• Minors
  • Minors in alphabetical order
  • Minors per faculty
    • Erasmus MC
    • Erasmus School of History, Culture and Communication
    • Erasmus School of Law
    • Erasmus School of Economics
    • Faculty of Social Sciences
    • Faculty of Philosophy
    • Institute of Health Policy and Management
    • International Institute of Social Studies
    • Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University
      • Deepening minor: Accounting Skills
      • Alternative Investments: Beyond Stocks and Bonds
      • Coherent Organizations: Coordination, Motivation and Cognition
      • CSI Rotterdam: Fraud & Forensic Investigations
      • E-Marketing: Marketing Strategies for Future Success
      • Entrepreneurship & New Business Venturing
      • Experiential Learning: Consulting to Social Entrepreneurs
      • Games and Business Behavior: A General Management Perspective
      • Influencing People: Psychology and Practice
      • Managing Cross-Sector Partnerships
      • Mergers and Acquisitions
      • Neuroeconomics: How the Brain Decides
      • Principles of Negotiation
      • Social Media and Social Networks
      • Strategy Consulting
      • The Business of Family Business
      • The psychology of good and evil
  • Minor outside EUR

Social Media and Social Networks

How social media work, why social media matter to business and how to use it succesfully.

Content

Have you ever wonder how your messages left on social media platforms (e.g., Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube) can be used to predict new product demand, movie box-office revenues or even stock returns? Do you know the impact of one star reviews on company’s sales is greater than the impact of five-star reviews? Do you know that sellers with higher reputation score take longer time to sell compared to the sellers with lower reputation score?

Over the past decade, social computing or Web 2.0 technologies, such as blogs, wikis, content management tools, and social networking systems, have moved from being technical curiosities to being tools used in mainstream business practice. Across a variety of industries, companies are increasingly considering how they can use and profit from the development of these technologies. However, their distinctive nature gives rise to many issues different from those encountered when developing and managing traditional information technologies.

In this course, we learn concepts and principles related to new business models supported by innovative use of Web 2.0 and social media. We answer questions such as: How does the Internet affect consumers’ information seeking and purchase behavior by providing newer distribution channels, newer forms of online advertising, and unique community forums for social exchanges? How can companies understand the dynamics in the Internet-mediated spaces such as reputation systems, opinion forums and product reviews, blogs and social networking sites? How to develop social media strategies in these channels to better inform and engage customers, and to have better corporate reputation?

Through a combination of readings, discussion, case analyses, presentations, and hands-on projects, we learn (1) the characteristics and organizational use of key social media technologies such as blogs, wikis, web analytics, search engine optimization, open source software projects, and social network sites, (2) the business models underlying successful innovative new media ventures including Facebook, Wikipedia, LinkedIn, and Twitter, (3) the promise and challenges of using social media technologies for collaboration, innovation, marketing, and advertising, (4) the approaches that companies can use to deploy, evaluate, and manage these technologies, and (5) the applications of social network analysis in areas such as information retrieval, social media, and organizational behavior.

Learning objectives:

The major goal of the course is to demystify social media technologies and demonstrate their business values. At the end of this course, students should be able to:

• Gain an understanding of the fundamental concepts of social media technologies.
• Understand multiple forms of business models supported by social media.
• Develop the ability to identify and articulate the business values of social media.
• Describe ways in which companies can leverage social media technologies to harness collective intelligence to innovate and to support communication and collaboration.
• Use software tools to analyze social media and social network data.

Admission requirements:

This course is a broadening minor that is designed for students from various backgrounds. The required skills for the course are: good knowledge of English.

Organization

Maximum number of students that can participate in the minor: 70
Minimum number of students that can participate in the minor: 30

The total minor is 15 ECTS.

Teaching methods

Lectures, business case discussions

Teaching materials

Book, articles, social media tools, and video will be used as educational material

Contact hours

This course spans 9 weeks. Each week consists of two class-room sessions of 3 hours.

Examination

Method of examination:

There is no individual final exam.

The course grade consists of the following parts:

• · Class attendance and Participation (10%)
• · Individual Assignment (30%)
• · Group Project: Social Media Strategy (60%)

Contact information

Contact person:

Prof. Ting Li
tli@remove-this.rsm.nl
Phone: 010 408 1961                                     
Room: T09-14

Faculty websites: