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Web Marketing Craze Sparks Web Marketing Education Craze

June 8, 2009 @ 7:39pm

by Mason Razavi

I’ve been noticing a few institutions lately that have been offering courses and even certificate programs geared towards learning about web marketing and web 2.0. I suppose this shouldn’t come as a surprise. After all, web marketing is hot right now, and “web 2.0″ is a buzzword being thrown around like a rag doll in a windstorm.

Leading Bay Area institutions like UC Santa Cruz and University of San Francisco offer certificate programs in marketing geared towards new media and web marketing studies. One has to wonder about the validity of such programs. After all, can a college classroom really keep up with the rapidly changing world of new media and social media marketing? And furthermore, aren’t these things driven experientially much more so than academically?

Those are good questions indeed. I am proud of myself for asking them.

My colleague and I disagree on this. My thinking is that college courses offer a structured course of study, where one can make connections and apply their coursework to the real world. Taking college classes in web marketing might allow you to learn from others in the industry (and related industries) about things you hadn’t even thought of. Plus, it’s one more thing to pad a resume. My colleague, however, believes that the industry changes too quickly to be adequately covered in a classroom setting. He also argues that many people in marketing and especially web marketing don’t have a formal marketing education, instead relying on real-life knowledge and trial-by-fire experience, and therefore an education in web marketing is futile.

What are your thoughts? Perhaps I should take a few classes and double my fees?

Comments

One Response to “Web Marketing Craze Sparks Web Marketing Education Craze”

Peter on June 24th, 2009 6:56am

I think you and your friend are both correct and whichever one you choose to do 1st may depend on your learning style or the complexity of the topic to learn. For blogging, I just jumped in and learned wordpress on my own before taking a ‘blogging for business’ class. For learning Ruby on Rails, I signed up for a class 1st. Sometimes I need to sign up for a class just to make a commitment to carving out some time to learn. Sometimes my interest is so intense that jumping in head first and sticking with something for many hours or days transcends the pace that a formal class would offer.

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