I came across a blog on the one-year-old NewMediaRockstars (NMR) web site that declared a new social media degree being offered by Newberry College is one step below toilet paper. The writer’s premise for this “folly” is that social media is a “sham” and that it is “too undefined for anybody to be considered worthy of conferring degrees” in it.
You must understand, NMR is more “Entertainment Tonight” within a new media frame than it is “PBS News Hour with Jim Lehrer” or Bloomberg Businessweek, but a few things did strike me.
The criticism of the social media degree, which is the writer’s jumping off point for a bashing of the social media discipline, has some merit. Even with four years of concentrated study in graphic design, communications, business administration, psychology and statistics, as well as innovative social media courses – as Newberry College’s program touts – few, if any, graduates will enter the workforce adequately prepared to identify how and where to influence consumer conversations in which products and brands are discussed, advice is sought and guidance is offered. That’s a tall, strategic order for any social media manager, much more than “maintaining a Facebook page, firing off promotional tweets, and making sure your company is easy to find on Google,” as the NMR blog would have you believe is the sole responsibility of the social media manager.
But that’s about as much merit as the blog gets from me. It goes on to infer that effective SEO can be accomplished by spending a few minutes with Google AdWords, giving no consideration to inbound marketing, and that those innovative enough to capitalize on and monetize social media, which would include Newberry College, are part of what’s wrong with America. Damn entrepreneurs.
Finally, according to the blog, the social media degree will ultimately prove to be of no value, as the content offered in the courses will be outdated within two years because of how fast technology moves. I would agree with that, if the coursework focuses on the technology. But social media from a marketing and public relations standpoint is not about technology. It’s about content. Smart social media managers know how to engage. They know how to create compelling content that will engage. They integrate social media into a comprehensive public relations strategy that is informed by and tells your organization’s great Story. Identifying ways to use social media platforms to tell that story is only a sliver of the job description.
Perhaps Newberry College ought to be offering a dual major in social media and content development. (You have heard of chief content officers, haven’t you?)
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Jason Snyder is a senior vice president for WordWrite Communications.
