PTC 629 The Theory and Practice of Social Media

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Social media use has become ubiquitous in business, non-profits, government and in educational institutions. Social networking sites (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn) and other online forums and content-sharing communities (such as YouTube and Flickr) and even social gaming has continued the promise of Web 2.0 and transformed content consumers into content producers.

When a version of this course was first offered in 2010, we were looking at topics like mobile, location-based services and app development as issues on the horizon. All of those are established in the social media world.

PTC 629 covers not only the network theories of SM, but also the best practices for designing social media that have evolved over the past decade. Using case studies, research, exercises and assessments, students will conduct social media audits for existing organizations and design a social media strategy for a real-world organization.

Designing a social media strategy means engaging people in new forms of communication, collaboration, education, and entertainment. The designer needs to determine which social media tactics should be used with customers and employees.

A social media analysis requires the evaluation of tools and applications from the evolving social media ecosystem. The design of mediated interaction for personal or business purposes involves the use of fundamental design concepts of user interfaces and usability.

This course is about the professional use of social media and is appropriate for students in communications, management, marketing, media, IT, digital design - and anyone interested in working in social media as a designer, content producer or community manager.

We will examine how organizations can use social media as communication tools for marketing, education, training and community building.

Students must have graduate standing and are typically enrolled in the graduate PTC Certificate or the MS in PTC. If you are not in these categories, permission of the chair and instructor is required.

This course is fully online and uses NJIT’s Moodle learning management system http://moodle.njit.edu.