Danielle Gauthier

By popular demand, here are some opportunities for learning the basics of social media participation and marketing across Canada in a classroom environment.

While I have gone to great lengths to only provide listings from programs at accredited institutions, inclusion here is by no means a recommendation and I urge you to make inquiries into the class thoroughly prior to signing up. I will update this post frequently as social media classes appear and disappear – I encourage you to send me details of social media classes across Canada so I can add them to this list. This list is not exhaustive.

London Ontario

Continuing Studies at UWO – Social Media Strategy

This course will provide strategic insight into why organizations should use social media and how to do it effectively. You will learn how to integrate social media tools such as Facebook, Twitter, and You Tube into your organization’s overall communication plan. This course will provide strategic insight into why organizations should use social media and how to do it effectively. You will learn how to integrate social media tools such as Facebook, Twitter, and You Tube into your organization’s overall communication plan. Learn about this social media course >>

Fanshawe College In A Day Workshop - Social Media Marketing and Small Business

Social Media Marketing for Small Businesses provides an introduction to social media, emphasizing the impact of new technologies on small businesses. This one-day introductory course is designed to simplify and demonstrate the many new channels of marketing, advertising and communication that make up Social Media and Web 2.0. Students will learn about online social networks, social bookmarketing/tags, consumer generated content, blogs/microblogs, brand monitoring and optimizing their organization’s website for social media. Find out more about this social media workshop >>

Toronto Ontario

By popular demand, here are some opportunities for learning the basics of social media participation and marketing across Canada in a classroom environment.

While I have gone to great lengths to only provide listings from programs at accredited institutions, inclusion here is by no means a recommendation and I urge you to make inquiries into the class thoroughly prior to signing up. I will update this post frequently as social media classes appear and disappear – I encourage you to send me details of social media classes across Canada so I can add them to this list. This list is not exhaustive.

London Ontario

Continuing Studies at UWO – Social Media Strategy

This course will provide strategic insight into why organizations should use social media and how to do it effectively. You will learn how to integrate social media tools such as Facebook, Twitter, and You Tube into your organization’s overall communication plan. This course will provide strategic insight into why organizations should use social media and how to do it effectively. You will learn how to integrate social media tools such as Facebook, Twitter, and You Tube into your organization’s overall communication plan. Learn about this social media course >>

Fanshawe College In A Day Workshop - Social Media Marketing and Small Business

Social Media Marketing for Small Businesses provides an introduction to social media, emphasizing the impact of new technologies on small businesses. This one-day introductory course is designed to simplify and demonstrate the many new channels of marketing, advertising and communication that make up Social Media and Web 2.0. Students will learn about online social networks, social bookmarketing/tags, consumer generated content, blogs/microblogs, brand monitoring and optimizing their organization’s website for social media. Find out more about this social media workshop >>

Toronto Ontario

Social has been a catchword around marketing circles for a while, but now social is being used as a model for all business practices and strategies – social business is business. This is business designed consciously around sociology and social tools. This has many implications for businesses from within and without. Social customer relationship management, the corporate reaction to catch up with the fleeting customer, while plagued with challenges of scalability, includes brand monitoring and community interaction to listen to clients or customers. But this is not just a marketing or customer service concept, a social business must include an internally open culture based on sharing and collaboration.

This great webinar Social Business: Taking “social” to the core of your organization by Stowe Boyd, Peter Kim, Jeremiah Owyang, Joshua-Michele Ross, is a great introduction to these concepts.

In the video, they go on to say that 2010 is the Year of Social Business Policy, and they just might be right considering the Department of Defense has recently release their social media policy.

The social business, then, should exist within all sectors of the business:

1. Internal – employees of the company, lower level staff to management
2. External – customer and client relationship management

Internal Culture of Openness and Innovation

It is sad that not more managers are eager to encourage and maintain this model for their businesses. No employee should be too low to speak to the highest employee in the company, no idea should be considered based on the rank of an employee on the corporate ladder, and a frank and open environment should allow for opportunities for all employees to share their creative and innovative ideas.

There are obstacles to overcome – management might be resistant or on the other employees might not see the value in participating. But if the heads of the business can embrace the open culture of the social business,

External Candour and Responsiveness

Customer relationship management within a social model is a newer idea, and while the concepts of brand monitoring and community participation seem relatively easy to understand, the issue of scale is where most companies will find their greatest challenges. The addition of new tools and new areas of consumer behavior to monitor, while extremely exciting, must be integrated into a new social customer relationship management policy and process to ensure that it all does not become just noise.

But besides the challenges, adding social to your customer relationship management program allows for much deepened loyalties and consumer trust. One to one dialogue stimulates a solid business relationship if the proper best use practices are understood.

Any plans to take a look at your business model given the technological changes that allow for more social discourse? Do you know of any companies doing this admirably? (besides the Dept. of Defense)