Journal of Marketing Management

A Social Media Experiential Learning Project to Engage Students and Enhance Learning in Retailing
C. M. Sashi

Abstract
The advent and rapid diffusion of social media has excited sellers in a wide variety of industries worldwide with its potential for establishingrelationships and building customer engagement. Retailers in particular are trying to use the opportunities afforded by Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, etc., to connect and interact with buyers in an attempt to satisfy and retain them as loyal customers. This article shows how incorporating a social media experiential learning project in retailing courses can engage students, enhance learning, and equip students with the social media and digital marketing skills that retailers desire. Students form teams that work together throughout the semester on anexperiential learning project in which each team selects a retail firm and designs a social media strategy to build customer engagementfor the firm. Multiple reports are required with peer assessments of all reports, prompting each student to read, reflect, and benefit from the reports of other teams as well as receive feedback to help rewrite and improve their own reports. The project enables students to learn by participating and interacting, reflecting, understanding, and applying retailing concepts to develop social media strategies.

Full Text: PDF     DOI: 10.15640/jmm.v2n3-4a2