B-Schools All A-Twitter Over Social Media

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One of the earliest pioneers of Internet marketing courses, Elaine Young, an associate professor of marketing at Champlain College, where social media has been part of the MBA curriculum since 2000, says understanding digital tools is critical for business students. Students who master such tools can add to a company's bottom line, and improve their chances of getting a job.

"Companies want students to know this stuff," Young says. "But it's not just about having a Facebook page. Students have to ask themselves: 'Do I know how to set up an official Facebook page and run it and engage people on it?' "

Learning from Customers

Companies want to recruit MBAs with social media skills because tapping into online networks can be a powerful way to learn brand sentiment, identify new opportunities, and improve customer service, according to Dorian Benkoil, founder of New York-based consulting firm Teeming Media. "It offers business an opportunity to converse with customers and learn from them."

At INSEAD, professor Andrew Stephen says he created the course "Advertising and Social Media Strategy" shortly after joining the faculty in June 2009 to address what he saw as a need to train MBAs in nontraditional marketing techniques. The two-month course made its debut in January of this year. "My feeling was that all the B-schools were lagging behind in preparing MBA students for dealing with the new media landscape," he says.

The INSEAD class lectures focus on thinking broadly about social media, not just Facebook and Twitter, Stephen says. Topics include the underlying psychological and sociological foundations of social media and the metrics and measurement tools for gauging the effectiveness of social media campaigns. Students are required to participate in social media marketing projects for big brands including Coca-Cola (KO), Nokia (NOK), Hermès (RMS:FP), and BMW (BMW:GR). According to Stephen, a typical project involves developing a detailed social media marketing strategy for the client.

"One of the key lessons from the whole course is that what we're dealing with is social interactions between people and approaches companies can take to get involved in their conversations," Stephen says. In less than six months, he says, attendance in the course more than tripled, from 27 students in January to 45 in March and 93 in May.

At London Business School, the "Internet Marketing" course also stresses hands-on learning, according to the course's online syllabus. Students participate in the Google (GOOG) Online Marketing Challenge, running an online advertising campaign that will benefit a real business, the syllabus says. Student teams taking part in the challenge develop a strategy, assess the results of the campaign, and make recommendations for the company, according to the Google website.

Saadi is an intern for Bloomberg Businessweek in New York.

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