Authentic learning experience through the Social Media Marketing module

Hello DBIT peeps!

Wishing all of you a very Happy New Year! :)

Today is the first day of Term 2, Academic Year 2012/2013 Semester 2 and after 3 "lonely" weeks of seeing a mostly empty SP campus in Dec 2012, I was really in happy spirits to see a really vibrant Blk T20 today filled with laughing and chatty students.

My Social Media Marketing students from Year 1 in happy spirits!
From top left: Muliani, Jiamin, Biri and Syafidah

In particular, I was really looking forward to the Social Media Marketing presentations by my Year 1 students.  What is this Social Media Marketing presentation all about, you may ask.  Well, here's a quick explaination!

Students who enrol in the Diploma in Business IT (DBIT) are often full of entrepreneurial spirit. As such, we try to sustain their passion and enthusiasm by letting them venture out to experience the real-world of entrepreneurship and marketing right from their first year of studies!

In Year 1, DBIT students take the Social Media Marketing (SMM) module, which aims to build up our students’ experience and portfolio in planning and executing a marketing campaign using Social Media platforms such as Facebook or Twitter.

As part of their assignment, the students approach companies of their choice, persuade the companies to collaborate with them, create marketing plans and strategies for the selected company and eventually carry out a month-long social media marketing campaign for the company.

Some of the companies which the students have worked with include Chewy Junior, Frolick Yoghurt and  Marble Slab Creamery.

SMM project currently being executed by our Year 1 students in 2013

Chewy Junior Facebook Page - our students helped ran a campaign for them last year

Frolick Yoghurt - our students collaborated with them in 2011

The students truly enjoy this mode of learning as can be testified by their feedback below:

• “I enjoy being able to work with a real company”
• “This module is interesting because it allows me to learn outside of school.”
• “What I like about the module is the first-hand experience that students gain in terms of communication and the ways of persuasion, which cannot be taught in a classroom.
• “This module teaches me how to use the social media to help to promote a business and how important it is to businesses”

As a lecturer, I must say some of the work done by the students is truly impressive and I learnt alot from them myself!  What is unique about this module is that the students learn about global marketing through research for their assignment.  For example, today I had groups which shared interesting case-studies of how overseas companies like Popcorn Palace and Q-Bean engaged their customers through social media and allowed me to understand the Food & Beverage scene in two different countries right from the comfort of Singapore! :)

Want to know more about this module or about the DBIT course? Drop me a note @ msdorachua@facebook.com! :)

Cover slide from the Popcorn Palace group

One of the slides done by the QBean group