Now, what have I learned from all this?

I can honestly say that now that we are nearing the end of the quarter (and the last in my college career), I thoroughly enjoyed this class. The information was applicable to my career, interests, and major. It's not a frequent occurrence to learn something that is actually something you can directly apply to your life moments later or during an interview the next day.

To begin, I learned that word of mouth marketing is marketing that gives people a reason to talk about you. More importantly, marketers can no longer control the message like they used to. Instead, it takes two-way communication and active involvement to spread a message that is ultimately controlled by the customers.

Here are the top ten things that come to mind when I look back on what I've gained from this class:

1. The 5 Ts are: Talkers, Topics, Tools, Taking Part, and Tracking. Each are very important to creating a strategic marketing plan.
2. Building relationships will help build sales.
3. If you treat people well, they will return the favor by doing your marketing for you... for free.
4. You can either be interesting, unique, and fresh, or be invisible.
5. Keep topics fresh and simple.
6. Honesty in all communication is key.
7. Sticky ideas resonate with audiences because they are simple, unexpected, concrete, credible, emotional, and tell a story.
8. Media isn't social, people are.
9. To be successful with social media, you must exist in the space between planning and improvisation.
10. Power lies in real-time everything.

Thanks for a great class, Professor Barnes!