By Jennifer Henderson

Ninety-three percent of marketers use social media for business, according to Erik Qualman, author of Socialnomics. “Social Media isn’t a fad, it’s a fundamental shift in the way we communicate,” he says. “The ROI of social media is that your business will still exist in five years.” Given the rapid growth and importance of social media in business, is higher education doing enough when it comes to teaching social media?

Back in 2010, The New York Times published an article about closing the gap between education and the commercial world. Anthony Salcito, vice president of worldwide education at Microsoft, told the Times that schools were just starting to focus on teaching social media. “We are seeing institutions embrace much more competency-based skills development for students, and this includes understanding how to embrace social media technologies.”

But, jump to 2014, and Cory Edwards, head of Adobe’s Social Business Center of Excellence and an adjunct professor at Brigham Young University, writes that higher education is not doing enough to prepare students for the social media realities of business. “There’s no ques­tion, the need for university-educated social media prac­ti­tion­ers is greater than ever, and these skills are in high demand. As busi­nesses begin to rec­og­nize the need for exper­tise to max­i­mize their social media strate­gies, careers in the social arena will jump,” he says. But, he adds that “as the need for more social media classes and cur­ricu­lum becomes clear, it seems uni­ver­si­ties are the last to get on board.”

What schools are doing

Edwards writes that he looks forward to the day when students can major or minor in social mar­ket­ing or social media com­mu­ni­ca­tion. Until that time, though, he points to some universities that are effectively incorporating social media into curriculum. George­town Uni­ver­sity, for example, offers a cer­tifi­cate in social media man­age­ment. In addition, Syra­cuse Uni­ver­sity has a social media pro­fes­sional and social media strate­gist cer­tifi­cate, and Har­vard and Colum­bia Busi­ness Schools each offer courses as part of their doc­toral pro­grams in mar­ket­ing.

And, a recent article in BizEd, a business education magazine, highlights additional schools that are helping “everyone from undergraduates to executives understand how to exploit the advantages and avoid the pitfalls of social media networks.” As an example, the article points to Adelphi University’s Willumstad School of Business in New York, which added a “Social Media” course in 2013. Students in the course work with “RSS and Twitter feeds, analyze data regarding page views and usage, and hear from guest speakers who discuss the use of social media for advertising and marketing.”

How businesses are helping

Businesses such as Hootsuite are developing curriculum to help schools incorporate social media in the classroom. “In today’s rapidly-evolving media landscape, social media has not only become a fundamental tool for communication, but a must-have skill in a multitude of industries,” writes Hootsuite. “But even with this clear demand for skilled social media practitioners, Higher Education is constantly challenged with bridging the gap between traditional instruction and these new skills required for today’s digital workforce,” according to the company.

HootSuite University’s Higher Education program features hands-on video training focused on social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter, and, LinkedIn. In addition, the program offers an online community for educators to share best practices and ways other educators are integrating social media tools into their curriculum. Schools such as the Stern School of Business at New York University have adopted the program.

Do you think students are sufficiently taught how to effectively use social media in a business setting? And, is it the responsibility of business schools to provide that training? We’d love to hear from you in the comments section below.