Using social media aggregation and curation techniques in the classroom to identify discourse trends and support brand operations

In classrooms where social media is used as a teaching tool, there have been innovations in the development of personal learning environments over recent years. However, most instructors still typically use social media in the classroom primarily as a platform for developing or sharing information. Taking social media instruction a cautious half-step step further, we report on the use of aggregation techniques in courses of study at both Ryerson and Royal Roads Universities, in support of social media listening to solve the problems of identifying buzz about an issue and discovering trends. By aggregation, we mean identifying, collecting, and curating the top performing syndicated sources in a discourse domain. Buzz, or urgent conversation about a topic or issue, once identified, can be used by communicators to raise the performance of their own social media messaging. Trends, once discovered, can be used to inform the decision-making processes of marketers, planners, or communicators. We also discuss the reports and infographics that participants in our courses of study produce to report their findings across organizational boundaries.