By Eric Cox
On Monday, August 26, CCBC began its fall semester. A lot is new every semester but what stands out this year is the Communication & Media Studies Department expanding its curriculum. In order to better adapt to changing business practices, Mass Communication Coordinator and Professor Beth Baunoch is introducing a new class called Digital and Social Media Marketing (MCOM 193).
“This is an excellent course to add to the Communication & Media Studies curriculum. It is a natural fit and definitely a necessity in today's world. Students should all know how to use social media marketing; it will make them more desirable in any job or career they pursue,” said Professor Baunoch when asked her opinion on the addition of the class to the curriculum.
Colleague and fellow member of the Communications Department, Jeremy Caplan, added “This course is an excellent addition to the Mass Communication curriculum because it focuses on the modern media world which is something that our students want and also need to compete in the job market. It is important to keep our courses up to date with current trends while also still teaching the basics. Students still need to learn the foundation of various media practices but Professor Baunoch always finds great ways to modernize the material and bring in the newest media trends.”
According to the class syllabus, the course prepares students to work for a company and build and implement a proper digital and social media marketing strategy. Digital and Social Media Marketing is used by marketers to increase brand awareness, identify key audiences, generate leads and build meaningful relationships with customers.
Although the class is online and Professor Baunoch herself realizes that online learning, “adds an extra challenge to teaching,” she is committed to providing answers at any time to all concerns students may have to the best of her ability.
The materials and books needed for this class, unlike for many others, are actually essential for success in the course. The digital textbook “Essentials of Social Media Marketing” by Michelle Charello is bundled with a social media marketing simulation called Mimic Social. These materials can be found at the CCBC bookstore or by going directly to the website www.stukent.com.
Mimic Social Simulation (MSS) gives students a trial run of what it’s like to run a digital and social media marketing campaign for a business. Throughout, the semester students participate in twelve simulation rounds. In each round, students take command of the marketing strategy for Buhi Supplly Co. an e-commerce and retail bag supplier. Although, this may be a simulation, Buhi Supply is a very real company established in 2009.
Students are given the job title of Social Media Manager and are hired to help Buhi reach their goals of increasing sale and engagement, growing brand awareness, and outperforming their classmates.
According to the assignment overview found in the syllabus, each round students are required to create 7-12 social media posts on each platform (Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Youtube, Linkedin, and Pinterest) per week or 1-2 per day.
Although the simulation is certainly advanced, Professor Baunoch still believes “real world” experience trumps all stating, “…The best way to get real world experience is actually in the 'real world;' however in the online classroom MSS is pretty close! The good thing about MSS is that you can spend a make believe budget (of $5,000), so any mistake you make is just a learning experience. MSS is very close to what it is like to schedule, post, and advertise in 'real world' social media platforms. This way, when students begin working on this either for their own business or for someone else they will feel comfortable.”
The budget can be spent on advertising but is mostly spent on promoting their posts on social media to reach a bigger or targeted market. Furthermore, the simulation gives the students a workable market to target in the form of personas and their demographics to create content catered to potential customers.
After creating their post and running the simulation, students are then given the post analytics. There, students can see which post under which platform were the most successful or under-performed. Based on metrics such as: impressions (how often a post is viewed), clicks (how often your post is clicked), conversions (the number of times someone made a purchase because of your ad), and revenue (the amount of money the company makes because of your ad). Theses metrics give students the feedback needed to get improved results each week of the simulation.
Mimic Social is an indispensable part of the class, worth 300 of the possible 1000 points a student can earn.
Upon completion of the course Professor Baunoch stated, “I hope that students take away, above all, the confidence to begin working in the social media marketing field. I also hope students learn the lingo, the strategies and most current social media trends.”
"I'd like to see more courses like this as well as something more analytical such as media studies that look at the industry more from a critical perspective,” said Professor Caplan when asked what other courses he would like to see added to the department.
This class is just the first of many more to come. As the business world continues to change their practices to match the technological advancements people use to communicate, others like it will continue to arise at CCBC.
For more information on courses in Communication & Media Studies contact the department directly or follow the link below.
http://catalog.ccbcmd.edu/preview_entity.php?catoid=34&ent_oid=4173&returnto=2772
This sounds like an amazing opportunity for CCBC students! I am glad to hear that CCBC is keeping up with the times and creating courses that cater to specific careers, as well as advancing technology. It sounds like the class was created with everything in mind: A practice budget, 7-12 social media posts per week, and a workable market. I may have to try this class for myself.
I really liked this article because it was well written and packed with useful information. This article peaked my interest because I am a Mass Media major and this class is one that I didn’t know about. Based on the information given, I think this class would be a perfect fit for my major and where I want to go for the future. I appreciated the information given from the syllabus about the use of the MSS simulation because it makes me feel like this class will give me real-life scenarios and experience. It was also nice to know that the class was online, and not available in a classroom setting.
I had no idea that a new class was added to the Mass Communication Department. It’s great to see that CCBC is making sure they are upgrading their classes and adding on more as the world shifts into a more media lifestyle. I think the class will come in handy for people who are really into Marketing and want a job that only deals with social media. I also think people who have their own business or are thinking of starting their own business will really benefit from this class. The fact that the course even allows you to practice with your budgeting and creating ideas to promote the brand is even better! Since it is offered online it is more convenient to people. But I do wish that it can be taken in a classroom setting as well. I myself prefer to learn in a classroom, and Im sure others do it Adding this course is great and I can not wait to see what else CCBC decides to do next!
I felt this article to be very informative and written in way that intrigues the reader. I fully agree with CCBC’s new social media marketing class because it is important to keep up with the ever-changing business trends. This article was written very well and used the inverted pyramid exceptionally. I also agree that there should be more classes that are analytical in media studies and critically views such industry. Overall, this article really convinced me to read more of what CCBC’s news blog has to offer. I think it is very crucial for students to know more about what is going on in there school. Very good article, as well as very good reporting.
I was very pleased to read that CCBC is expanding their Communications and Media Studies Department. Being a Mass Communications major myself, I appreciate that the staff is trying to incorporate a more engaging and stimulating experience for students. I also appreciate the recent emphasis on students gaining “real world” experience, in order to better acclimate to the modern era, and “increase job readiness”. I think that MCOM 193 (Digital and Social Media Marketing) will be a great success. The course will definitely help students challenge themselves and give them a taste of what a typical day within that career would consist of, budgeting, networking, meeting deadlines and advertising for their company.
I’m glad to see that CCBC is offering courses steered more towards social media which is relative to a majority of its students. I think it’s important that students understand how business in social media works, especially because its a successful line of work. I’d like to see how quickly the curriculum will change for this course because the social media world is constantly changing. I’ve been captivated by journalism this year and I’ll potentially take this class next semester now that its geared more towards something I’m interested.
This is very interesting and I didn’t know that CCBC started a new mass communications class. Mass communication is my major and this makes me happy to see that they are adding more to this major. I think its important that students take up mass communication classes especially business students because it falls under the same category.
My first semester and I got to take a new class! I felt super lucky 😁
I’ve been taking this class this semester and I love it, I’ve learned so much and it’s the most modern and possibly the most important communication class we can take at the point in life, the way the communication market is going. I also loved the tools we used as the mimic social, super accurate and I loved to be able to do learn with practical experience.
I had not read this before, so I did not know the details of the class itself, but this seems like a great class to add to the Mass Communications curriculum. It seems like it will have more hands-on experienced-based training than a lot of other classes, so I am excited to see where it takes the students. Social media is very important in this day and age and to go into Mass Communications, it will be imperative to know the ins and outs of it and how to best get people’s attention. I am really excited to see how students react to this class.
This is great that CCBC is expanding one of its many majors. I know Mass Communications is a pretty popular major especially in this day in age with technology. So for this major to expand more using social media to teach its students is even better.
I’m ecstatic that this class is being offered, one of my interest in the Mass Comm world is to learn how to market via social media.
I had the pleasure of taking MCOM 193 this fall and I really enjoyed it! I want to go into digital marketing, so this class was perfect for me. I was able to gain a lot of experience from the simulation rounds. Like Professor Baunoch said, while the simulation wasn’t real world experience, it came very close and I was still able to learn a lot of terms and methods that I can use in future jobs.
I am excited that CCBC is extended classes in the Digital and Social Media Marketing area. In reading the article I see a lot a career readiness in the requirements. I look forward to registering !