Computers and the internet have completely changed the way we look for information and social media is going to play an even larger role when it comes to education shortly.

With the world tweeting, Digging, Tumbling, and writing on walls, it’s only a matter of time before a high school teacher or college professor decides to add his/her Twitter address on their syllabus so the students can get a hold of them (that is if they don’t want emails to flood their inbox), creates a class forum for required discussion sessions (which is already happening with Springboard), or gives live video review sessions via Justin.tv or Ustream.

That’s not all, think about how easily students can obtain information using Digg, Reddit, or StumbleUpon.

I’ll give you a scenario:

You are given an assignment to write a five page paper on the Cuban Missile Crisis.  A simple search for “Cuban Missile Crisis” on Digg brings back 129 results, 38 results on Reddit, and 73 results on Technorati.

By spending less than two minutes online you have 240 possible sources you can browse through for your paper.  Had you gone to the library, you would have found five or six possible sources and it would have taken you anywhere from 30 minutes to an hour to locate the information you wanted to use.

Another way social media will soon influence education is group work.

My wife was taking a course in the spring semester and met with her group every week via AOL Instant Messenger.  It’s more convenient to log onto your computer and talk to your group than it is to hop in your car and drive to someone’s house which ultimately costs you money since you have to use gas to get there.

Colleges and Universities are taking advantage of the benefits of social media to keep students and faculty informed on campus activities and important news updates.

Alumni associations are utilizing Facebook to keep high school and college alumni up to date with reunions, news, and photos of their past classmates.

All this is just the beginning of an era.  Social media has already influenced millions of people and although a lot of people are still learning about Twitter and Facebook, social media’s potential influence on education can make learning fun again.

As always, your thoughts/comments/linkbacks are always appreciated.

@imarketu

Image courtesy of OPLS

Well, BestBuy CMO, Barry Judge, had to learn the hard way about that.

DougMeacham had an unpleasant turned pleasant experience at BestBuy recently and decided to let the BestBuy CMO about his in store experience.

Judge must have been a little distracted when replying to Meacham, because things went completely left at the end of the conversation.

Business owners, please make sure situations like this never occur in your social media strategies. 

Word spreads about social media misshaps quicker than fire, and we were all told not to play with fire when we were growing up.

Rightfully so, businesses can ask this question, and as a social media marketer I have to answer this question.  The answer is as simple as it sounds, it’s more about qualitative than quantitative results.

Before you form an opinion on what you just read, let me explain.

I’ll use Dunkin’ Donuts for example.  If Dunkin’ Donuts decides to give out free glaze donuts on a random Thursday, tweeted about it and posted it to their Facebook wall, within seconds, word would spread on Facebook, it would be in the top 10 Trending Topics on Twitter, and subconsciously, even the biggest social media skeptic would find themselves talking about it.

Dunkin’ Donuts would have a large crowd on the giveaway day and things would go back to normal the next.  Dunkin Donuts would see the quantitative results but would be missing out on the qualitative.

Now, let’s imagine Dunkin’ Donuts implemented a strategic social media marketing plan and gradually gained a large number of followers on Twitter and a decent amount of fans on Facebook.  Over time, their followers/fans eventually would become Dunkin’ Donuts regulars and even influence their own network of friends to buy from Dunkin’ Donuts.

The qualitative results eventually bring in the numbers.  It may not be as quickly as some would like it, but it does happen.

I would very much appreciate the loyal, regular customer more than the one-time free promotion customer on a random Thursday.

Think about the value your social media marketing plan will create for your current and potential customers and remember the quantitative results are great but the qualitative results are always better.

Which ROI is more appealing to you?

Starbucks ran a promotion giving away a free pastry with the purchase of any beverage.  The purpose of this promotion was to introduce people to Starbucks new pastries that are without the artificial flavors, dyes, transfats, and high fructose corn syrup.

As for coupon control, Starbucks required that you had to show a coupon in order to receive the pastry. Displaying the fact that they are inline with technology, you could either print out the coupon or show the coupon on your phone.

With the promotion being run from opening until 10:30 am, Starbucks #FreePastryDay is a perfect example of how powerful a medium Twitter is.I decided to monitor this promotion from 8:30 am until 3:00 pm Eastern Standard Time and the final statistics were very interesting.

In just 2 short hours, Starbucks went from being the #4 Trending Topic on Twitter to #2 (as of  press time, they were the #8 Trending Topic).  During the monitored timeframe, there were more than 17,942 Tweets that included the word Starbucks.

The most tweets consisted of people praising Starbucks’ coffee, pastry, and ability to handle such a large promotion.  Some people were dismayed by their local Starbucks running out of pastries, but Starbucks did inform people from the beginning the promotion was while supplies last.

All in all, Starbucks’ #FreePastryDay promotion was a Twitter Win.  Not only did they have a lot of people talking about them (including American Idol host @RyanSeacrest), but they had people passing around the coupons via re-tweets for hours.

For everyone that is big on seeing a ROI from social media marketing, just think about this…even though Starbucks gave away a free pastry, they still required people to purchase a beverage.  No minimum purchase amount was set, so a regular customer probably purchased their regular drink.  As for the people that don’t go to Starbucks on a daily basis, they decided to go today because they had the opportunity to receive a free pastry.

The redistribution and the ease of coupon use was the driving force behind the in-store traffic, and Starbucks stores probably made more today than they will for the remainder of the week.

That’s why Starbucks #FreePastryDay is a Twitter success and a good example of how social media marketing can increase your ROI.

– @imarketu

Microsoft has decided to build retail stores and strategically place them right next to Apple retail locations. In addition to that announcement, Microsoft also claims to have received a phone call from Apple demanding they cease all of their “Laptop Hunters” commercials.

After reading this, I began to think, if Microsoft and Apple took their “battle for the top spot” to the social media world, who would do it best?With the masses of people that followed the WWDC via multiple online outlets, I would have to say Apple would have the upper hand.

Apple knows how to reach and persuade a larger audience and they already have all the right weapons in place to do so.

Think about it…iPhones and iPods are in the possession of millions of people.  There’s over 65,000 apps in the App Store, and with all the creative and innovate ideas developers are putting into motion right now, things aren’t going to slow down anytime soon.

With Research In Motion testing a social media network for Blackberry users, how can you not foresee Apple doing the same exact thing.

For all you twitterers out there, how many times have you seen Microsoft in Trending Topics?  I am sure Bing found it’s way in there but for weeks, WWDC, iPhone, 3GS, Apple, and MacBook were constantly on the Trending Topics list.

Let’s not forget #MoonFruit.  In just three days, MoonFruit went from very little followers to over 30,000 followers each with their hopes set on receiving one out of 10 MacBook Pro’s being given away.

It’s probably safe to say, if Apple decided to give away free copies of Snow Leopard software the response would be astounding.  Free giveaways for Windows 7…not so much.

A strong social media marketing plan is in the works from both these companies, I can smell it.  The biggest question is, who’s gonna do it best?