By now, most businesses and self-employed individuals know that they can use social media services like Twitter and Facebook to help themselves grow their customer base and (hopefully) make some money. But for most people, actually using these services presents a challenge. Granted, there is no shortage of social media ‘gurus’ who have blogged their tips, but when it comes to finding ongoing instruction from genuine experts, the pickings have been slim.
Nick O’Neill , founder of the The Social Times, is looking to help. O’Neill is launching an educational program called the New Media School, which is setting out to help both companies and individuals most effectively take advantage of the businesses opportunities afforded by the web.
The school’s first course is the Social Media Marketing Program, which entitles participants to a number of text guides as well as a series of video lectures led by a solid roster of industry veterans. Each lecture will be streamed live via Livestream, and students in the program will be able to submit questions live via an integrated chat box. The course will begin in about a week and a half.
The school is charging $147 per month, and plans to offer new content on a rolling basis. For now, O’Neill is restricting the class size to 125. He explains that while the video lectures will be held via video stream (which presumably would have a much higher limit), he will be personally advising each participating company and indivdual through the course’s forums. There will also be virtual ‘office hours’ conducted through Livestream. O’Neill mentioned that he may consider offering alternative formats in the future (perhaps a video-only option without the one-on-one support), but the school is still in early stages so he’s eager to first see what people are interested in.
Here’s a full list of the program’s instructors:
Brad Feld – Co-Founder of Foundry Group and author of widely read venture capital blog
Chris Bucchere – Founder of Social Collective
Clara Shih – Author of “The Facebook Era”
Craig Stoltz – Author of “Web 2.Oh…Really?”, one of Time.com’s Top 25 Blogs
Dan Schawbel – Author of “Me 2.0: Build a Powerful Brand to Achieve Career Success”
David Berkowitz – Director of Emerging Media & Client Strategy for 360i, author of the blog Inside the Marketer’s Studio
Debbie Weil – Author of “The Corporate Blogging Book”
Don Steele – Vice President of Digital Marketing, MTV Networks
Frank Gruber – AOL Product Strategist & Evangelist
Harper Reed – CTO at skinnyCorp, Co-Founder of Threadless
Hiten Shah – Co-Founder of KISSmetrics
Jake Brewer – Engagement Director of Sunlight Foundation
Jesse Thomas – Founder of JESS3
Jared Goralnick – Founder of Set Consulting
Joe Suh – Founder and CEO of myChurch
John Bell – Managing Director of Ogilvy 360 Digital Influence and President of WOMMA (Word of Mouth Marketing Association)
Leslie Bradshaw – Director of Engagement, New Media Strategies
Mike Lazerow – CEO and Founder, Buddy Media
Mike Volpe – VP of Inbound Marketing, HubSpot
Neil Patel – Co-Founder of KISSmetrics
Shashi Bellamkonda – Head of Social Media Strategy, Network Solutions
Tamar Weinberg – Author of “The New Community Rules: Marketing on the Social Web”
Ted Leonsis – Owner, Washington Capitals, Chairman of Revolution Money, and Vice Chairman Emritus of AOL
Tim O’Shaughnessy – Co-Founder & CEO, LivingSocial
Victoria Ransom – Founder, Wildfire Interactive
About time they came up with something like this. You ask about regular schools about web courses and they just look at you funny.
Agreed, very smart. They’ll be tons of demand for this stuff. This should make him a lot of money and low startup cost outside of paying for his speakers.
Still not sold that any of these peeps have the skills to teach others about Social Media…sure a few of the instructors have some SM street cred, for the most part the others are nobody’s. Just another way for others to make a buck.
A lot of companies have no expertise in this area whatsoever. Large companies tend to be light years behind current trends. *any* knowledge would be a bonus. You may question their expertise but they’ll definitely impart some awareness of what’s going on.
Really clever idea. Well done Neil.
Thanks for the coverage Jason! I definitely think there is an opportunity to change the way education is being taught. There’s also an opportunity to cover things that aren’t being covered!
Nick — solid idea, and when it’s time for the students to do projects, maybe have a community of willing guinea pigs (aka,startups who’d love to have folks do live marketing, SEO/SEM and similar work) ready. And work on people’s grammar (not just it’s and its and the like) — race to bottom is a horrid side effect of new Media (and i’ll not mock your own comment above, but “cover things not being covered” and “education is being taught” are sadly better than most social media marketing!
I just don’t get how they can claim to know about new media and have such a crap website. Small text, ugly design.
They don’t even bother to put a favicon on the site… I hate looking up at me tabs in firefox and having to read the text.
That’s definitely some constructive feedback … I’ll get on the favicon ASAP
lol.. sorry have a bad headache… it is a really good idea … sorry for being so grumpy..
aww meow meow are you upset they didn’t invite you to speak on the panel
Have you seen my videos? Take a look… cause you would have to be really drunk to want me teaching you… besides when it comes to new media, I will be alright.. the whole idea is you have to be social… the lines between business and personal fall away and it is just people…
You want a lesson… see everyone from an engineer to a secretary is interesting to someone.. in the social world your people are the brand… reality TV, how do they do that shows dominate the networks. This means each section or area of your company should twitter, do a posterous blog, have a facebook fanpage, youtube channel.. it is not rocket science.. it is about speaking to people, making a human connection… because when you do that people will want to help you, want to support whatever your company is doing.. sure a big company can pay 300 million to market say a search engine like microsoft, but a small one can do the same thing over a long period of time by developing a positive human connection with each user so that user will twitter, blog, youtube about that company… cause as a company you want to be in a persons feed, everything is about the feed because that feed exposes your company to the users friends which share some common characteristic…
Nick this is a good idea very few companies understand the new media or how to utilize it. Rock steady!
Interesting. Certainly a great group of individuals listed above who will be able to provide expertise. However, I wonder how many of them have been trained to teach?
Posting a video and giving out “office hours” isn’t really enough. Would love to see the curriculum and what they will cover in one of these classes. How will these folks help their students to apply what they have learned? You might be surprised at how hard and time consuming it can be.
I would have liked to see more depth and detail to this post — but perhaps that is because I teach Internet Marketing, Social Media and Online Communication at a College.
Let me know if you need anymore local DC start-uppers/social media experts.
My company was the top search term on Twitter
http://www.read...2008_sleepf.php
@Elaine, I’d love to talk to you to get your input … I’ll reach out to you on Facebook.
Best,
Nick
Isn’t the price a bit much? Honestly, I can’t think of ANYTHING short of utility bills that cost that much.
dude, he got Ted Leonsis to be part of it! don’t be such a loser.
Nick & Team
Great concept and great group of folks on board to present! Let me know if you need any additional help and happy to do some work and help out!
Good luck and chat soon!
Will the new media school will offer courses about online video, podcasting, webcasting which many of us think of differently from social media? And not just the technology but also the writing & producing side. As former TV broadcast journalists at CBS/Boston, we’ve been doing this at our company for 10 years – glad to help if you’re looking for faculty in this area.
“By now, most businesses and self-employed individuals know that they can use social media services like Twitter…”
That’s a big statement.
I’d probably say a fair number of people use Twitter and other social media. Many people think it’s a bit geeky, or even irritating. And many, many people know more or less nothing about it.
SOCIAL MEDIA UNPROVEN FOR MANY
Yes, I completely agree with Cog. According to social media that I read (e.g., Techcrunch) a few companies like Zappos, Dell have achieved success with social media. I have not heard of any other cases – individuals or businesses. This blog post is another case of Techcrunch trying to hype a concept that is quite unproven.
This is an excellent idea. Social Media “best practices” are constantly evolving and changing direction. Many older companies and marketing teams have not had a chance to keep up. Some have not even begun to embrace the concept.
@igebadia does have a point on their website’s usability. If you take a look at the code, you will notice they are using Wordpress. At least they are making an effort to use a popular open source blogging platform.
Sounds like this class will become a great case study win, lose or draw. My niece is working on a course with the rest of the 3rd grade class. Enrollment is very limited but get at me soon and I’ll put a word in for you.
Congrats Nick – This will be a valuable resource for many large brands.
Thanks Ian!
If Havi Hoffman is not on the faculty, then the program ain’t worth the 147. That gal knows community.
She’s the cat’s knees.
Looking back on my degree(business admin, marketing, economics, some programming classes) I really see no value in it for what I do now. I would have loved to start off with php classes instead of c & java at the university I was at. There was next to nothing about LAMP environment. I could care less about the 2.0 social media crap.
Courses I would take(depending on price)-
Apache Servers
Email servers – top level mail filtering most people don’t see
PHP/Ruby/MySql
Networking – if I could spend a month shadowing some techs at rackspace sign me up
Web Traffic Analysis – from general down to specific case studies for specific products/services
Monitization – options on every step of internet traffic not just end point sales/ad clicks
Seems like a lot of jobs require a decent amount of knowledge of each of these areas and a specialization in one(depending on how big or small the company is, bigger company can be more specialized knowledge, smaller more general). This could prepare for a prelude into a job working in any of these areas or if taught properly from start to finish someone would have the tools to work on there own.
Basically, how the internet works, what is involved in every step to maintain/setup infrastructure, how to get traffic, how to monetize. If it’s mainly just marketing over social media count me out.
The timing of this article could not be any better. I just met w/ the Media Arts Department at Butler University and am scheduled to teach a class on building an Online Portfolio this Spring. If you have any opinions on what technologies and services should used in compiling the portfolio (LinkedIn, Blogger, Twitter, etc)… check out my curriculum and send some feedback: http://blog.ick...o-stinking.html
Great idea.
Bookmarked and will review further.
The killer recipe would be to have this accredited. For example, team up with a a marketing firm or VC firm to receive college credit (i.e. ACE). You’ll have people lining up around the block.
http://www.acen...fm?Section=CCRS
I agree. The geni is out of the bottle with social media. It is not going back in . . . . and people need real training versus just talking about it.
@Alex, agreed … that’s in the timeline
Nick – learn to use the REPLY link – you’re a social media expert, remember?
1) It’s called New Media School
2) He never claimed to be a social media expert.
3) There’s a difference between social media and new media. Learn the difference.
That said, threaded comments are nicer…
Shiver me timbers, is there really?
Can you enlighten us sailor?
The people who made the most money during the various gold rushes were not the gold miners, but the people selling mining tools.
Okay first off- Cool idea. I think this has potential.
Im very concerned about some of the speakers.
Most of these people are Corporate folks
I dont see more than 1 or 2 names on this list who have actual experience running a web company…….in the trenches. Try doing lead project management on more than 300+ projects and 50+ developers simultaneously. Or running huge markleting campaigns with your very own money and not some corporate VC funded bank account……yeah Im not convinced this is a good team for teaching.
Do any of these guys actually make the money and the checks are physically deposited by their own hands?
How come some guys like this are not part of this?
Shoemoney (Marketing Guro)
John Cow (Marketing Guru)
Matt Mullenweg (Wordpress founder)
Dries Buytaert (drupal founder)
Sean Kovacs
I could keep this list going on and on and it would not contain any one of the list in the blog posting.
New Media sounds so old school, like some Web 1.0 carryover dotcom legacy (Woff New Media, anyone?)
They should’ve called it the “new new media”. Now THAT, is more like new school. I meant, new new school.
Social Media Marketing Program… Those who can…
great idea! we are launching a FREE Beta social media coaching program that will feature some other authorities as well. keep up the great work “yes we can”
JRF:
So, who exactly, is ‘we’? Where’s your link? Don’t be shy? Selfless promotion is common on TC (lol), and often very much appreciated.
As long as you cracked open the door, open it all the way. (lol)
Nick, the idea is good, but your site needs a different design. Right now it resembles a classical MLM site (you know, “buy this e-book and learn how to earn money from home”):
- just 1 page explaining everything
- saying the same thing many times
- No Favicon
- Lots of text in bold
- the classical: “Important note: BUY NOW before its sold out!”
- etc etc
maybe you could try some of the following:
- Separate the content and put a Navigation Menu
- More internal links
- Bio of the guest lecturers
- consistent design (the payment site has different colors and layout)
Anyway, good luck with your project, it´s about time that someone tries to offer formal teaching on the subject of social media!
But it has already been established by HubSpot months ago, and in fact there is a second round of class running right now. It is called Inbound Marketing University, you can go and check it out.
For another equally impressive lineup of professors and a FREE set of courses, checkout Inbound Marketing University: http://www.inbo....com/university
IMU started in June and has already offered over 13,000 hours of class time and pass 500 students as certified inbound marketing professional.
Professors include: Chris Brogan, David Meerman Scott, Laura Fitton, Todd Defren, Rand Fishkin, Ann Handley and more.
If you have questions about the program, as the community of students at http://twitter....search?q=%23IMU
It is not that college didn’t teach us anything; it is more like there is a need for continuing education. Without this, we will be left behind the time when we graduated from university. I am glad though they have something like this in the article.
Evelyn Guzman
http://www.home...sinesssteps.com (If you want to visit, just click but if it doesn’t work, copy and paste it onto your browser.)
Full Sail University in Orlando offers online degrees in B.S. and M.S. in Internet Marketing.
As an alumni of the Jonathan Abrams School of Business at Sand Hill Road Community College, a former staff member at the Zuckerberg Social Media Institute and a current resident scholar at the Biz Stone Center for Microresearch, I am appalled at this program.
From the homepage…
“That is why we are collecting the foremost experts in the digital economy to help educate individuals and their businesses thrive no matter the economic environment.”
The New Media School obviously does not offer remedial English courses but according to a recent research report, only 50% of social media consultants can read and write at a 7th grade level. This threatens social branding on Twitter, where cogent thought and careful articulation is required to maximize every single character.
Anyone looking “to succeed in the digital economy” as “the online and offline worlds collide” should look at the University of Tucson Online. The curriculum is much stronger.
Herbert A. Broadbent III
BS, Facebook Privacy Settings, University of Tucson Online
MBA, Sand Hill Road Community College
While The New Media School sounds cool— there’s already a FREE online education program offerring a curricula of web-based courses from experts in a range of internet marketing skills and techniques:
Inbound Marketing University was launched by a number of Marketing 2.0 vendors including HubSpot, ConstantContact, On24, Marketing Profs.
More info at
http://www.inbo....com/university
you make a good point, though I like the idea of paying to participate in a program that is limited in size and brings some expert thought to the table. I would argue a lot of the participants in inbound marketing, while reputable, have something to sell the participant. that is all good, but i want a different angle.
Anyone else feel like the “school” portion education doesn’t compare with heavy participation in social web communities?
(Facebook does not count.)
Nick:
After reading some of the responses, I want to share with you…
I had an idea a few years ago that I’m ‘quietly’ putting into plan. A few weeks ago I found out that someone else has a similar idea and they are ‘publicly’ putting into action. When I tried to be grumpy about it to a friend I was told that nobody would care if there were multiple people doing it. I was told that GREAT things come from many people doing a similar item and building ideas and success off each other.
It seems you are in good company with some others that are working on similar ideas. GOOD. The best example I can think of: There are how many cold medicines on the market?
Listen to constructive critisim & good ideas. Keep what you want and forget the rest.
No, I’m not a big company. No, I’m not a well known person or industry leader. I’m just your average online user trying to learn more. I don’t use a lot from college either, but I don’t think that college is meant to give us all the information we need for a lifetime; it is meant to give us a base in which we build upon. We’ve learned how to increase our knowledge; now go out into the world and continue.
Happy to be an early adopter. I am sure the details will get sorted out in a meaningful way.
Balderdash. I disagree with the notion that there can exist a course that effectively teaches social media or new media to small business owners and companies. Its absurd to pay for comprehensive texts and video presentations that you could easily collect free of charge. Everyday on Twitter you see a dozen social media reports, videos about ‘interacting in the web 2.0 world’ or presentation decks with digital insights.
I don’t like the idea that there’s a one-size fits all guide to success with social/new media. Each small business/company is different and necessitates a unique strategy, set of tools, and approach. Sharing case studies is one thing, but imagining that you can teach 100 people anything beyond the basics of social media is pipe dreamin’.
Honest gurus (I hate using that word) offer their advice and content free of charge. They openly share their tricks of the trade in the name of the openness and collaboration, two key components of the wild and wacky web 2.0 world.
Is there a prerequisite for this course? No, of course not. Come one, come all, as long as you are a small business owner and pay up! Absurdity. Shameless self promo warning: at UT Austin I earned a degree in traditional PR and added a custom minor in digital media, which consisted of understanding how strategic communication translated in the online space. THAT’s the closest thing to a real social media degree I’ve heard of yet. Knowing MarCom and PR is the true foundation for a solid venture into social media. Little things, like how to set up a Facebook/Twitter profile w/the right settings can all be learned in a couple of hours sitting at home. $147/month is absurd unless the students utilize EVERY ‘office hour’ offered and get specific one-on-one advice from the instructor. Oh, wait, that’s called *consulting* – but I see a table on the site that says to not go with consultants. Waitwut?
I know several of the ‘instructors,’ and I actually like a few of them. Every person on that list has solid cred, and I think they all deserve to make good money (some already are!) – but not with some two-bit hack PowerPoint/Livestream festival with more buzzwords and abstraction phrases than you’d ever care to Tweet about.
Send me a free coupon code, I’d be absolutely thrilled to attend this class.
Also, I can freelance that website copy if you want all those typos corrected.
Down with NMS.
The Social Media Academy, located in Palo Alto, has been doing this for at least two years now http://www.soci...ia-academy.com/
When I read “30 Days to 3,000 Facebook Fans” or “How To Develop A Social Media Strategy Worth Millions” or “The Secret Of Using Twitter To Sell More” or “How To Build A Blog That Closes Sales For You” I think the only topics that are missing are
- How to get rich in one weekend
- Earth is a disk.
Please….
@AlanIsGood
I disagree to some extend. You are right there are thousands of best practices tips, countless free webinars and more. We do that too – but if a business person wants a comprehensive education and learn it all at once – nobody can do that for free. Free is a dangerous word in that respect. You may have noticed that the “Social Media Rockstars” give only free advice to sell their service.
@Gebadia, Jose and others.
It disappoints me that the site design is all you care.
@Matt Lawson Like what you say.
@Cog and @Shankar – You are right – Let’s stop the SoMe pitch “You are dumb and we teach you get smart” we are VERY early on in this social migration of our society. And to start with “Social Media Marketing” is only because that;s where the budgets are. A serious social media would start analyzing there internal issues, make an assessment and develop a customer oriented strategy where most likely service, support or product design is the first and marketing the last topic to get onto.
Axel
http://xeesm.com/AxelS
Social Media Academy
http://xeesm.co...ialMediaAcademy
I took an intensive Social Media Consultancy course with the Social Media Academy run by Axel Schultze (CEO, Xeequa). Excellent 8-week course (4 hours per week of a webinar and about 10 hours per week of homework). You need to already be into social media so that you know the basics, but this course gives you both lessons learned form real-life experience and a solid methodology. It also goes beyond just the concept of social media marketing to using social media in sales, support, distribution, etc. I am very process-oriented and believe that you need to know how to do a solid assessement, have strategic goals, a detailed implementation plan and be able to measure success and the Social Media Academy gave me a lot in these areas.
I also took an intensive Social Media Consultancy course with the Social Media Academy run by Axel Schultze (CEO, Xeequa) and thought it was worth every penny.
There are too many advertising agency hacks out there that talk about social media as a campaign and not as a business strategy. I suffered this when managing over 20 such relationships at News Corp in marketing.
Social Media delivers ROI as a strategy and part of the business process. To those who think it’s about ads – remember people hate ads! Take a look at the declining yields of ads in the industry over the last few years, that tells the story.
It’s not ads, it’s about ROI. ROI is realised by your participation in communities and what people perceive as value that you give them. Participation is a systematic approach combining listening, interaction and exchange of value.
Rick Speciale
rspeciale@mycmo.com.au
More and better education on SM is essential. I took classes at the http://www.soci...dia-academy.com and can highly recommend it. While others approach SM from a particular angle (marketing, sales, HR), this is a holistic approach that provides a solid foundation for consultants and managers alike.
What appears to be missing is the overall business planning framework for social media. If you can place the insights from these instructors into the robust business methodologies from the Social Media Academy then that would be powerful.
Walter Adamson @g2m
Certified Social Media Consultant
I’m already learning from Lee Aase’s SMUG, Social-Media-University-Global and will stick with that. Lee Aase is the Social Media lead for Mayo Clinic and one smart guy. While I’m sure this modest site won’t compare with the output of dozens of experts, it’s a great place to start.
http://social-m...ity-global.org/
There are lots of social media webinars, blogs, and “schools.” Some are good. Many are not. The Social Media Academy is only for professsionals that are ready for an intellectual workout – the application of new age concepts to real life business problems. As a bonus, you get to network with some of the smartest people in the business. If this is not appealing to you – go somewhere else to learn about social media!
There are indeed other top notch educational resources for becoming trained for applied social media for business. After doing some research looking for some solid training for the B2B market place I am interested in and social media, I found Social Media Academy.
I was looking for a course with a solid methodology, framework and process. I found that with Social Media Academy. I work with technical product and service companies in what most people would call the corporate environment. It was important to me to understand how to assess an ecosystem for a client and then build a strategy. Not just use tools.
I was really tired by the Info marketing type approach by others claiming to provide training. I found those lacking substance and even the social media connection. I talked to two people who I connected with on LinkedIn and who attended Social Media Academy. Both people gave solid reviews about their experiences.
Social Media Academy Social Media Leadership Class was 8 weeks of seminars with group projects (allowed me to connect with people all over the world). I worked with the rest of the class of 15 ( a very intimate number that helped us talk with each other and have time with instructors) to prepare a group presentation on our research project results. I am now working on a paper on the ROI of social media with others in the class. There was homework that made you use the tools we discusses, research, take action, blog, create profiles, post videos and really explore social media in a real way. Everyone in the class had used social media already. The founders of Social Media Academy are people who started and grew companies, worked and still work in the corporate environment and use social media – putting their money where their mouth is.
I was not disappointed in my experience. This is the kind of education that those who want to be better consultants in social media should consider attending.
Very nice comments and points Wendy – Good to hear about others that have had a good experience with the Social Media Academy (Axel, Marita, John, Adrienne) , the leadership class… connecting and working with other students.
Thank you for sharing your experience.
Tom
Social Media Academy Leadership Class Alumni
Tom Swift
Online: http://www.XeeSM.com/TomSwift
I’m a great fan and a graduate of the Social Media Academy run by Axel Schultze of Xeequa, based in Palo Alto, CA.
The experience very much reminded me of my Kellogg Graduate School of Mgmt experience, where I obtained my MBA some 20+ years ago.
To me, there are many social media schools, webinars and trainings available. Pick the one that best suit your needs. For me, Social Media Academy was just right. I like the 8 week/2X per week intensive structure, the high caliber of staff and highly motivated students, and I like the perfect balance of theory and practice vis-a-vis the homework assignments.
I’d give it a 2 thumbs up!
Best regards,
Nancy Chou
All my social sites on XeeSM: XeeSM.com/NancyChou