Marketing Professor Recognized for Social Media Marketing

Social media marketing is new, exciting and, says Radford University’s Gary Schirr, “a hard one to get on top of.”

Schirr, an assistant professor of marketing in the College of Business and Economics, has been trying to get a handle on this dynamic phenomenon. He was recently recognized by Social Media Marketing Magazine as one “who gets it” and was rated No. 3 on the magazine’s list of 92 top marketing professors on Twitter.

A self-described “early adopter,” Schirr said his use of Twitter began as a means to promote his blog at servicecocreations.com.  The site had routine traffic of about 50 visits per post before he became active on Twitter.  Schirr says the blog now has up to 1,000 visits on a given topic.

“I wasn’t happy with the blog’s readership, and I thought Twitter could be a way to increase it,” Schirr said. “I now have the feedback and evidence that it is working.”

The magazine describes Schirr as a marketing professor who provides useful content to his followers and consistently engages with them. His No. 3 rating is based on the number of followers to his Twitter account as of April 11, 2011.

Schirr is putting his burgeoning social media experience to use for a hybrid course titled “Marketing 471: Social Media Marketing and Issues in Marketing” for spring 2012, funded by a seed grant from COBE.

“I have come across some really cool case studies and been reaching out to people with common interests from Chile, Canada and across America who have shared syllabi, projects, reading and plenty of good, helpful ideas,” Schirr said.

Follow Schirr on Twitter at ProfessorGary.