In my last two posts here, I drew from experiences I had as a guest speaker to journalism, mass media and public relations classes at Central Michigan University.

This post will touch again on those experiences, but will look at a common question I was asked by students in many of the classes I spoke to.

In every class I spoke to, there was one student who always asked the same question: How can I get a job in social media?

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Every Friday I post links to a few of the blog posts that I read during the week that I found interesting and insightful.

Included in this week’s round-up is discussion about why you should invest in your community; existing passion in online communities; big lies of social media ROI; and how to start building an online community.

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Much is being said lately about the impact that social media is having on how business is done both in this country and worldwide.

As social media has become more integrated into how businesses promote themselves, buy advertise, market at various levels, it has caused a seismic shift in what platforms get priority over others.

This seismic shift has created a ripple effect in the way that marketing, public relations, communications and journalism is taught by colleges in the U.S.

Many universities are faced with two options: integrate social media into their current curriculum, or teach it separately as a specialism, with a certificate or even a separate major.

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This week I’ve been speaking to classes at Central Michigan University about social media and how it relates to mass communications and journalism.

At the end of my lecture, I took questions from the audience.

A recurring theme among the students has been a level of skepticism that social media is here to stay, or if it will fade out and be replaced with something else.

Their skepticism surprised me because they were the last group of people I expected to hear something like that from.

Students asked if there’s something new on the horizon that will off-set Facebook, Twitter and so on.

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Every Friday I post links to a few of the blog posts that I read during the week that I found interesting and insightful.

Included in this week’s round-up is discussion about how to reinforce your social media content; best practice for responding to negative postings on social media sites; why atmosphere matters when building an online community; and blogging’s revival.

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