Beyond the two towering, glass doors of room 460 in the College of Communication and Information at the University of Tennessee, students swiftly scan the four large and flat, side-by-side panel monitors, analyzing trends, scrutinizing social media posts and examining online engagement.

The only established command center with all-inclusive access to Salesforce’s Social Studio at a university in the nation is the Adam Brown Social Media Command Center in the College of Communication and Information at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville.

Available to students, faculty and staff in the college, the Adam Brown Social Media Command Center (ABSMCC) is used for comprehensive research, interactive presentations and visual teaching. Along with six, large monitors, the lab features three Mac minis, two Apple tv’s and enough collaboration space for 25 to 30 students. Faculty and students in the college can also easily access Salesforce’s Social Studio anywhere from the convenience of their laptop.

“The Adam Brown Social Media Command Center is a great place to hang with friends, present work and relax during class,” Monique Freemon, a graduate assistant in the ABSMCC said. However, it is also a powerful tool and source to strengthen articles and research. Using Social Studio, CCI students and staff have access to more than 220 billion social media posts and can dig deep into global conversations online.

Funded generously by Adam Brown, alumnus of the College of Communication and Information, the Social Media Command Center is powered by Salesforce marketing cloud Social Studio technology. Brown’s donation was an essential portion of the College of Communication’s $15 million fundraising campaign “Investing in the Journey to the Top 25”.

Before becoming the executive strategist for Salesforce, Brown spent eight years as vice president of Ketchum, four years leading the office of digital and social media at the Coca-Cola Company and three years serving as executive director of social media at Dell.

Brown and his team developed Salesforce to be the leading marketing, sales and analytics tool implemented by Fortune 100 companies worldwide. Forbes recognized Salesforce as the “World’s Most Innovative Company” for the past four years.

According to Salesforce, “Social Studio is a one stop solution allowing consumers to manage, schedule, create and monitor posts organized by brand, region or multiple teams and individuals in a unified interface.”

Social Studio is a powerful tool implemented for class, research and on-campus projects. The real time publishing enables students to create, engage and analyze worldwide,
public trends. Features of Social Studio include workspaces for team collaboration, tools for planning and publishing social media content, for interacting with customers, and for examining the results through analytics.

CCI graduate students have utilized Social Studio for research projects that gained international attention. In the fall of 2016, graduate students in Stuart Brotman’s political communication seminar formed the University of Tennessee Political Social Media Research Group (PSMRG). These students tracked political conversations using Social Studio’s “analyze” tool and hosted presidential debate viewing sessions. Following the debate,
students produced comprehensive trend reports from millions of online comments and posts.

Along with research projects, class projects are enhanced by employing the ABSMCC. According to Freemon, almost all advertising and public relations courses use the command center. Undergraduate students in advertising, public relations and journalism majors have created various social reports and marketing plans with the data collected from Social Studio.

Journalism students use Social Studio to enhance their reporting. Trend and top word statistics are valuable sources. Social Studio is like having a digital source in the online world.

“It provides statistics in real time about what topics are trending, which helps me determine what is newsworthy or not newsworthy,” Freemon said. “Also, the program allows the user to create visual data to present in a much simpler way to a massive audience.” Data gathered from Social Studio can be explained through graphs, charts and other visual diagrams that enhance multimedia reporting.

Five departmental graduate assistants within the college are trained to demonstrate the inclusiveness of the ABSMCC. While graduate assistants are available for teaching students and faculty how to use the software, they are also responsible for writing weekly articles about current events. These articles include relevant data gained from Social Studio.

“We focus on many topics such as social justice, pop culture, politics and weather; local, regional, national and international stories as well,” Freemon said.

For example, Freemon recently wrote an article on #WorldSuicidePreventionDay, which included top words, related tweets, post volume and sentiment scores. “For a journalist, measuring those scores may require some critical thinking skills,” Freemon explained. Top words are given a color in correlation with their sentiment score - positive (green), negative (red) and neutral (grey). It’s important to explain why specific words carry a
stigma.

“If a journalism student is in this situation, include some historical information to support these claims,” Freemon said. Freemon would then review and hyperlink other news sites or specific articles as sources to support the claims.

Online training is available and departmental graduate assistants can assist with accessing and navigating social studio and using the ABSMCC. “I found the best way is to receive training from a graduate assistant, watch the training videos and test the software yourself,” Freemon said. “After a few tries, it is easy and fun to use.”

Knowledge of Salesforce’s Social Studio is also a valuable resume skill. Knowing how to navigate and analyze copious amounts of data is an attractive strength to future employers. Regular use of Social Studio can improve research.

The Adam Brown Social Media Command Center is open while school is in session Monday through Thursday 8:30 a.m. to 9 p.m. and Friday 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Whether students are searching for a spot to relax between classes or needing to dig deep into analytical data for class projects, the Adam Brown Social Media Command Center is the place to be. An advantage to the College of Communication and the University of Tennessee, the ABSMCC gives students, faculty and staff a leg up in tracking digital trends and engaging international social accounts. Students with Social Studio skills and knowledge have a noteworthy resume enhancer and valuable asset for future employers.