Best college major for online marketing?

I woul say business mgmt with a focus on marketing.

IM is a business that you need to manage and marketing is marketing, it's how and where you do it that defies the difference. But you still need to know how to market. Then there's the factor of learning more and adjusting what works

Good luck

Anything that is related to marketing and advertising.

College is not going to help you a whole lot.

You learn as you go along even if you have to learn to master your time online, how to market, how to handle rejections, etc....

To manage your money, you just need to buy some sort of a book in your book store.

You don't need college for anything. If you want to master something, there are many books on the market.

It's about SKILLS. 1) Media marketing. It is and will continue to be the best skill you can learn is how to make great vids. Whether small business or corporate America, you can work for yourself or get hired. 2) WRITING...a skill that be well paid in any opportunity in the future.

BTW...my 18 nephew is majoring in media marketing.

If your niece intends to market other peoples products and services, then nothing will beat hands on experience combined with some coaching by a successful marketer who is up to date on the current trends. If your niece however intends to offer her own products or services, then what she should really be focusing on is deciding on what type of business or service she would want to provide for the world (preferably something she is naturally good at) and from there learn how to successfully turn this into a commercially viable venture. "Business Management" will prove useful for that, but remember that "Marketing Online" should be just a small fraction of a much bigger game.

You could make a case that the most successful onlline marketers are programmers that created platforms that use User Generated Content...Google, Facebook, Youtube, etc.

Programming also would give her the ability to create unlimited products. Of course, she'd have to learn to market them, but it would be a good foundation.

However, I believe it really comes back to her personal aptitude, strengths and interests.

Good points and ideas about programming and online possibilities. That will only be a good idea if the niece is interested in learning programming. If she's definitely not interested, then I would suggest learning how to communicate very well. A 4-year degree is not necessary, so maybe it's just a personal choice.

The degree can work as a back-up, maybe, depending on what it is. I agree with Claude about the utility of college marketing courses in the online environment or specifically with IM. Brand marketing is certainly used on the net and has its place.

So ... perhaps appropriate English, business, and even psych courses. The ideal psych courses would be about understanding human nature relative to communication, etc. That's if there's zero interest in learning programming and maybe other tech stuff.

I served six years on the marketing advisory board at our local college, so I may be a little biased in my answer, but I think taking a few marketing classes could only help. Here's why:

1. It will give her a broader understanding of marketing in general, and thus, a bigger pool of knowledge to draw ideas from.

2. It takes time to build an IM career to the point where you're earning a reliable income. Presumably she will need or want to earn some money in the meantime. Classes in marketing could get her foot in the door for a lot of opportunities related to what she wants to do.

3. College marketing classes/courses are not stagnant. Many have classes related to IM now, like social media marketing, for example.

There's my two cents.

I have a degree in marketing, and another in entrepreneurship. Thanks to Uncle Sam, I'm going back for a masters... in strategic communications at a school that has an excellent film, audio, multimedia production department with lots of labs... as in "professional studios that can be used by the students FOR FREE".

Part of marketing is definitely the theory. Marketing classes are great, but whatever program she applies for, make sure there is a good basis of business education. Quantitative and qualitative research classes only get you so far.

Content, content, content. Every professional marketing job I've looked at seems to think that every marketer is now a content maker. With that, even if the classes aren't provided in the curriculum, encourage her to get the following two (or three) subscriptions:

1. adobe creative cloud. THE professional content creation system, and it's $20 for students.
2. lynda.com . At $25 a month for tutorial training, i think it is FAR more relevant than the classes she could waste her electives on in college. And the tuition is right.
3. macprovideo.com . A competitor to lynda.com and also $25 a month. Macprovideo is heavy on the creative, but light on all the supplemental courses (branding, building a blog, social media tutorials, etc.)

So, good luck to another future marketing major. Everyone should learn to do it, even if it's for their own career. Make sure she starts a portfolio immediately. Heck, she could just start a youtube channel and collect advertising revenue if nothing else. That experiential learning side of things will teach her a thousand hard-learned lessons that the classroom never could, and it'll prepare her for a job or internship with the big names near the end of her degree.

Good luck!

I once sold a bag of organic compost to a dairy farmer.

I think she should study History.
That was Carly Fiorina's major and she became CEO at HP.
Oh, ummmm ... never mind.

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Seriously, I take it she is about 18 years old?
If so, I'd suggest she take a more open approach.
Unless she is on fire about IM, then she should
gain the college experience and contacts and friends...
Go after what does catch fire.

If still IM, then English or programming as a major.
Business and marketing as a minor - or double major.

I think it's important to get some grounding in
market research, branding, leadership, business operations,
and the customer service experience.