CFA launches new social media class.

Val Amoroso – This year I was lucky enough to be offered to take a class on inbound marketing and social media that was only open to two students.  The class, which we call SMIM for short, has taught me an enormous amount about marketing and technology.  When we started off this year we read a book called the Tipping Point which has made me look at everything in a whole new way. The concept of a “Tipping Point” is when a trend/idea/ etc. starts to be spread at what seems like an unstoppable rate and becomes an epidemic. Ever since reading this book I go through my day seeing certain things and thinking “Oh that tipped” or “This is tipping.”   After learning about the tipping point we started talking more about marketing. I never realized how thought out marketing on social media was. I thought you would just put everything on a website, on Facebook or Twitter, but you really have to strategize and plan everything out.  Adding onto that we learned about branding ourselves which was really fascinating. When asked to brand yourself it becomes very difficult. You have to be able to think of what makes you unique and different and an asset to whomever you are gearing yourself towards. That was a really cool lesson though because it did make me think a lot about how people perceive you and how you want to be perceived.  It’s amazing to be able to learn about this and have a class on it because this is the future of marketing.

Eddie Offerman – Cape Fear Academy introduced a new class option for students this year called social media/inbound marketing or SMIM for short. I found out Cape Fear Academy is one of the only schools in the nation that offers any kind of class like this one.  I have learned that using social media as a means for marketing is not as easy as I thought. Being able to use a website like Facebook and being able it for marketing is like being able to use a car and being able to use a car for cooking.  If I was to just throw a turkey under my hood and wait for it to get hot, it probably wouldn’t come out tasting very good, if edible at all. This same concept applies to marketing using social media.  If I wanted to market Cape Fear Academy on Facebook, for example, I could slap together a fan page, maybe take a couple pictures, and be done. Chances are, my fan page would be relatively uninteresting and boring. However, now I could make a fan page that engages prospective clients and serves its purpose as a marketing tool for the school. This is essentially was the SMIM class has given me so far, knowledge on how to use social media as a means for marketing BEFORE I actually do any marketing.