Social Media Management

Course Objectives

As a result of successfully completing this course, the students will:

• have a comprehensive knowledge of multiple social media platforms, what they do, and how and why we use them, along with strategic ideas for management within the social networking community;
• be able to monitor social media and present relevant data, trends, risks and
  opportunities;
• articulate ethical guidelines and best practices in social media management;
• identify principles learned in the course to determine why particular social media campaigns failed and others succeeded.

Course Description

The course aims at providing students with an understanding of how to research, plan and evaluate the use as well as the management of social media.

• Students will be given an introduction to Social Media: the course will define the topic, look at its scale and its background and context.
• Students will learn a Social Media Management Framework: a structure that will tie together all the theories, best practice, cases the course will offer.
• Students will learn what a Social Media Plan is and what are the relevant elements.
• Students will put into practice what they learn by developing a Social Media Plan, guided by the teacher and experts who will offer practical lectures during the course.

Learning Methods

Students will experience an environment whereby they can demonstrate their understanding of information through practice. To this purpose, during the lectures the course discusses case studies to provide hands-on experience of social media management practices. In addition, students will be given assignments aimed at enhancing their technological skills using current social media platforms.
Moreover, throughout the course social media experts will be invited to give guest lectures to further expand the students’ understanding of a specific topic.

Examination Information

Written exam (70%)

Social media tasks (30%): students will be asked to complete tasks related to the development of a social media strategy and to put into actions some of the tools and tactics you will learn during the course.

Required Material

Main study material for this course are the “lecture notes” compiled by the course director and published on the icorsi.ch platform. Other supplemented materials for this course include chapters from core references, reports and scientific articles on specific topics. All of them will also be published on the icorsi.ch platform.