Xavier University grad and entrepreneur Matt Dooley is giving back to the university. This time, he's not a student but an instructor.
Dooley, who in 2011 launched a social media agency called
dooley media, now teaches a social media marketing course he developed for
Xavier's MBA program. This fall will mark his third year teaching the course, which was recently accepted into the lineup of Xavier's MBA electives after an experimental period.
The course centers on the changing and emerging social media marketing space. It's a real-time, real-world course that teaches students to create, analyze and and adapt social media campaigns across platforms. Dooley approached the university about the class, hoping to contribute to an existing course. Instead, he was asked to develop one himself.
"I think the underlying motive was simply that so many people were talking about social media and trying to figure it out," Dooley says. "That prompted me to send that email, to see if there was an opportunity to build dialogue around social media's best (and worst) practices." He graduated from Xavier with a BSBA in finance and an MBA in marketing.
Throughout his course, Dooley shares his own experiences in the working world, managing and developing social media campaigns for small- and medium-size businesses. Dooley also writes about social media marketing for the online publication
Cincinnati Profile.
The course has featured numerous experienced speakers, including social media marketing experts from companies and organizations like Caterpillar, Waste Management, Yelp!, Microsoft and Obama for America.
The course emphasises on meeting real-life challenges, and in one project, help solve a marketing challenge
3M presented to the class. The challenge related to helping the company better sell a new suite of computer privacy and protection products.
"It's a real-world course," Dooley says. "I think it's going against the nature of social media to be any other way. It's as interactive and fun and lively as possible."
By Feoshia H. Davis
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