1. Proposal: Social Media marketing major
Mackenzie Watson

2. Overview: Why We Need it
Within the Jandoli School of Communication, two majors (journalism and strategic communications & digital media) are offered.
Each major, particularly strategic communications & digital media, touch on marketing primarily through social media platforms. However, there are only 2 or 3 classes that just brush the surface of social media marketing.
A social media marketing major should be added to the Jandoli School.
Social media is growing exponentially, showing no signs of stopping. Therefore, industries are capitalizing through intense advertising and marketing on every platform.
It is important for current college students, especially those interested in marketing, to gain an understanding on how to efficiently market on social media. They need to learn how to come up with market plans that are utilizing as many social media platforms as possible.
In the future, it wouldn’t be a surprise if there are social media marketing specialists/ agencies that exist apart from existing advertising agencies. So far, it seems that they only exist in-house.
Employers are now creating positions that require a full understanding on how to market primarily over social media. Therefore, there will be a demand for graduates that have these skills.
Each platform has its own language and is growing more complex each day.

3. Why We Need it cont…..
According to a US News article “You Can Major in Social Media?” schools are beginning to take more of interest in offering majors that emphasize understanding the importance of social media.
At Rutgers University, “one can study for a "Mini-MBA" in social media marketing for the price of $3,495. There, classes focus around analytics and the importance of social media to companies and brands.”
There is an argument that majoring in social media is silly. However, it is obvious that it is a growing field.

4. According to Indeed.com, there are about 8,000 jobs for social media available in the Greater New York City area.
These jobs are also within a variety of fields such as retail, media companies and a lot of start-up businesses.
Based on 584 salaries, the average income is $66,416 per year… Not bad.

5. Classroom Layout
This major requires its own space located in the Murphy Building. Perhaps the wall between room 104 and 106 should be knocked down to provide more space.
Students will be expected to make numerous presentations throughout their education, so the room should have a small stage, podium and simple smart board projector located at the far end.
The room should be lined with Mac desktops with adobe suit downloaded onto each.
Toward the center of the room, there should be at least 6-8 medium-sized round tables with chairs on wheels. That way, the room promotes collaboration between other students.

6. Freshman Year (Not all courses are mentioned, just main requirements)
While taking general electives and out-of-major course requirements, freshmen should be enrolled in an introduction-level professional writing course.
This course will focus on how to develop writing skills such as the importance of conciseness, grammar and sentence structure.
Students will be expected to complete creative writing essays, and read articles to be prepared to discuss in class.
Freshmen should also be enrolled in an introduction-level marketing course
This will focus on making sure students understand the basic components of marketing.
However, this course will have a section that focuses primarily on marketing in the digital era.
Students will also have to present a final pitch and market strategy for a particular product or service at the end of the semester.
A required out-of-major requirement students will take are two introduction-level courses on finance and economics (micro for the first half of semester and macro for the second half).
After talking to professional marketers, most say that they regret not knowing more about finance and having a detailed understanding of economics.
This course will require multiple tests and quizzes.

7. Sophomore Year
Throughout a student’s sophomore year, they will become more exposed to networking opportunities. During the first semester, every social media marketing major will be required to attend a networking event hosted by St. Bonaventure.
Different professionals from multiple agencies and companies will have tables set up where they discuss what they do for a living, students will be expected to have talked to at least three.
LinkedIn profiles should be set up before this event.
Students will also have started to begin thinking about their self-brand, i.e.: how they want to be perceived over social media/ start to utilize their social media to promote their self-brand.
Sophomore’s will be enrolled in a digital portfolio and blogging course. Students will have to create a blog and effectively market their self-brand over social media platforms.
Students will also be required to understand and utilize Google Analytics.
Students will also be required to take a digital marketing course.
This course curriculum includes learning how understand media channels to make decisions from marketing options .

8. Junior Year Juniors should be enrolled in social media marketing.
This course will ask students to analyze and consider how social media has changed throughout recent years, and
Students will be expected to have an internship with a minimum of 300 hours completed over the winter or summer break (before going into senior year).
The internship should be social media related (paid or unpaid).
Juniors should also be taking other marketing electives; such as marketing food, product marketing, etc.
By this time, students should have a knowledge of all adobe suite platforms Photoshop, InDesign and Illustrator. For the first semester they should take an introduction-level course in graphic design. The second semester they should take a graphic design in advertising course.
Students should also have taken a Research methods course.
This course will ask students to consider methods for researching and evaluating the needs of consumers.
They will research demographics and psychographics to determine how to best market specifc products and services on social media.

9. Senior Year Students should be enrolled in a global marketing course.
This course will require students to study companies and brands that have succeed and failed globally through analyzing case studies.
The final presentation will consist of an outline for a marketing campaign for a specific company to enter into a foreign market.
In the first semester students should take a class that is a mock agency. This would be similar to the existing class in the J-School called SYNAPSE. However, this course will focus solely on developing a marketing plan that is executed only through utilizing social media platforms.
From the University of the Arts, there is a class called “Social Media Marketing” that outlines a syllabus that would be similar…

10. Sample Career Path
According to a marketergizmo.com article “Loving the Road Less Traveled: Finding Your Social Media Career Path” they outline three different paths one can take in the social media marketing path:
1: A Director of Marketing (communications and management)
2: Creative position (graphics, artistic)
3: Analytics and Research (numbers, economics and finance)
Each of those paths can begin at the start of any social media position.