the question I didn’t really have enough knowledge of the area to answer sufficiently.
After spending more time with Wolfstar I’ve begun to understand how important social media has become within the PR industry.
I’ve devised a quick list of questions/topics I think should be taught within lectures and tutor sessions for first year students…
- What is social media?
- What technologies are involved? (many students presume Facebook and Myspace are the extent of social media sites)
- Social media used to a clients advantage
- What is a blog and should I have one? What are the advantages?
- How do I work my blog? (including posts, hyperlinks, trackbacks, commenting, blogroll etc.)
- What is an RSS feed? What are the benefits of subscribing to feeds?
- Old media vs New media
- Why is social media important for PR practitioners?
Guest lecturers from PR companies that currently use social media would also be of a huge advantage to students, giving them a first hand insight into the world of social media networking.
I must admit I’ve become a bit of a social media monkey since beginning my placement with Wolfstar and now I love it (my laptop however is finding it a little more stressful..) With technology moving forward at such a pace, PR practitioners must embrace it and get social media savvy. Teaching undergraduate students from the first year would enable them to get their names out there for people to see, increasing their chances of employment on completion of the degree.
15 Comments
August 11, 2008 at 6:11 pm
Hey Natalie, great post. I’m going to share this with my students. In fact, I’ll share you entire blog. Sorry I haven’t commented before, but I have been following you along the way. Great to have you with us. Thanks!
August 12, 2008 at 2:19 am
Thanks for your comment Robert, I think it’d be a great idea to teach students more about social media since it has become such a big part of everyday life! Do you already teach social media at Auburn?
August 12, 2008 at 3:31 am
That’s really helpful Natalie: I certainly can and should teach all this and more.
Problem is the gap between teaching and learning. More teaching doesn’t always lead to more learning – but that’s my problem to work on.
August 12, 2008 at 8:26 am
Interesting post, Natalie. You might also be interested in a list of skills and characteristics my students created last spring: http://teachingpr.blogspot.com/2008/03/tools-skills-and-characteristics-for.html
August 12, 2008 at 10:29 am
As a member of the Wolfstar team and as a former student of the same course. I think something which would really benefit students would be good and bad case studies of companies which have used social media as part of a communications strategy.
August 12, 2008 at 10:39 am
Brilliant list. Can I add two suggestions?
1) How to find Blogs in any niche.
2) How to rank those blogs by popularity, importance and influence.
August 12, 2008 at 11:16 am
Natalie, I think you’ve put together a really good list and sparked a potentially fascinating conversation. A couple of crucial things I think you’ve left off your list are:
1) PR/comms strategy and how you MUST include social media (even if it is to decide to actually do very little, it must still be considered and be part of the strategy)
2) Ethics and etiquette – while the principles are the same online as offline the practice sometimes differs and it is important that students understand this very early on
August 12, 2008 at 11:23 am
It’s so crazy how basically everyone is on a social networking site. It’s so bizarre; I feel like facebook is taking over the world. I am amazed by the internet on a daily basis.
August 12, 2008 at 12:44 pm
really good post Natalie – i’m very glad i clicked through from richard’s blog to read it.
one thing that i would say is of paramount importance is that any education around social media, or digital communications in general, should be focused towards strategy and integration rather than the specific tactics needed to excecute that strategy.
you can always learn about new tactics but they will live and die by the strategy they are used to accomplish.
ed
August 12, 2008 at 11:18 pm
[...] Welcome to my website. On my blog I write about marketing, public relations and digital communications. To keep up-to-date with my posts you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed or sign-up to receive blog posts by email. Thanks for visiting and I hope you enjoy my site.Stuart Bruce points us in the direction of an emerging debate between PR lecturer Richard Bailey and one of his students Natalie Smith. [...]
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August 13, 2008 at 2:32 am
Natlie – nice post. I think as a student it is important to understand how to learn about new/social media.
That includes making the connections between existing knowledge (strategy, comms models, planning, etc) and the challenges/opportunities presented by more interactive, immediate technologies (which is something that can be taught by us old digital immigrants).
Also, given that the area is dynamic and wide-ranging, it is essential to know how to explore online, identify new trends, put these into context, build online networks, manage your digital footprint, follow emerging case study examples, etc etc.
It’s a bit like swimming – anyone can do it, and being thrown in the deep end is one way of learning, but to be a world class swimmer, you need to practice, learn from others and study the basic theoretical underpinnings.
August 13, 2008 at 2:41 am
Thanks for your comments everyone!
Karen- It’s really interesting to see the list your students created- the “Skills/characteristics to cultivate” list in particular intrigued me as it includes points that I would like to learn about myself!
Chris- Case studies would be incredibly useful to us students! Plus who doesn’t like to hear a good old disaster story every now and then?
Richard and Stuart- Thanks for your suggestions, I may add these to my list later today. Ethics/etiquette are a particularly important point that I left out!
Ed- You make a good point. However as students leave University they will (generally) go into account exec positions which are widely based upon tactics, with strategy being learnt and developed as the individual makes their way up the hierarchy.
Natalie
August 13, 2008 at 3:27 am
Heather- You’re definitely right! I think I’ve learnt about social media by a mixture of the two- kind of being thrown in at the deep end with arm bands on! Although at first I felt quite overwhelmed with it all, with a helping hand from Wolfstar, I’m starting to understand social media and its purpose.
August 13, 2008 at 3:39 am
[...] University, summarizes nicely on his post teaching social media inspired by a topic raised by Natalie Smith, one of his students and intern at online PR agency Wolfstar (found via Stuart Bruce’s blog): [...]
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February 10, 2009 at 4:03 pm
Great post – couldn’t agree more and i strongly agree that social media.
I actually currently work for a social media agency and we are looking for students to help us out and gain experience with two of the major players in the social media arena.
Can you help in recruiting them at all? Maybe a blog post? Let me know, it really is a great opportunity