Walter: This is my second tour of duty here on this topic. I wanted to talk about how I teach and approach this topic and give you three different frameworks. How we name things in communications – I started teaching a class about word of mouth marketing and social media, the first, full-semester class dedicated to this topic. This year I’m teaching a class on conversations, including online and social media communications. The first framework is to set up the context for this topic. It’s about coordination and control and you can look back to trace the history on both of these topics. What we’re seeing now is a new way to conceptualize these topics within companies. The second model is more practical than theoretical and how companies come to understand this social media world and marketing. It’s a 5-6 stage process and people being oblivious about conversations. People then become indifferent or neglectful to it, and usually don’t pay attention until it blows up in their face. Then they move into monitoring it. Some companies are doing social media because they don’t want an issue to blow up in their face. The final stage is joining in these conversations in a participatory level. Dell is a great example of this that has gone through each of these conversational platform phases, ending with the Dell Idea Storm. The third framework I use is looking at what are the imperatives  for these organizations to succeed, like generating word of mouth and product innovation. These are some of the frameworks I use to conceptualize social media to my students.

Robert: I would like to say we’ve revolutionized our decisions at Ball State based on last year, but we haven’t but these topics and conversations on social media have shaped my own personal opinions. The framework that I’m coming from is public engagement. I align closely with one of my colleagues who feel we should have named this field “public relationships.” It is our job to engage in conversations and communicate with people. I think we need to approach social media in the same but different way from traditional PR. Social media are tools, new tools, but just tools. I think we it’s more imperative to teach our students to strategically use those tool to create transparent and authentic communications. We need to understand the message and the dialogue for us to start this communicate with our target audience. Social media pushes us in a new direction or one we’ve always been headed in, in engagement and authentic communication with transparency. That might take a bit of a mindset shift because that is a risky strategy and it’s difficult for leadership to be transparent and authentic and that means our students have to be more courageous when entering the business world to push for this. It assumes people are rational most of the time, which is risky. It’s essential to teach the fundamental s at a strategic level to our students than we did before because they’re going to have to translate the benefits of that high-risk strategy to that leadership. This is a leadership story, not a technology story (a comment from yesterday). We’re in the throws of putting together a new curriculum together at Ball State around this and we’re implanting a pioneering spirit in that curriculum. It’s especially important in the growing field of social media.

Clark: I don’t want to be a modest, I want to light the passion and share the dreams. Last week I was carrying the Olympic torch in China and I’ve been using this at a metaphor in my teaching. The torch is a symbol of what has changed in the last few years. The model of communication over the last few years and especially since the 1970s has really changed. The motivation I have this is the world that as the world changes, so does the way we have to teach, and that includes adding social media components to the teaching. There is an extraordinary amount of sharing and communication between faculty members on this topic. We are incorporating social media tactics into the strategies that we’ve developed and we’re seeing a growth in placements in the new media outlet’s we’ve used for our clients. The Northwestern Medill School is using research-based strategies, channel tactics, action and summative and formative research tactics in our programs now and teaching to students. These are all things we’re looking for. Students are rebelling to some social networks, like Linked In because they don’t want to be out there.

John: Social media is here, what departments provide training in this? Communications and PR only or are other departments teaching this?

Clark: Our graduate school Kellogg went through Web 1.0 and tried to build a department about it but it wasn’t popular enough and not many other departments have ventured in here. Social media is taught under communications and other departments are using a Communications platform in their curriculum.

Robert: We imbed it in all classes we teach, especially in Journalism, where there is a new media class. Our president has made emerging media an important topic to include in curriculum across all disciplines.

Walter: I see it more across a number of disciplines but are using it as educational support for their departments and support its educational missionary curriculum. We also have some people doing more cultural studies approach, how do we live with media? Not as much how we use media as a tool.

John: How tech savvy are students now?

Clark: They’re all “thumbs” basically, but they do have the technology with them. So between the grad students who use it on a daily basis and the undergrad students that the students will be teaching me things that are “new” and popular in this medium. All of them are smart and savvy and I tell students that if they don’t have these skills they likely won’t have a job because employers look for this.

Robert: I have to back that comment up. I’m finding the most challenging the way to help them see the strategic piece of social media in communications. They’re quick to pick things up but not how to use things like this in an appropriate way.

Walter: The new resume is 140 characters long, like Twitter is. Employers are looking at how creative you are and how savvy you are in this medium. Show me your blog, show me your Twitter account and what you’re doing with this stuff already.

Robert: I go back to what others have been saying, people need to get their students involved in a class about this and how to practically use the tool. They have to be familiar with it and they don’t have that unless they have their hands on. It’s not just about building cool stuff.

Clark: There was once an ad about Web 1.0 a few years ago, saying you need to new the new lingo and that’s happening again now. Unless they understand it, they can’t communicate it effectively and if they can’t teach their boss about it, what are they bringing to the table?

Question: To what extent are you helping your students to communicate with people via social media?

Robert: One of the biggest teachable moments last semester came from our student PR firm and one of the students was having trouble with the client and I introduced her to an old technology known as the telephone call. Very savvy kids but can’t ignore the big stuff and sometimes they have. They need to have a strategic understanding of what they’re trying to accomplish.

Clark: How to break out of that model is that by resisting that client opportunity, they have to figure out how to get out of their shell and communicate with people on a natural level.

Walter: I encourage them to blog and put things out there in a blog-format because there is more accountability and allows them to engage with the general public. They need to be taught about search engine optimization, something that helps show them that they’re contributing to something.

Question: Are you Facebook friends with your students? How do you balance inside/outside communication?

Robert: There’ s a level of engagement there that is a fine line to walk. I don’t engage that way very much and my students understand that.

Walter: I do not “poke” my students but actually I accept all invitations for Facebook and Linked In because the people who ask are respectful about it and it’s to help them build their professional credentials.

Clark: I don’t get “poked” very often but I use Linked In and I encourage them to join that because it’s an alumni tool for us too.

Robert: I accept all invitations to Facebook and Linked In as well and find those who reach out to me are respectful as well. It’s students getting ready for the business world and you stay Linked In with them or friends with them after they graduate for alumni opportunities.

Question: Would students respond to blogging and sharing social media information between campuses?

Clark: We would be interested. I would share that survey with my students to respond to.

Question: Is anyone a member of PR Open Mic? There is a great faculty resource now with over 1,300 members to share ideas.

Question: If you’re reaching a course with a heavy social media component and real-world clients, what is your deliverable?

Clark: My student’s deliverable is strategy and recommendations for actions, which is a client-based learning model. It’s in the eyes and the acceptance by the client. There is some implementation but moreso delivering strategy for the client.

Robert: Our deliverable is the Bateman competition, we didn’t place but it was a very innovative approach and this was the perfect medium for them. The deliverable is actual implementation of the plan.

Walter: We’ve had clients take our ideas to develop a social media initiative and reaction to our ideas.

John: What has been successful in your teaching social media and any best practices  or unsuccessful?

Audience: Best thing I did was bring in influential bloggers and podcasters to have a dialogue with them and educate them about what they do and how they used information. We did it with General Motors and how they engage with bloggers and then the students put together a campaign with a heavy social media campaign.

Audience: I had a negative experience with practical application where I wanted to have them do a site on our project and many of the kids were “sandbagging” and playing ignorant on it. So I challenged them to “teach” this and not take “I don’t know how to do it” as an excuse, which lead to them self-educating themselves on this.

Clark: One of the student groups took a class on Second Life and held it in Second Life and invited the agency from Coca-Cola to interact with them on Second Life in this way to hold meetings.

Audience: Do you think that is a trend?
Clark: I think it’s moving in that way and it’s easy for people to do and learn.

Audience: We have access to more bloggers in DC and what’s been successful for us in social media/digital classes and one is taught by a blogger and students blog the first day and then they move up to the strategic class about digital strategy from an agency representative and each Master’s class involves the use of social media. Social media is great for our NGO clients because it’s free and easy to start-up and maintain and share.

Audience: From the student perspective, one of the best things that we did as a student was to start a blog as a class for Auburn when there was negative press around the university. It was all about stories that were happening in the community that wasn’t covered in the news but they were great stories and activities on campus that wasn’t getting picked up either. Allowed for practical community interaction. But it taught us the importance of always updating and not leaving the site, continuing the communication. Now it’s part of the Auburn community newspaper site and it’s continued on with new generations. Getting involved outside of the classroom.

Walter: Some schools nationwide have been unable to relinquish the control needed to create these networks . The only way to control the message is to be the message. You’re not giving up control, you’re identifying and living the message you want to be out there.  You have to ask very challenging questions and you have to make sure the transparency you communicate is actually transparent .