If you would like to write for this, or any other Emerald publication, then please use our Emerald for Authors service information about how to choose which publication to write for and submission guidelines are available for all. Please visit www.emeraldinsight.com/authors for more information. About Emerald www.emeraldinsight.comEmerald is a global publisher linking research and practice to the benefit of society. The company manages a portfolio of more than 290 journals and over 2,350 books and book series volumes, as well as providing an extensive range of online products and additional customer resources and services.Emerald is both COUNTER 4 and TRANSFER compliant. The organization is a partner of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and also works with Portico and the LOCKSS initiative for digital archive preservation. AbstractPurpose -This study aims to examine current practices of social media marketing among major global brands across five product categories (namely, convenience, shopping, specialty, industrial and service). Assessing the frequency, media type and content orientations of corporate Facebook pages, this study aims to isolate the qualitative factors of a brand's social media message that are most likely to facilitate a consumer response. Design/methodology/approach -A content analysis of 1,086 social media posts was conducted from the corporate Facebook pages of 92 global brands during a one-month (snapshot) time horizon in July 2013. The data collected from each individual post include its media type (i.e. text, photo or video), its content orientation (i.e. task, interaction and self-oriented) and the number and type of consumer response it generated (i.e. likes, comments and shares). Findings -Research findings reveal that global brands actively utilize social media, posting on average three messages per week and generally use photos (as a media type) and interaction-focused content (as a content orientation) to secure consumer responses. However, differences in consumer responses exist along various product categories, message media type and message content orientation. Practical implications -Findings imply that marketers should not only carefully consider the media type they use to message consumers on social media but should also try to consider the individual consumer's motive for interaction. Originality/value -This article suggests a new way to study social media content by applying pre-existing communication frameworks from salesmanship literature as a way to define message content orientation.

is attributed with the quote, "Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is, I don't know which half." This well-known sentiment remains widely felt among marketers who recognize the value of assessment in guiding strategic marketing decisions. Today's marketers have an advantage Wannamaker did not haveaccess to relevant data and the tools to analyze it. The marketing landscape is changing, and unlike decades ago, today's marketing activities produce a plethora of metrics that can be measured and analyzed to produce significant strategic insight. The question is whether or not marketing students are adequately prepared to tackle the goldmine of data that are now available to them. Pilling, Rigdon, and Brightman (2012) provided evidence that marketing students generally lack this preparedness in quantitative skills. Equally important is whether or not marketing students can properly analyze the available data in such a fashion as to transform it into useable knowledge to drive strategy. Students must possess sufficient critical thinking capabilities to capitalize on the data-rich marketing activities and media formats available in today's business world. Modern digital and social media formats have revolutionized marketing measurement, producing an abundance of meaningful metrics, new tools, and methodologies. In fact, many organizations have gone from being starved for data to being overwhelmed by it. However, all the available data will not help marketers to do their job more effectively without a heavy dose of analysis. The fact remains that marketers still rely on solid critical thinking skills to make sense of all these data. This increased emphasis on metrics in the marketing industry signifies the need for increased quantitative and critical thinking content in our marketing coursework if we are to adequately prepare our students for today's and tomorrow's work world. This article discusses this trend and phenomenon, reviews the metrics currently available with digital and social media formats, provides real-world examples of how organizations are using digital and social media metrics to drive strategic marketing decisions (especially integrated marketing communication decisions), and offers both suggestions for how to weave more digital and social media quantitative analysis and critical thinking skills into our marketing courses and examples of student work using social media tools. Marketing Metrics and the Digital Advantage Marketing metrics has been defined as the tools which help companies quantify, compare, and interpret their own performance from marketing activities (Kotler & Keller, 2007). Measuring the impact of marketing activities has been on the rise as more marketers realize the strategic value the data conveys. As a discipline, marketers historically have been 587103J MDXXX10.

Preparing students for careers in digital marketing requires marketing educators to design and deliver courses with relevant and timely content and learning activities that facilitate knowledge comprehension and skill acquisition. Marketing educators may incorporate online training and certification programs on digital marketing in their courses to address this challenge. Branded digital marketing certifications are one type of such training. While these programs provide affordable (and often free) educational materials on digital marketing topics, their pedagogical soundness and value is largely unexplored. This article describes the findings of a research study which assessed the pedagogical value of and implementation considerations relevant to marketing educators who wish to incorporate branded digital marketing certification programs into their course designs.

Based on the industry need to hire qualified salespeople, a call to expand sales education at universities has been continuously echoed. This article provides an updated overview of the sales education landscape in the United States and offers insight into both the curriculum offerings and the practices of marketing educators who teach sales courses at colleges and universities with sales programs. This research assesses the current state of sales education by critically evaluating recently published sales education literature, reviewing university websites of the University Sales Center Alliance members located in the United States, surveying professors who are members of the Sales Educators Foundation and/or the University Sales Center Alliance, and examining sales course syllabi of sales faculty. This article describes the findings of these research investigations. Understanding the pedagogical choices, teaching practices and perspectives on curriculum of the educators of leading sales programs is valuable to those educators contemplating launching a sales program at their respective universities.

Data were collected from physicians attending a medical conference. This exploratory study was primarily interested in two areas. First, the investigators were interested in better understanding physicians' responses to different promotional tactics typically used by the pharmaceutical industry. Pharmaceutical representatives were most useful, followed by drug samples and infomercials in medical journals. Direct mail, promotional faxes, and promotional products were used less by physicians. Second, the investigators were interested in learning what information sources influenced physicians' drug choices. Physicians were primarily influenced by their prior experience with a drug, then by drug compendiums, and journal articles. Physicians were also influenced by information provided by the industry and other factors, like the drug's price and their patients' financial situations. Managerial implications for marketing to physicians and ideas for future research are discussed.