social media images

Instructors: Dale Blasingame & Jon Zmikly

June 20-24

Zoom June 24, 1-5pm CT

Description

This week, we’ll talk about the top social media platforms and how to use them in the classroom. In addition, we’ll cover the relationship between social media analytics and strategy – and how to convey that lesson to students. There will also be a hands-on exercise to put yourself in the shoes of your students.

Objectives

I. Compare and contrast the current states of Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok and the various social platforms while getting familiar with the firehose of updates headed your way

II. Break down the terminology and options available to teach analytics and build reports

III. Analyze the differences between teaching social media and researching social media

A Note From Dale Before We Begin

If you are interested in teaching a class related to social media or expect to teach a class like this at some point, you have to immerse yourself in it. This doesn’t mean you have to be an expert on every single platform, but you absolutely have to follow the major developments and news coming from the platforms just about every day and should have enough experience to discuss content strategies on each of them. I cannot stress enough to make sure you’re comfortable creating content on Facebook, Instagram, Instagram Stories, Twitter, Snapchat, Pinterest, YouTube and TikTok. (That’s the list for now, at least.) As researchers, it’s easy to get sidetracked by data. Analyzing data is important for students to learn, don’t get me wrong – but it’s not enough. We’re doing a great disservice to students by only focusing on analytics or focusing on the wrong type of data. Most of the jobs they’ll apply for are based around content and content strategy. Students need to understand the give and take between engagement analytics and content. Scraping Twitter for a research report is not a skill the vast majority will use in the real world, for instance, unless they have a niche job in a newsroom.

Online Exercises & Materials

Read and Watch

Analytics Report Assignment

A key portion of my Advanced Social Media and Analytics course is the analytics report assignments. I teach them how to design these by hand because it’s unrealistic to expect them to find a job right off the bat at an agency or business who will be able to afford or care about automated reports. Plus, this helps push them to think about how to lay out a report and make sense of data.

With each report, I provide relevant portions of the client’s engagement data to my students, who then use Canva or a similar program to design a report. So that’s what we’ll do right now! I’ve posted client analytics for May in the Slack #socialmedia channel, just to use as a hands-on exercise. I’ve also included your instructions, a few versions of the client logo and a few examples of student work to get inspired with. I always use this first release of data and resources to discuss with students the confidentiality of client data and respect for client resources. Our client this past semester, the Grad College, knows I’ve provided these resources to you, as well, and they’ve approved using them for this exercise.

Here’s a quick video on how to calculate client averages. I realize you likely don’t need a class on Excel math, but I wanted to explain how I go over the data with students.

Here’s a quick tutorial on how to use Canva, in case you’ve never used it before. Make sure to design your report in a 8.5×11 inch format.

Discussion

Hopefully these videos and articles have you thinking about the relationship between content, engagement, data, strategy and issues facing social media platforms – and how you’ll cover all this material with students in the classroom. So let’s discuss in the #socialmedia Slack channel.

  1. Student habits on social media change by the week, seemingly. There’s been a major shift in their usage, which we can discuss on Friday in Zoom. How have your social media habits changed in the past few months or years? What is your favorite social network and which social network should you spend more time on? Why?
  2. What is the most challenging and rewarding aspects of teaching a social media class? How can we overcome these challenges? If you’ve never taught a social media class, what excites you about the possibility? What’s your biggest concern?

Friday’s Zoom Call

When we meet on Friday, I’ll have a presentation walking you through how to create/teach this type of social media class. We’ll talk about working with a client, and I’ll also have a quick presentation on the state of the social networks to help you get an idea of how much there is to stay on top of with this industry. We’ll also go over your Analytics Report submissions. Then we’ll spend the bulk of our time together in an “Ask Me Anything” discussion. Based on previous bootcamps, this has been what the fellows got the most from. So have your questions ready to go!

Module Evaluation

After each module, you will be asked to do an evaluation. Go to the link for the PhDigital 2022 Zoom Modules Evaluation and select the module you are reviewing. Please do this as soon as you can after the Zoom session.