Syllabus

Department of Advertising, Public Relations and Retailing College of Communication Arts and Sciences Michigan State University

Monitoring and Measuring Social Media for Business

Summer Semester, 2013

Meeting Dates and Times: Mandatory all-day sessions for all sections on May 18, 2013 from 9:00 AM to 4:00 PM and Saturday, August 10 from 9:00 AM to 2:00 PM at Walsh College in Novi. If you cannot attend both sessions, you will not be able to pass this class.

This syllabus is subject to change.

Lead Instructor: Allie Siarto, Loudpixel Inc.; allie (at) loudpixel.com

Course Goals
Upon completion of this class, you will:

• Understand how to set goals for social media listening and measurement
• Understand advanced Boolean search logic and keyword building
• Have an understanding of both free and professional listening tools
• Have experience identifying trends and themes in social media conversations
• Learn how to set up a workflow to track and respond to issues and opportunities through social media listening
• Be able to distinguish and account for spam and irrelevant posts in social conversations
• Understand how to filter and present social media listening findings
• Execute a real world client social listening project using professional tools

Text

• Measure What Matters by Katie Delahaye Pain

Other Tools

• Radian6 (students will sign up for lab time to access shared accounts)
• Other free online listening and research tools

Methods of Instruction

During the first class, course instructor, Allie Siarto, will preview the entire semester and provide an overview of key topics to be covered in the class.

The opening Saturday session will be essential to success in the class. Attendance in the introductory session, and in the final Saturday session, is mandatory. This first day meeting will also be an opportunity to ask questions as the instructor and students go through the syllabus, and the instructor demonstrates the basics of each class.

The class will spend the remainder of the regular semester sessions engaging through the course website. Each week, additional instructions will be available on the course website to walk students through new concepts, and each week students will receive an assignment from the instructor related to the topic area.

Students will turn in assignments by 11:59 PM on Monday nights unless otherwise specified, and will have assignment feedback from your section instructor by the following Monday. This process will occur each week. Students will get the new assignment for the next week on Tuesdays if not sooner.

NOTE: If you miss three assignments you will FAIL the course. There will be two assignments per week (most weeks)—a blog post to the course blog (400 words or less) or an open book, self paced online quiz and a practical assignment related to the topic of the week.

The final Saturday session will involve exemplary student presentations and a brief review of the class by the instructor. Attendance at both in-person class sessions is MANDATORY.

Course Component Specifics

Plagiarism will not be tolerated. Plagiarism will result in a ZERO grade for the assignment and may lead you to fail the course or other penalties in accordance with university policy. Please cite all references and credit photos used on your blog with a link.

You can read the university policy on plagiarism on the university website. All violations will be turned over to the university, which will handle any examples of plagiarism according to its published policy.

Attendance and Make-Up Work

As mentioned above, attendance at both Saturday sessions is mandatory. Students not in attendance on the first Saturday will be dropped from the class roster. The course instructor will deliver all assignments “virtually,” and all assignments are expected to be submitted on time.

Student assignments will be completed online. Because of this, students can expect four or five hours per week of work. Office hours may be set up by appointment as needed. You can also Tweet questions to @allieo on Twitter or email allie (at) loudpixel.com.

Course Requirements and Grading

Students will receive a numeric grade for weekly assignments. Each assignment will be graded on content and form. Blogging assignments may be submitted in text or video format. If done correctly you may receive a 4.0. If you are struggling with the assignment, please request help before the assignment is due.

Late homework will be reduced by 10% per day. Homework one week or later will not be accepted. It will be recorded as a “0” grade. All homework must be turned in Monday night by 11:59 pm (23:59 EST) for each week, or it will be recorded by the system as late.

If you do not resolve revised assignments, you will receive an Incomplete until the work is completed according to university policy.

Students who receive an incomplete for the course are expected to repeat the entire course in a subsequent semester in order to receive a completed grade in the course.

There will be weekly 15 assignments/quizzes (100 points each) and one final presentation (500 points). Again, if you miss three assignments you will FAIL the course.

Brand Projects

During the first class, each student will select a brand to represent. This brand will be the focus of writing assignments and projects throughout the course of the class.

The only exam will be the final presentation of brand projects on Saturday, August 10, which will be a review of selected students’ work. The instructor will select some of these final presentations for presentation to the entire class.

Class Schedule

May 18 Course Overview (Saturday)

• 9:00 – 9:30 AM: Getting started
• Introduction to the Instructor
• Introduction to the course website, book assignments
• Quick Review: how to approach blogging for class assignments (text and video)
• 9:30 – 9:45 AM: Overview of the day
• 9:45 – 10:00 AM: History of traditional monitoring and measurement
• Overview of traditional monitoring and measurement principles
• Barcelona Measurement Principles
• 10:00 AM – 10:30 AM: Overview: The Three Pillars of Listening
• Monitoring
• Insights and brand planning
• Measurement
• 10:30 – 10:45 AM: Identifying industry resources and case studies
• 10:45 AM – 11:00 AM: Break
• 11:00 AM – 11:30 AM: Understanding Boolean logic
• 11:30 AM – 12:45 PM: Introduction to media types and free listening tools
• Social media types to listen to
• Exploration of free tools
• Using Hootsuite to set up a free listening post
• Identifying spam and irrelevant posts
• 12:45– 1:30 PM: Lunch break
• 1:30 – 2:00 PM: Introduction to professional listening tools
• Exploration and demonstration of tools
• Thinking critically: how to evaluate professional listening tools
• Budget, coverage, analysis capabilities, alerts, flexibility, accuracy
• 2:00 – 3:00 PM: Getting started with analysis
• Core business goals
• An overview of metric points
• Setting SMART goals
• Identifying basic trends in social conversations
• Getting started with in depth analysis
• Creating a process to bring it all together
• 3:00 – 3:30 PM: Presenting findings
• 3:30 PM – 4:00 PM: Brand sign up, questions

Weekly Assignment
Dates list below reflect due dates (11:59 PM ET) 

Monday, May 27

• Part One (Blogging Assignment): Find and review two learning resources (e.g. blogs or other sources) related to listening, measurement or data presentation. Write a blog post to the course blog reviewing and comparing the sources.
• Part Two: Use Hootsuite to create your own listening post based on the brand you signed up for during our in-person class (you may choose to set up the listening post for the entire brand, or you may choose a specific set of issues or brand messages to track). Take a screen shot of the listening post, and write a summary about how you created it, including the resources you are pulling from and the Boolean logic that you used to create the searches. Submit this assignment as a PDF through Lore.

• Part One: Open book online quiz: Chapters One and Two of Measure What Matters (‘You Can Now Measure Everything, but You Won’t Survive Without the Metrics that Matter to Your Business’ and ‘How to Get Started’).
• Part Two: Identify a trade article that discusses a real-world marketing program. Summarize the initiative and discuss the objectives, audience and metrics that could be used to measure the program. Submit this assignment as a PDF through Lore.

• Part One: Open book online quiz: Chapters Three and Four of Measure What Matters (‘Seven Steps to the Perfect Measurement Program: How to Prove Your Results and Use Your Results to Improve’ and ‘Yes, You Can Afford to Measure: Choosing the Right Measurement Tool for the Job’).
• Part Two: Listen to this week’s audio download, Reviewing Professional Aggregation and Analysis Tools. Compare the pros and cons of two free or paid tools. Submit this assignment as a PDF through Lore.

• Part One: Open book online quiz: Chapter Five of Measure What Matters (‘How to Measure Marketing, Public Relations and Advertising in a Social Media World’).
• Part Two: Organize a keyword list using Boolean logic (see assignment for details). Submit this assignment as a PDF through Lore.

Monday, June 24

• Part One: Open book online quiz: Chapter Six of Measure What Matters (‘How to Use Numbers to Get Closer to Your Customers’).
• Part Two: Watch the video on creating a basic conversation analysis (see Lore). Create a basic analysis around your brand. Submit this assignment as a PDF through Lore.

• Part One (Blogging Assignment): Open book online quiz: Chapter Seven of Measure What Matters (‘Measuring the Impact of Events, Sponsorships and Speaking Engagements’).
• Part Two: Create a response flowchart or guideline based on the brand that you set up a listening post for in assignment one. Submit this assignment as a PDF through Lore.

• Part One: Open book online quiz: Chapter Eight of Measure What Matters (‘How to Measure Influencers and Thought Leadership’).
• Part Two: Listen to this week’s audio download, Identifying Influencers. Create a list of 10 websites or online influencers who have driven conversation around your assigned brand, including any key metrics that you used for your selection. Submit this assignment as a PDF through Lore.

• Radian6 video training.
• Begin final project.

• Part One: Open book online quiz: Chapter Eleven of Measure What Matters (‘Threats to Your Reputation: How to Measure Crisis’).
• Part Two: Submit final project progress (tagged/contextualized data set for your brand).

• Submit final presentation through Lore (PDF).

• Final Class Presentations LIVE in Novi

Description of the Final Presentation
For the final presentation, students will be expected to bring together all processes and skills developed throughout the course to complete a full competitive analysis report on the brand they chose during the first class. Students will have access to Radian6, a professional listening tool, as well as free tools to complete this project. Either set of tools may be used to complete the project. The presentation will include five parts:

1. Executive Summary: Summarize the main findings (20%)
2. Full brand and competitive social media analysis (20%)
3. SWOT Analysis based on findings (20%)
4. Recommendations for next steps based on findings (20%)
5. Outline the methods and keywords used to create this report (10%)
6. Formatting and grammar (10%)