What would it be like to have an MA in Social Media? That will soon become a reality, come September 2009 the Birmingham City University will open its doors to pioneer postgraduate students in Social Media.

Most social networks are strictly for entertainment purposes, but having a degree using them is really amazing. A question crossed my mind, why should a university offer an MA in Social Media? My guess is that the role social media has to play in the future is vital. Already, PR practitioners, Marketers, Advertisers and other fields of profession are making use of various social networks to reach their target audience. This alone shows the indispensable nature of social media.  

Some schools of thought have criticised the course thinking it’s a waste of university resources and a waste of time when it can be self taught. Another school of thought like PR professional Neville Hobson is in support of the degree. The interesting thing is that students are enthusiastic about the experience, according to the course convenor Jon Hickman there has been good response from potential students. Here is a blog and tweets about the course.

In general, I believe that equipping PR, Journalism and Marketing students with the necessary knowledge and skills in social media will be beneficial to them in the long run. For instance, Leeds Metropolitan University offers an optional course module on PR and New Media which was introduced last year to its Marketing and Public Relations students. Here, students are to set up and maintain a blog which reflects personal interests, social media, online PR and Marketing. I happen to be part of this success story, so far I am certain that my course mates and I are experiencing a great time with various social media tools and their application.

This shows a few universities are waking up to the call of social media and its impact to the society, I couldn’t agree more. Good luck Birmingham City University!!

Most organisations now make use of social networks  as avenues to reach and connect with their various publics in the online environment. The consumer market is highly competitive in nature and to stay ahead of competition it is necessary for organisations to maintain and sustain good reputation online.  

Why does online reputation matter? It boosts confidence among customers who enjoy associating with organisations that have untainted image and reputation. It increases sales of products and services offered by an organisation resulting from patronage of loyal customers. The profits of an organisation rises when sales increases, this in turn makes the organisation stand out among competitors. One good thing about online reputation is that it effect changes on products and services through customer feedbacks channels employed by an organisation.

Organisations manage their online reputation to know what is being said about their products, services, performance, achievements and shortcomings using monitoring tools such as:

·          Trackur

·          Technorati which is a search engine site to know what is being said on the blogosphere about your organisation.

·          Digg to know who has dugg up submitted stories that match your organisation’s name.

·         Google blog search to know who is blogging about your organisation.

·         Google analytics

·         Del.icio.us

·         Google video which has switched to index videos from online hosting sites such as YouTube and Metacafe. It helps to keep track of negative videos that include your organisation’s name and products.

 According to Dale Neef in his book Managing Corporate Reputation And Risks (2003, p.25), “From the Brazilian rain forests to Nigeria, and from the diamond mines of South Africa to the oil fields in Alaska, company activities are mercilessly monitored by an increasingly powerful and effective cadre of activities who quickly relay information worldwide, into collaborative activist networks, to lobbyists, to government agencies, and the press.” This means that it is imperative for organisations to monitor their online environment closely, they should be credible and ethical in their operations, watch out for pranksters that start and spread negative rumours because the slightest mistake on the web can escalate and destroy and organisation’s reputation built over the years.

 Good online reputation guarantees long term sustainability for the organisation while on the other hand, reputation can be destroyed when negative stories arise. Here are Andy Beal’s ten tactics for saving online reputation. 

Creating and maintaining a blog forms part of my assessment on the course module Public Relations and New Media. Honestly, I have never heard about blogs till the tutor mentioned it in class. I was sceptical about the whole idea at first because I did not know how to go about it. After subsequent lectures on the course, I began to see the necessity of blogging. As a PR practitioner in the making, having the opportunity as a student to learn about the nitty-gritty of blogging will be an added advantage when I enter the PR industry.

What are blogs anyway? The internet has introduced a good deal of online social networks in recent years, a blog is a product of the internet. Originally, blogs were used by individuals as avenues to express and share their opinions and ideas on topics of interest across the world. Blogging as I came to understand has the power to connect with target audience because information on the web travels fast in a twinkling of an eye. This advantage gave way to the proliferation and popularity of blogs, and has attracted organisations and other fields of profession. In the PR industry today, blogging has become an additional strategic tool in the interaction and management of relationships with both the internal and external publics of an organisation.

There has been emphasis on the necessity of blogging by PR practitioners. Practitioners have observed that their existing relationships with stakeholders can be highly effected by postings on the blogosphere. Its ubiquitous peculiarity transports information, promotes products and services, enables marketing functions and above all allows practitioners the freedom to communicate with specific audience without media editing and filtering unlike the traditional media channels. It is crystal clear that blogging is a tactic in public relations and marketing efforts today.

Consequently, blogs do have positive and negative impacts on the image, identity and reputation of an organisation and if not carefully executed could alter the effectiveness of the desired outcome. This is because the internet audiences are questioning and inquisitive. In my opinion, the former outshines the latter on the basis that only the well-informed, well-disciplined and strategically capable communicator will make it meaningful in the application of such features. A friend of mine once said, the world is changing rapidly, the future is the internet. I strongly agree with him and based on this premise, I’m certain that the blogging culture has come to stay.

Books consulted: Sandra C. Duhe, EDITOR (2007) New Media and Public Relations. Peter Lang. David Phillips (2001) Online Public Relations. Kogan Page