Introductory Message

This is my first blog post for the Durham MBA SMS module individual assessment element.

As a quick background review, I should mention that I have been an active and avid blogger since 2012. I run a Travel and Money Savings blog called Larkycanuck's Blog which has been rated as one of the Top 40 blogs in my city. I have also been very active on major social media platforms, with a particular strength in Twitter.

I have to be honest about one thing. I registered for the SMS module initially because there was no other module for me to register during the semester for Distance Learning. My view on learning and education, particularly with a MBA program, is that my money spent should be for high level learning that I probably would not learn on my own or would be difficult to grasp by oneself. In this regard, my prior elective modules were all the ones focused on strategy and finance and marketing. At the time of registering for SMS, I felt it was money about to be wasted on a course on Social Media, which essentially by it's nature, is something one "socially" develops and if one had to learn anything on it, there are gazillion materials freely available on the web. Furthermore, since I was quite active on social media already, I asked myself the question - 

"Why exactly am I paying this much money to learn how to Tweet, Like and Post?"

I am sure that the module Director/s had asked the same question. The resulting answer of course is different because the question itself is wrong. What I was surprised (and delighted) to see was that the module was not just about how to use Twitter or Facebook or other SM platforms (although there were some elements of this aspect) but rather about strategy implementation of a social media marketing effort for business purposes.

This was a fresh take on my learning of social media since I never saw it (SM) to be anything much more beyond another means of communication between friends and family. This was even after the fact that as a result of the success of my blog, I was getting paid (not huge sums) to write!

I believe now that the module outline covers a wide spectrum of social media platforms while also engaging the participant in understanding the strategic implementation component of it.

Now that is useful to learn indeed!

-Abi