Teaching Social Media Marketing: Using Case Studies Andrew Stephen L’Oréal Chaired Professor of Marketing University of Oxford

How do you teach something that’s always changing? You have to stay “cutting edge” and relevant Students expect this Program directors, deans, dept chairs, etc also expect this Don’t reinvent the wheel every semester or year! Major overhaul once every 2-3 years Do build the course around “fundamental principles” Do make extensive use of case studies, examples, projects

How to Get Marketing Value from Social Principles Psychology of social sharing Why do we do what we do on social media? Marketing communications Paid media / advertising Owned media / content marketing Earned media / WOM and viral Strategy Combining social with everything else Products Product marketing Product development Services and relationships Social CRM Service management through social channels

Why use case studies to teach social media marketing? Complement textbook and/or other readings Dig deeper into what companies have done with social media Often fairly experimental, learn by doing Can encourage students to find other (potential) case studies Helps with relevance and keeping things current/up to date Students like relating to real things that companies have done

My case studies Over the years have written a number of case studies for my social media elective Ford Fiesta Movement (2010 – winner, marketing case of the year) OPI Nail Polish Viral Marketing (2010) Google Street View in France (2011) iXiGO.com in India (2011) The Atlantic Monthly (2011) Spotify (2012) DeltaAssist (2013) E 2 Kickstarter Campaign (2013) Ameriacn Eagle Outfitters Skinny Skinny Jeans (2013) DEWmocracy: Crowdsourcing Mountain Dew (2013) Beyoncé: Launching a New Product Through Social Media (2014) Under development: cases on influencers in social media fan communities (Imagine Dragons), sophisticated data mining of social media data for new product development, and more

Ways to use cases in the classroom? One approach is to do the Harvard-style “divide the board into quadrants” thing Great if the case is about making a decision among a set of alternative courses of action But often not the way things are done Another approach is “criticize + what’s next + takeaways” Case material covers only so much of the story Go through what the company did – critically analyze every aspect Then have students consider what they would do next Finally, derive a set of “key takeaways” – lessons learned that can be applied outside of that company Or just assign cases as background reading Fine but students miss out on a discussion opportunity

Real time case studies: topical, relevant, fun Can also use a case study approach without formal written materials Bring current topics into the classroom and have students analyze them in a case discussion format Use the “criticize + what’s next + takeaways” approach Topical = relevant; also usually quite fun E.g., for a session on managing brand communities in social media you could pick a brand (or celebrity) that has just had something bad happen to them and challenge students to figure out how they’d deal with the fallout on social media E.g., Suppose you manage the Twitter Provide students with background material (e.g., newspaper article, short video) and a few “discussion questions” so that there’s some structure If I have time I usually break students into small groups for about 20 minutes and have them come up with answers to set questions, then we have a class discussion

Real time case studies: involve local companies Sometimes you have local companies that you want to bring into the classroom for a project-type engagement, but they don’t really have enough “meat” for a proper project This is perfect for a real time case study Better than the usual guest speaker experience Students get to grapple with very real business problems and get feedback Company gets some ideas in exchange for taking time to come to class

Assessing case studies A few different approaches can be used, not necessarily mutually exclusive Two standard approaches: Class participation Case write ups Class participation – hard to evaluate, biased against “quiet” students. But it is the norm at top schools Write ups – students don’t really like this, can be a bit generic, not very engaging. But it is done to get them to read the case Another approach: pre-class surveys Instead of a write up, have students complete an online survey about the case study Another approach: post-class surveys Can be used to reinforce learning, force students to reflect a bit, ask them what the takeaways are Also ask them for current examples related to the case – gives you new ideas!

Call students out!

Summary Use case studies! They work really well with a certain social media marketing textbook… Case readings and class discussions don’t have to be boring Rip apart what was done Figure out what to do next Collectively decide on the key takeaways Use a combination of formal written case studies and real time case studies Assessment should not make reading/preparing cases arduous Pre-class surveys work well. Post-class surveys also

Thanks! Andrew Stephen L’Oréal Chaired Professor of Marketing University of