By Jenna Lebel

In last week’s blog post I explored how schools are embracing social media to enhance the learning experience for students. This week I’m taking it one step further and looking at schools who have not only embraced social media to enhance learning, but also find it so valuable that they have adjusted their curriculum and now offer classes (and even programs!) in social media. Here are 5 examples of schools who are paving the way in social media education. What’s your opinion on social media education? Can it be taught in the classroom? Share in the comments section below.

Emerson College Social Media Class

The social media class at Emerson College is offered as a marketing elective. Students in the class start their own blog, contribute to a class-created blog, and communicate with each other using the Twitter hashtag #esm (Emerson Social Media). Students are given real companies to work with for the semester, organizing and running the social media strategy for that company. For several semesters now, Google has collaborated with the class allowing students to run Google Ad Words campaigns. Last semester, two Emerson social media students started a hashtag #jackiessecret to talk about the announcement that the college’s president would make that afternoon about her retirement. In one day, the hashtag was used in 1,400 tweets and Emerson College has since earned an award for their efforts.

Birmingham City University Master’s Degree in Social Media

A new master’s degree program at Birmingham City University teaches students how to use social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, Bebo and blogs for professional communication and marketing. The program will be of interest to journalism, PR, marketing and communication majors who will use social media in their professional lives. The one year program consists of one class and costs £4,400 ($6,239 USD). While not everyone at the university supports the program (some students feel it is too easy, that everyone knows how to do this stuff), the university and many students do agree the program is scholarly and necessary in the new age of technology.

Stanford University Facebook Application Development Class

A new course at Stanford University called “Create Engaging Web Applications Using Metrics and Learning on Facebook” teaches students how to design, develop and launch apps on Facebook. Students work in teams of 3 to 5 to create one application of their choice and one educational application to share papers or notes. Students are graded on how engaging their application is to other users. The class uses web analytics and user engagement metrics to evaluate their applications at the end of the semester.

Griffith University Makes Twitter a Mandatory Class

Australia’s Griffith University is now making Twitter a required class for all Journalism students. The class was created in response to the rising demand in the professional field for employees who can use social media intelligently and professionally. When the university realized some students were not as proficient as they should be, they created this mandatory class. There has been some negative reactions from students who feel that a Twitter class is a waste of time or unnecessary for their professional and educational lives.

Georgia Southern University “Making Connections” Social Media Class

A class at Georgia Southern University called “Making Connections: Facebook and Beyond” is now available to students wishing to learn how corporations use social media and how they can create and promote their own online profiles. Students create a blog, network on various social media sites and become an “expert” in one type of media. There is also a focus on helping students create, maintain and protect their online profiles and reputations, created in response to the growing need for students to understand how their online profiles can impact their professional life.

Michigan State University Social Media Research and Development Partnership

Michigan State University may be a latecomer to the list, but certainly not to the concept of social media in education. MSU offers several courses in social media, but that’s not why they made the list. Their addition to the list is a result of their recent social media research and development partnership with INgage Networks. Ingage is an award-winning enterprise social software provider and is working with MSU to open a social media research and development office on the campus. The college and software provider will collaborate to develop social media solutions to challenges faced by government, corporate and nonprofit organizations, while equipping participants to engage in the global knowledge economy. The initiative is already underway leveraging online collaboration throughout the state to create jobs, retain workers, and ‘green’ Michigan. Using social media to rebuild Michigan’s economy makes the project a win-win for MSU, INgage and the state of Michigan.

by Kristen Malzone

Two weeks ago, Conan O’Brien launched a personal Twitter account. It has received quite a lot of buzz in the Twittersphere. He has only tweeted 19 times and already has over 600,000 followers.

On March 5th, Conan tweeted:

“I’ve decided to follow someone at random. She likes peanut butter and gummy dinosaurs. Sarah Killen, your life is about to change.”

And, that it did. Sarah Killen (@LovelyButton) went from  3 followers to over 25,000 followers in less than a week. She has been interviewed on multiple news stations nationwide and is now considered to be a Twitter celebrity.

Today, Conan announced the launch of a new website, TeamCoco.com, and a 30-city comedy tour titled “The Legally Prohibited From Being Funny On Television Tour.” The website crashed in a matter of seconds due to overcapacity. Already, second dates have been added to Boston, Chicago, and New York. UPDATE: Second dates have also been added in Seattle, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Vancouver.

Other celebrities, reporters, and government officials should take note. If  your career fails, Twitter can help you sustain your success. Get on Twitter now before it is too late and build a fan base of followers. They will be there even if your paycheck is not. Twitter can open the doors to so many other opportunities if you know how to use it correctly.

How do you use Twitter to support your success?

By Dave Kerpen

President Barack Obama and the US Federal Government have set the tone for government use of social media, but hundreds of local states, towns, and government agencies have also begun to use social media to accomplish their objectives. I am particularly passionate about the role that social media can play for local Departments of Health, and proud of the work that theKbuzz has done with the NYC Department of Health on Facebook with NYC Condoms and NYC Quits and the Boston Public Health Commission on BostonSexED.

In this interview, I talk with the Mayor of Newark, New Jersey, Cory Booker. Mayor Booker is undoubtedly a rising star in politics, with late-night tv appearances, a friendship with Ashton Kutcher, and even a front-page appearance on Mashable when he responded to a tweet by showing up at a Newark resident’s house to shovel her snow. Mayor Booker clearly understands the power and promise of social media for local governments, as I think you’ll see in the interview. What examples do you have of local governments using social media? 

By: Shannon Aronin

This year I am so excited to be attending SXSW Interactive, along with our Chief Buzz Officer Dave Kerpen and Director of Small Buzzness, Mallorie Rosenbluth.

If you are a newbie to this amazing conference this year, my advice would be to dress comfortably – especially shoes, the Convention Center is huge! Austin weather is unpredictable this time of year so prepare for anything by bringing layers. Use the SXSW tools. Upload a profile picture and fill out your contact information, follow industry contacts you know or would like to know, and pick the panels you plan to attend. Make sure your smart phone is set up with any apps you have been meaning to use but haven’t gotten around to setting up yet. Don’t forget your power cords to your phone and computer!

I’m really excited about the people, panels, parties and tools. The 5 things and panels I’m most looking forward to are:

1. Using QR Codes. This is so cool it’s unbelievable. It’s also why it’s really important to flesh out your profile. Before the conference make sure to download the QR Reader to your phone. Registrants will all be assigned Quick Response bar codes that will display on their conference badge. If you snap a picture of someone’s bar code using the Reader, you will auto follow that person on my.SXSW, allowing you to retrieve their contact info later.

2. Debunking the Myth of Social Media Fundraising. I am always interested in how social media can make a bigger difference for nonprofits. Plus, this panel features friend and client of theKbuzz, Stacey Monk, Executive Director of Epic Change. The panel also features some other folks I’m excited to hear from including Brooke McMillan with Livestrong, and Jodie Kolkowski from the American Heart Association.

3. Crowdsourcing Innovative Social Change. This panel features several friends, and brilliant minds that are constantly exploring effective nonprofit use of social media. Beth Kanter, Amy Sample Ward, Holly Ross, David Neff, and Kari Saratovsky make this a panel that can’t be beat if you’re into social change. These experts have written a lot about the topic, so be prepared for this session to explore the difference between using social media to serve a nonprofit’s mission and using it to drive widespread cause driven change.

4. Blogging and Live Tweeting. For me personally, live blogging isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. You will get a more coherent, well thought out post on what I learned at SXSW here next Tuesday. I WILL however be live tweeting. You can follow me @ShannonAronin to read the best gems from sessions, meetings and parties. If you want to follow everyone tweeting at the conference, be sure to watch the #sxsw and #sxswi streams.

5. Being LOCAL! Although I originally hail from New York, I live in Austin, so the entire SXSW festival (which includes music and film in addition to the interactive portion) is a huge deal for the city. I love Austin, and I love watching people from all over the country fall in love with this great city. So please, if you’re in town and want to know where to eat or what to see (and you haven’t already been fully informed by Yelp!, Gowalla or Foursquare) please ask me. Welcome to Austin!

by Devin Sugameli

Two Fridays ago, theKbuzz’s Jenna Lebel wrote about her 5 Tips for Social Media Crisis Management, using Toyota’s 8.1 million vehicle recall as an example of the kind of crisis that a brand must be prepared to handle. But what if you were Hyundai, Hondo, Audi, or even a good old American car company? It may sound aggressive, but there’s no reason you should miss out on your opportunity to shine. Here are 5 tips for capitalizing on a competitor’s social media crisis while keeping it classy:

Be informed. First and foremost, if you are trying to capitalize on another’s social media crisis, you must stay abreast of any important updates related to it. This weekend, Disney temporarily yanked WABC programming from television provider Cablevision, leaving hundreds of thousands of Cablevision subscribers in the dark for nearly 24 hours. As the two companies tried to negotiate a deal as quickly as possible so that Cablevision customers could still catch Sunday night’s Oscars (service returned 14 minutes into the broadcast), theKbuzz checked the news regularly for updates as they related to Cablevision competitor (and client of theKbuzz), Verizon FiOS. Depending on the crisis situation and its developments, you may need to update your brand’s messaging related to it quickly.

Be prepared. When a competitor faces a crisis, their customers are going to start to look elsewhere. Whether it means dedicating more of your employees’ time to social media management specifically or establishing a 24/7 monitoring schedule during this period, make sure you are fully prepared to respond to the inevitable increase in posts and questions to your brand.

Rally your fans and supporters. We know your fans already love you – but chances are they will never be prouder to call themselves your fans and customers than they will be when they hear some bad news about the competition. Take advantage of it! Invite them to declare their support for you across social networks by RTing your twitter updates or “like”ing a Facebook status update.

Offer Rewards for Referrals. In light of a competitor’s crisis, your fans will feel further inclined to suggest your brand to any friends directly affected it. If you don’t already have a customer referral rewards program in place, create one. If you already have one, up the ante for any conversions made during this limited time.

Stay classy. Nobody likes a mudslinger. It’s one thing to seize an opportunity, but it’s quite another to kick a man when he’s down. Stay classy throughout and there will be no doubt in the minds of your current and potential customers that yours is a brand they can trust.

Do you have any of your own suggestions to add? Let us know in the comments!

By Jenna Lebel

Social Media is about listening, joining a conversation, and entering a dialogue. It is no wonder that classrooms are relying on social media to enhance students’ learning experiences. From live streaming Twitter feeds to a digital classroom portal, educators and students alike are finding a benefit in the integration of new media into the classroom. Here are 5 examples of how social media is becoming the newest teachers’ aide. Do you think social media has a place in the classroom? Can you think of other great examples? Share in the comments section below.

Stanford University

Stanford University uses its fan page on Facebook as the ultimate resource for students. Students have access to faculty and student projects and can get inspiration for their own projects there. But that’s not what makes this case unique. Stanford leverages Facebook to host faculty office hours. Students (fans) post questions to the wall for a specific faculty member and that faculty member answers the questions during his/her assigned “office hours” via video or the wall. Stanford’s online office hours do not replace in person office hours at the university, but they do make it easier for students to find answers to questions quickly, without leaving their dorm room.

Purdue University

Purdue University uses the Hotseat application which integrates Facebook, Twitter and text messaging to help students communicate during class. Students simply use social networks or SMS to comment and ask questions on the class material as the class proceeds. The messages are projected onto a screen, allowing everyone in the class including the professor to see the messages. So far, the new media component in Purdue’s classrooms has been well received by students and faculty. Professor Sugato Chakravarty sees social media as a valuable tool for enhancing learning. He explains, “The students are engaged in the discussions and, for the most part, they are asking relevant questions.”

University Laboratory High School, Illinois

High School teacher Steve Rayburn wanted his students to read Dante’s Divine Comedy and get excited about it. His non-traditional assignment was called “Twitter in Hell.” Students were required to read the Dante classic and write 140-character tweets describing each level in hell as if they were Dante writing to his beloved Beatrice. Rayburn claimed that his kids instantly took to the project.

Marquette University

Through Skype, Spanish students at Marquette University participate in a virtual language exchange. Each student is assigned an English-learning counterpart from South America and engages in frequent webcam chats with their digital pen-pal. Professor Janet Banhidi claims that by using Skype each student gets an authentic experience and has access to their own personal tutor.

University of Texas at Dallas

History professor Monica Rankin has employed the “Twitter Experiment” to her classroom lectures for over a year now. She sets up Twitter accounts for her 300+ students and uses Twitter to encourage participation among them and organize and transmit topics, discussions and questions. In her syllabus, she assigns a hashtag to each class discussion topic making it easier for students to search and index those topics. During each class, the live feed of all tweets using the designated hashtag are projected on a large screen for all to see.

by @kzone7

“Hollywood has the Oscars. Broadway has the Tonys. Now Twitter has the…Shorty Awards” - The New York Times

theKbuzz team attended the Shorty Awards last night at TheTimesCenter. You can catch the entire show on livestream, but here are the top 10 moments:

10. “Twitter Cops” – The  night kicked off with a comedic documentary about the misuse of Twitter. Although this video was intended to humor the audience, it also validated the prominence of Twitter in everyday life.

9. Othello In Less Than 140 Seconds – Shorty Award winner, Reduced Shakespeare, performed a rap rendition of Othello during a 140 second intermission.

8. Bonnie Smalley’s Acceptance Speech – @ComcastBonnie won the award for customer service and her customers had written her 140 character acceptance speech. Obviously, a well-deserved award. Congrats, Bonnie!

7. Unlocking The Shorty Badge – Attendees saw a special surprise when they checked in on foursquare last night at TheTimesCenter. There was a special badge for the event called the Shorty Badge. Very clever, shorties!

6. Grover’s Acceptance Speech – @SesameStreet won the award for brand (along with @WholeFoods) and Grover was there to accept on their behalf. He started listing 140 fictional characters like Superman and Pokemon in his acceptance speech. Obviously, he misunderstood, but we still love Grover.

5. Cory Booker’s Win – @CoryBooker won the Shorty for government. He was there to accept and is very deserving of this award. He really knows how to utilize Twitter to connect with the citizens of Newark and other government officials should follow his example.

4. William Shatner Reads @ShitMyDadSays – Twitter users love to read tweets from @ShitMyDadSays and William Shatner shared some his favorites.

3. Mark Z. Calls Suze Orman – @SuzeOrmanShow won the Shorty in finance. They showed a video clip from her show when Mark Z. called asking about a  purchase he was interested in making: $1.5 billion to buy Twitter.

2. The Llama Gets Kanyed – @DoWhatITellYou won the weird award, but David McDonald from the Ron & Fez Show beat Annie Scott to the mic. He pulled a Kanye and was finally escorted off of the stage after 2 long minutes.

1. Janis Krum’s New Theme Song – @JKrums (who was included in our “Top 10 Tweets of 2009″ post) won the award for Best Real-Time Photo for his Twit-pic of the Hudson River plane crash. This was no surprise, but the shocker was the song they played as he walked up to the stage to accept his Shorty: “I’m On A Boat” (uncensored).

You can view the list of winners from last night by clicking here. Who are some of your favorite Twitter users? Share by commenting here.

In today’s Watch me Wednesday video, I talk about the 5 best ways to engage your Facebook fans:

1. Post photos. A picture is worth a thousand words. Instead of using words post pictures. By posting interesting pictures, you can get people talking on your page.
2. Post videos. If a picture is worth a thousand words, a video is worth a thousand pictures. Create a short form content video between 60 seconds and two minutes and share it with your fans. A great feature about posting a video on Facebook is if someone is watching the video, they can click above it to become a fan of the page if they are not already!
3. Share links to interesting articles and resources with your fans. Links are a great way to bring relevant content to your fan page that may not be your own.
4. Ask your fans questions. If people are not commenting on your updates, it is because you are not asking them to. If you ask your fans what they think of something or what they are doing, they will answer these questions on your page.
5. For the more advanced users, utilize interactive apps including polls, quizzes, and virtual gifts. These are some ways to engage your fans on a more advanced level.

What other ways do you engage with your fans? Share by commenting here!

By: Shannon Aronin

One year later, and the Share Our Strength/Tyson Foods partnership is still one of the most impressive campaigns to date that exemplifies best practices in cause related  marketing.

Social media creates unique opportunities for nonprofit/business partnerships. People share the things they are most passionate about, and your average brand just can’t compete with the passion a nonprofit cause can generate. If you are in business, customers give you money, and you in turn give them a product or service. Nonprofits rally people behind movements; donors give them money to support what they see as the common good. People have to be passionate to give time and money without receiving a product or service in return.

Nonprofits need generosity to meet their missions and thrive. Corporate giving makes up a significant part of nonprofit funding. Most businesses, even small local shops, give to charity in one way or another. Consumers expect companies to give back. A 2008 Cone/Duke University study states that consumers spend twice as long viewing cause-related ads, 85% of Americans have a more positive image of a company that supports a cause they care about, and 79% would switch brands to one associated with a good cause.

Unfortunately, nonprofits continue to offer the same benefits to corporations with changing marketing needs, and corporations don’t seek opportunities to maximize the marketing value of the good work for communities they already do. Companies are uncomfortable talking about the social good they are doing. I think that many fear that their charity will be reduced in the public eye to corporate greed, but as the numbers above demonstrate, that is simply not the case. Corporations from small to large actually can and do care. There is no such thing as a “company,” there are only people that own or work at a company. The more “real” your brand is in general, the more authentic a company’s giving appears. But there is nothing wrong with leveraging the giving that a company is going to do anyway as a marketing tool either.

So, how can nonprofits and corporations work together to create better, truer partnerships? Here are 3 tips to improve the effectiveness of cause-related marketing for both companies and nonprofits.

1. Corporations should direct giving to nonprofits that are aligned with their business model. This simply makes sense to consumers. Geoff Livingston does an excellent job here showing that the sweet spot for effective and authentic cause-related marketing is the intersection of Mission, Problem and Family. If you are an engineering or technology company, you have a genuine interest in supporting STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) learning objectives for students. If you are a developer, you have a genuine interest in causes that support healthy community growth. There is self-interest, but not objectionably so. On the other hand, if you are a tobacco company mandated to spend millions of dollars on anti-smoking campaigns, that’s a little too see through for the average consumer to take seriously.

2. Nonprofits should offer more creative benefits to corporate donors. The third sector needs to do a better job raising visibility for corporate donors. Nonprofits should still include them in  annual reports and sell event sponsorships. I’m a big fan in diversifying the sources of your nonprofit’s funding in as many ways as possible. But partnering with a corporation to generate buzz through a day of company service improves awareness and sentiment for both organizations. Online initiatives need to advance. There have been a number of campaigns that have been targeted at giving to charities based on how much attention the cause generates by bringing Fans to the company’s Facebook Page, adding Twitter Followers for the company, or improving traffic to the company’s website. But what happens if we flip the equation?

What kind of message would it send if the company instead drove Fans/Followers/visitors to the nonprofits? What message would the consumer receive if companies demonstrated the altruism – which I idealistically believe really is part of why companies should and do give – by using their budget, resources and audience to raise awareness for an important cause? What if corporations started sponsoring the online presences of nonprofits? What if corporations gave according to the attention the nonprofit they support garners? Slap your logo on this and explain that you believe in helping nonprofits succeed, and you have created a different, more giving image and done more to foster the nonprofit’s sustainability.

3. Companies need to recognize the changing needs of nonprofits too. Funding is scarce right now for everyone, especially nonprofits. The best thing many can do right now is to prepare to soar as the economy continues to recover. Nonprofits do still need to fund general operating expenses. Program support also remains important. But the nonprofits have not been so in need of capacity building, marketing, technology and expertise in at least fifteen years. The great part of this is that corporations can provide much of this in-kind and through company sponsored employee volunteer work. Corporate grants should place a high priority on innovation right now, because those are the charities that will thrive in the future and create the most social good with corporate investments in the community.

What creative corporate/nonprofit partnerships have impressed you? Is there a company you give purchasing favor to specifically because of their involvement with a cause? Are you mistrustful of companies that showcase their giving, or are you ok with it so long as you feel connected to the cause?

by Devin Sugameli

Update: Yelp’s Business Outreach Manager Luther Lowe linked us to a full response by Yelp CEO Jeremy Stoppelman that does a very good job of addressing the claims discussed below. Thanks for the link, Luther!

Last week, a veterinary clinic called Cats and Dogs in Long Beach, CA filed a class action lawsuit against popular social networking and review website Yelp, alleging that Yelp acted in violation of California’s business code. According to Cats and Dogs Animal Hospital owner Gregory Perrault, it was immediately after two particularly unsavory reviews had been posted about the clinic that Yelp sales representatives began contacting him with “frequent, high-pressure calls…[promising] to manipulate Cats and Dogs’ Yelp.com listing page in exchange for Cats and Dogs purchasing an advertising subscription.” His claims are in essence the same as those presented in Kathleen Richards’s infamous East Bay Express article posted around the same time last year, which accused Yelp sales representatives of partaking in an extortion scheme aimed at procuring advertising dollars in exchange for burying poor reviews on the business’s Yelp page.

In response to these allegations, a Yelp representative gave the following statement:

Yelp provides a valuable service to millions of consumers and businesses based on our trusted content. The allegations are demonstrably false, since many businesses that advertise on Yelp have both negative and positive reviews. These businesses realize that both kinds of feedback provide authenticity and value. Running a good business is hard; filing a lawsuit is easy. While we haven’t seen the suit in question, we will dispute it aggressively.

At the least, this response is a bit more on point than the fairly weak defense Yelp’s CEO posted on the company’s blog last year, which denies any truth to these allegations in one sentence and then dedicates many more to discrediting the author and her sources. But this defense fails to acknowledge the crux of Perrault’s accusation: that a Yelp sales representative offered not to remove, but bury negative reviews so that they appear lower on the business’s page. Yelp already offers advertising businesses to highlight their favorite review at the top of their profile, and these reviews are clearly marked as “sponsor favorites” – so what’s so different about moving their least favorite review to the bottom?

The biggest difference is that numerous accounts have accused Yelp of doing just this – and if they are, then they’re lying about it. It may be true that Yelp representatives are not offering to delete negative reviews outright. To be completely fair, if Yelp representatives have been offering to simply alter the physical placement of negative reviews on a business profile, we can assume that the business’s overall star rating as well as its ratings trends and distribution charts would be entirely unaffected. All this being said, as a frequent Yelp user myself, I know that no matter a business’s overall rating I will always look carefully through the first full page of reviews and pay special attention to poor ratings. Two “A-OK” 3-star ratings plus one terrible 1-star ratings on the front page makes a much bigger impact than just two mediocre 3-star ratings alone.

Were Yelp not presented as a network essentially by and for the customers, it might not be very alarming to hear that a local business could chose to manipulate the order of review postings to its advantage. But a motto like “Real people. Real reviews.” doesn’t imply any participation on the proprietor’s part. Whether or not the alleged practice is actually in violation of California’s business code, if proven true, Yelp’s activities are deceptive at the least. What are your thoughts? If true, would this practice be easier to swallow were its existence made explicit to Yelp users, or should it be banned outright? Tell us what you think in the comments!