Social Media Management: Strategies and Practices for the New Social World

Social Media is transforming the way that companies create, collaborate, and compete in these uncertain times. Yet, organizations are adopting social media in very different ways depending on business objectives, industry standards, and other key factors.

While some use social media for incremental improvements to existing practices in functional areas such as marketing and public relations, others are using it to stimulate enterprise-wide innovation and transform decision making, operations, and product offerings. Adding to the complexity are lingering questions around “return on investment” in social media. In this context, how should an organization design its approach to social media?

Babson Executive Education conducted proprietary social media research including a survey of 1,048 companies and in-depth interviews with 70 practitioners across 50 companies. Key findings demonstrate the value of social media adoption within an organization:

• Adopters of social media are twice as effective at meeting customer needs—and achieving stronger top-line results
• Adopters are more than three times as likely to believe that their company is focused on growth and innovation
• Social media adopters are better positioned to resolve business issues and challenges that involve high degrees of uncertainty

Program Overview

Social Media Management: Strategies and Practices for the New Social World prepares you to jump-start or refine a social media program at your organization. Unlike most executive education programs which follow a predictive process from strategy development to execution, this program helps participants perform a series of social media experiments, followed by assessment and analysis. This enables participants to make decisions within the broader context of social decisions. During the three days, participants will develop unique social media strategies that can be immediately implemented at their organizations.

Curriculum

The program features in-depth case studies, experimentation with social media tools, discussions with leading practitioners, and an action learning project for your organization. Participants will:

• Experiment with the latest tools and techniques available in the new social world
• Better understand the underlying factors determining their choice of social media channels
• Refine their abilities to use social media in the practice of external engagement through marketing and engagement of customers and partners
• Develop an evaluation framework and practices for experimentation with social media
• Create the proper internal controls and incentives to promote social media programs that drive value
• Prioritize social media efforts and outreach
• Determine organizational goals and success criteria with regards to social media through experimentation and creation rather than simply trying to predict or quantify outcomes

Participant Mix

This program is for leaders who are responsible for designing and implementing social media initiatives at their organizations. Participants include those looking to refine their organizations’ existing social media efforts, as well as those looking to create a social media presence for their companies. Titles may include marketing manager, product manager, brand manager, public relations manager, manager of social media strategy, IT manager (also engaged in marketing), marketing technologist, vice president, CEO, and chief operating officer.

Program Faculty

The program is led by a group of top faculty members who have recently conducted proprietary research on social media. This research has been published in The Wall Street Journal, Harvard Business Review Online, and MIT Sloan Management Review. Program faculty members include PJ Guinan, Sal Parise, and Bruce Weinberg.

Babson Executive Education can design and deliver a customized program for your organization.

Go to Custom Programs for more information, or Request a proposal.