A Social Network Strategy for the Social Marketing of Online Courses and Learning Resources in Higher Education

Abstract

In virtually all institutions of higher learning, there is the development of online courses to meet local demands foremost but also to potentially glean from an international cadre of learners. Various universities may offer curricular topics relevant to a much larger context. This chapter makes the case that network science may be applied to marketing online courses in higher education to reach target learners. This focuses on some real-world instructional design cases and the marketing strategies used. These cases are then analyzed using a social network strategy approach, which is first described here. Finally, there are ideas on how to apply a social network strategy to various online learning “products.”