This is post 2 in a two-part series about teaching paid social media with Stukent Mimic Social. Before reading this post, I encourage you to read post 1, which was published on the Stukent website.

Use Stukent Mimic Social to Teach Paid Social Media with this Assignment

In the first post in this two-part series, I introduced the Stukent Mimic Social simulator, which is a classroom simulator for teaching paid social media. In that post, I covered what the simulator is, the learning objectives I had for it, and how the simulator works.

In this post, I discuss how I integrated the Mimic Social simulator into my class. I also provide an overview of the assignment that accompanied the simulator. A copy of the assignment is provided as well.

Setting Up the Mimic Social Simulator: Considerations

Before we discuss how I integrated Mimic Social into my class and the assignment itself, I should preface with a few notes. When professors set up the Mimic Social simulator for their students, they choose the number of rounds they want their students to complete. Options range from 2 rounds to 24. I opted for 16 rounds given the time we had to commit to the assignment and my sense of how many repetitions would be necessary for students to begin to build mastery.

Professors can also decide to delay the opening of rounds such that students have to wait until certain preset dates to access each round (see image below). This prevents students from rushing ahead. I did not choose this option.

How I Teach Paid Social Media with the Stukent Mimic Social Simulator

I assigned the Stukent Mimic Social simulator as the final assignment in my fall 2020 social media class. Since the assignment was going to bring together many things the students had learned over the course of the semester (see my learning goals for the simulator in my first post), much of the semester served as a preparation for this final task. Assigning Mimic Social as the final assignment was like sending students out into the (simulated) real world after doing my very best to train them throughout the semester.

I taught this class online, with all but the two lectures noted below, done synchronously on Zoom.

To prepare my students for success with Stukent’s social media simulator, I introduced them to paid social media. First, I had my students complete The Essential Guide to Digital Marketing with Facebook, part of the Facebook Business educational resources. I provided two accompanying lectures on how social media advertising works, focusing on Facebook advertising.

In a third lecture, I went over the assignment and provided a lecture to 1) get students up to speed on what Stukent is and how it works, and 2) to connect the Stukent assignment to things students had learned in class – such as audience targeting and the marketing funnel – and to things they had learned through the Facebook Essentials Guide – such as split testing ads. After the third lecture, students began the simulator, using most of the class time to do the simulator. I prepared brief per-recorded lectures for them to watch before working on the simulator and made myself available for chat or video call to any student who might have questions. I liked this approach because students could work at their own pace from home while turning to me with any questions they may have.

In a brief fourth lecture, I covered how influencer marketing works in Mimic Social, which begins in the simulator in round 7. This lecture was also per-recorded and students were to watch it before working on Stukent for that day.

The Mimic Social Simulator Assignment

As I noted above, the Mimic Social simulator was the final assignment in my class. But I assigned it in two parts and students began working with the simulator during week 11 of a fifteen-week semester. The first part simply asked students to complete rounds 1 through 6 before the end of week 13 of the semester. For the analysis rounds 2 and 4, students were to answer the questions provided. For round 6, students were to answer all of the questions in the question section except for the last question that asked “What types of content did you use for this round? Why?” Instead of that question, I had students describe how they planned to use what they learned so far to complete the rest of the simulator. Part 1 served as a check in to so that I knew students were engaging with the materials during the same time that I was talking about the topic during the semester. But my major motivation for having this deadline was to head off any issues before finals week. If students were having troubles getting signed up for our class on Stukent, were having technical troubles or were having trouble understanding Stukent and how to succeed at it, I could address these issues during the semester and not at the last minute during finals week. After students were given 2 class periods to work on the simulator with the hopes of completing all of part 1, my class shifted to focusing on other topics.

Part 2 of the assignment was due during finals week. This gave students time between the end of week 13 and finals week to schedule the simulator into their schedules rather than rushing to complete it during finals. Part two asked students to complete rounds 7 through 16. Students did not need to answer the questions section of the analysis rounds. Rather, students were tasked with creating a report to the chief marketing officer of Buhi. As you’ll recall in the first post in this series, the simulator begins with a welcome message from the CMO, which includes a list of goals the student is to achieve by the end of the simulator. Students had the option of writing this as a report or of creating a presentation that they recorded and turned into me. Whichever option they chose, students were tasked with addressing the below questions in their final report and providing visual evidence (screen captures) from their analytics to support their claims:

1. What goals did Buhi give you?
2. Target Audiences:
   1. Provide a general overview of the target market for Buhi.
   2. What audience(s) – of the ones available to you – did you choose to target and why?
   3. What audiences did you have the most success with? Why do you think that is? (hint: In both Post Analytics and Post history you can filter by audience name).
3. For Social Content:
   1. Looking over Post Analytics: What social media platforms worked best for you in terms of awareness, engagements, and revenue? Show evidence.
   2. What dates/times worked best for each platform? How often?
   3. What types of posts (e.g., articles, people indoor with products, image no product, memes) on your top 3 platforms worked best in generating awareness, engagement, revenue?
   4. Looking through your post history: What were your tops posts for: awareness, engagement, revenue?
4. For Influencers:
   1. What types of influencers did you have the most success with? What social media platforms performed best with your influencers in terms of awareness, engagements, and revenue?
   2. What types of influencer strategies (e.g., brand ambassador, takeovers, etc.) worked best? Why do you think that is?
5. Overall Performance:
   1. Looking over your early performance (the first few weeks), your middle performance, and your final performance (the last few weeks), in what ways did you improve? In what ways, if any, did you not improve?
   2. What were your final results in terms of total awareness, engagement, and revenue?
   3. How well did you meet each of the goals Buhi gave you? (see the goals Buhi gave you below)
   4. What was your ranking in the class (see course ranking)?
6. Takeaways & Reflection:
   1. What did you learn from this experience?
   2. What were your areas of strengths? What areas would you like to improve upon?
   3. Imagine you were leaving this company and going to train the next person to fulfill your position. What advice would you give that person?
   4. Please feel free to share any final thoughts.

See the full assignment below or on SlideShare here.

Evaluating Student Success in Mimic Social

At the end of the simulation, each student was ranked by revenue along with the following metrics: budget spent, customer satisfaction, total posts, total promoted posts, total impressions, total engagements, total clicks, and total conversions (see image below). There are also exportable reports for: a summary of all data, post details, and influencer summaries. This data will let you dive even further into your students’ efforts.

Students were graded based on two factors (see the assignment for details). The first, which accounted for 90% of a students’ grade, was based on the final report. This included clarity of communication, how thoroughly the questions for the final report were addressed, how successful the student was in achieving Buhi’s goals, and a thoughtful reflection on their performance and what they learned. The last 10% of their grade came from their course ranking. That is, how well the student did in terms of revenue generated when compared to their peers. The person who ranked #1 earned 10% extra credit on their grade, the #2 ranking student earned 5% extra credit, the #3 ranking person earned full credit and each person thereafter received 2% off their grade on down to 0% of the 10% possible. I used a similar ranking system when I taught the Mimic Intro simulator. While it comes with some drawbacks, as some students may complain that they have no control over how their peers perform, it also seems to light a fire under students and gets them motivated to complete. I remind students that in business they will be competing with others for customers, donors, and the like.

Conclusion

Student feedback on the simulator was overall very positive.

Several students cited that it was their favorite project of the semester when we discussed what we learned in the class on the last day of classes. I got the sense that the simulator helped several students build push themselves out of their comfort zone and when they found success, it built their confidence. I messaged with Anna Keys, one of my students, about the simulator. She told me: “The Stukent Mimic Simulator provided me with tools that transferred seamlessly into real life social media advertising. I was able to learn about the process of targeting ads to specific ‘personas,’ which was something I struggled with prior to completing the simulation. I was also able to gain a much deeper understanding of the way in which money should be allocated during a campaign. I really appreciated that I received feedback after each round so that I could adjust my work to be the best it could be.”

In closing, I am pleased with how the Mimic Social simulator went. It helped bolster several key learning goals and provided students with hands-on experience with paid social media and influencer marketing that I could not otherwise provide them in class. The fact that students were able to do the simulator from home during an online class made for an easy integration of the simulator into what was a challenging fall 2020 semester due to the pandemic. Here’s to hoping we will be back in person for fall 2021. Either way, I plan on doing this assignment again this fall.

If you haven’t yet, be sure to read the first post in this series on the Stukent Blog!

If you’ve taught the Stukent Mimic Social in your class, I’d love to hear about your experience. Please feel free to drop a comment below.

Be well,
Matt

Notes and Disclosure: This blog post discusses how I used this software in my classroom to provide descriptive information for educators about my experience. This post is not an endorsement of Stukent, their products or any other software. While I was originally planning to write about my experience with Stukent on my blog, I did not get around to doing so before I was approached by Stukent with a request to write this blog post series. I was approached by Stukent with the request after the semester where I used the Mimic Social simulator and the above assignment in my class. I was not offered any incentive or compensation to write these posts. The university I work for did not receive any encouragement, incentives, compensation or discount whatsoever for my discussion of Stukent.