Journal Entry

Nakelya Moragne

06/01/2014

Spring 1

Webster University

Weaving Social Media Into a Business Proposal Project

Li, Xiaoli

Business Communication Quarterly, v75 n1 p68-75 Mar 2012

Keywords: proposals, persuasive messages, classroom practices

Introduction: Given that students are enthusiastic about social media or even have expertise in some social media tools, the author decided to design a class project in her Writing for Careers (Business Communication) class that integrates social media in terms of content and project management. This article intends to describe such a class project design as well as the working process; reflect on such a practice by reviewing students' feedback, examining the final products, and assessing the learning outcomes; and finally provide suggestions on how to improve this project.

Methods: This article describes the project design as well as the working process and reflects on this practice by reviewing students’ feedback, examining the final products, and assessing the learning outcomes. In concluding, the article provides suggestions for improvement. Students were excited about the project because it was related to social media; however some students were confused because they didn’t understand how such a project could be related to business management. Different books, articles, websites, movies, and/or TV shows were assigned to help with the project (ex. Get Connected: The Social Networking Toolkit for Business, the Oscar-winning movie The Social Network, CNBC’s The Facebook Obsession, Barack Obama’s Social Media Lessons for Business. Also a few articles (D’Angelo, 2010; Greenwald, 2010; Jones & DeGrow, 2011).

Results: The few students who disliked social media or were very reluctant to get onto social media had an opportunity to learn something new. Those who were familiar with some social media tools learned new aspects and features. This project gave students the opportunity to practice and utilize a variety...