Mar 10, 2011

Tweeting as a Class Requirement

Posted by Wendy Weber

The Wall Street Journal reports that businesses including Sprint Nextel Corp., Levi Strauss & Co. and Mattel Inc. are sponsoring college classes and graduate-level research to get help with their online marketing from college students. Sprint, for example, supplies a class at Boston’s Emerson College with smartphones and unlimited service in exchange for students working gratis on the company’s local Internet push.

Universities may receive funding or proprietary consumer data from companies for their research. Students get experience they can display on their resumes, and add lively classes to the usual mix of lectures and written exams.

This is also of interest to me as a recruiter, because from what I see in terms of the social marketers I know professionally and personally (my daughter is in her first year at Smith College), college students are big Facebook users, but don’t Tweet. This article has given me reason to reconsider that opinion.

To read the article in its entirety, click here.

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