Ben Collier, PhD

Carnegie Mellon University in Qatar · 2012 to 2016 · Undergraduate

70-443 Digital Marketing and Social Media Strategy

70-443

Search, social, and the digital marketing mix, taught through cases and real clients.

19 students in 2014 and 14 in 2015

This was the first time the course was taught at CMU Qatar, and about half the students came from Information Systems and half from Business Administration. In 2014 students spent Thursdays working for real clients, from the university's own marketing office to a board game store in Pittsburgh, doing search engine optimization, social media campaigns, and user-generated content. In 2015 I rebuilt it as a case course in four modules, from the digital landscape through advertising and promotion, the other three P's, and how traditional firms make the move to digital. Students also ran a search and analytics audit for a small Doha business with Google Analytics and AdWords.

Week by week

Spring 2015 · Mondays and Wednesdays. Scroll the schedule and the slides follow along: five from each session, picked from the decks I taught from.

  1. Module 1: The digital landscape
  2. Week 1
    Introduction and course overview
    Social media marketing is easy, just get a Twitter account and do stuffA bank invites questions on Twitter with #AskJPMDigital marketing: Barnes & Noble versus AmazonThe pieces of a social media strategy
  3. Week 1
    Case: Procter & Gamble, marketing capabilities Case
    The four P's of marketingThe man your man could smell like2010 is the year of getting Facebook followers, later we will figure out what to do with them
  4. Week 2
    Case: L'Oréal, global brand, local knowledge Case
    Customer relationships: get, keep, growProducts tailored to each region of the worldPlace: a multichannel player in beautyThe old consumer decision cycle was a funnelThe new consumer decision journey is a loop
  5. Week 2
    Case: Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google Case
    Four companies, four phonesSearch, Siri, and Facebook's Graph SearchFacebook versus the Google Display NetworkCloud computing and storageApple's Ping: a social network that closed
  6. Week 3
    Case: Harvard Business School Executive Education, balancing online and offline marketing Case
  7. Week 3
    Case: BBVA Compass, marketing resource allocation Case
    Traditional marketing: impressions, a black box, then purchasesSearch engine marketing: every step is measuredAttributing new accounts to online and offline ad spendingAn approach to optimizing a search campaignChoosing a strategy for each search publisher
  8. Week 4
    Search engine optimizationTaught in place of the Bluefin Labs case on the printed schedule
    FiiO, a headphone amplifier maker that lost its own search resultsOn-page factors are about a quarter of search resultsSearch partnerships: Google and Google+, Bing and FacebookSocial search: content recommended by friends
  9. Week 4
    Case: Barnes & Noble versus Amazon Case
  10. Week 5
    Case: United Breaks Guitars Case
    How harmful was this video to the United brand?Airline customer satisfaction, 1996 to 2009United's stock price against the S&P after the videoNews and social media activity per day, July 2009Viral is a function of friends, pass-along, and cycle time
  11. Module 2: Digital advertising and promotion
  12. Week 6
    Case: Groupon for local businesses Case
  13. Week 6
    Case: Mekanism, engineering viral marketing Case
    Mekanism's Windows Vista launch campaignFire bullets, then cannonballsA branded web series for a beverage brandA formula for total reach from viral spreadMekanism's strategy: seed with influencers, tell stories, make sharing easy
  14. Week 7
    Case: the Ford Fiesta Movement Case
  15. Week 7
    Case: HubSpot, inbound marketing Case
    Inbound marketing in HubSpot's own wordsWhat is inbound marketing?HubSpot's three decisions: which customers, which pricing, inbound only or not
  16. Week 8
    Spring break No class
  17. Week 9
    Case: YouTube for brands Case
    Television still gets most ad spending. How would you change that?Online video ads cost nearly double a national TV spot per thousand viewsYouTube, Hulu, and Netflix circling the TV networksContent strategy for the World Cup 2022 organizersWhat works on YouTube for Lego, Red Bull, and CoverGirl?
  18. Week 9
    Case: Dumb Ways to Die, advertising train safety Case
  19. Module 3: Digital product, place, and price
  20. Week 10
    Case: managing online reviews on TripAdvisor Case
    Why has TripAdvisor been so successful?TripAdvisor versus YelpHow does TripAdvisor stop people gaming the system?A platform balanced between users and hotelsRestaurants, vacation rentals, flights, or China?
  21. Week 10
    Case: freemium pricing at Dropbox Case
  22. Week 11
    Case: Channel 7 Boston Case
  23. Week 11
    Case: Catalina in the digital age Case
  24. Week 12
    Case: Bank of America mobile banking Case
  25. Week 12
    Case: online marketing at Big Skinny Case
    Big Skinny started by selling wallets at street fairsA display ad on the New York Times site'Hate thick wallets?' on a motorcycle siteSponsored search results by keywordDon't follow measurements blindly
  26. Module 4: Transitioning to digital
  27. Week 13
    Case: Take-Two Interactive Case
  28. Week 13
    Case: Coca-Cola's case for creative transformation Case
  29. Week 14
    Case: the New York Times paywall Case
  30. Week 14
    Case: Google in China Case
  31. Week 15
    Case: Nettwerk, digital marketing in the music industry Case
    Music industry revenue by source, 1998 to 2011How music was acquired: 65% unpaidThe anatomy of the long tailHead and long tailWhat a major label does, from scouting to the fan
  32. Week 15
    Review and course discussion
Social media marketing is easy, just get a Twitter account and do stuff
Mon, Jan 12 Introduction and course overview Social media marketing is easy, just get a Twitter account and do stuff

Major assignments

  • Search and analytics audit

    In groups of two or three, students worked with the website of a small Doha dog-services business using Google Analytics, Webmaster Tools, and AdWords: understand the client's objectives and keywords, analyze traffic, propose search improvements, and plan a paid search campaign, in an 8 to 12 page report.

  • Air France search campaign analysis

    Using the Air France Internet Marketing case and its campaign data, groups identified the metrics that matter, judged which search publishers to fund or drop, and recommended keywords and an overall digital mix.

  • Case write-ups40%

    A reflection paper at the end of each of the four modules, two individual and two in groups.

  • Participation and quizzes40%

    Case discussion is the course, so participation was 30%, with short in-class and online quizzes for the other 10%.

  • Final exam20%

    A digital marketing case handed out 48 hours ahead, with analysis questions answered in the exam.

  • Real-world client project (2014)

    In 2014, groups worked all semester for a real organization, presenting three times: a search engine marketing plan, a social media campaign, and a user-generated content idea, graded on understanding of the client and quality of analysis.

Student work

Every project, by term.

Spring 2014: client projects 5 projects
  • CMU Qatar Marketing and Public Relations. Audited the university website's metadata, alt tags, and inbound links against other Education City campuses, proposed English and Arabic keywords for the Computer Science and Information Systems programs with cost-per-click estimates, and planned social media around orientation, events, and an alumni blog. Search engine optimization, sponsored search, social media
  • A board game store in Pittsburgh. Set up Instagram and Twitter accounts, linked them to the store's Facebook page, and promoted its Tabletop Day event with hashtags and game quizzes. The owner reported about 200 visitors that day and sales four times the previous year's event. The team proposed a photo contest with the café across the street. Website review, social media campaign, user-generated content
  • An Arabic-learning games startup for young children. Compared the site's domain authority with two competitors, rewrote its title and meta description, recommended AdWords keywords with a budget, and suggested inbound links from Doha schools. Competitor analysis, SEO, AdWords, social media
  • A children's nursery in Doha. Fixed spelling and on-page content, added meta tags, got the site indexed by Google, and built the social strategy around the nursery's inactive Facebook page. SEO and social media
  • An architecture and design consultancy. Added meta tags so the firm appeared in searches for its own name, studied competitors' keywords, and found design and architecture sites to link to it, aiming at Qatar, Amsterdam, and Lebanon. On-page and off-page SEO, social media, user-generated content

Offerings

  • Spring 2014
  • Spring 2015
  • Fall 2015 (online)

All courses