Applied Marketing Students Gain Hands-On Social Media Experience

Written by Addison Campbell

This past semester at the University of Indianapolis, Eric Harvey, Director of Graduate Business Programs, Carissa Newton, Assistant Professor of Practice in Marketing, and Crystal Grave ‘99 came together to create a workbook students can use for the Applied Marketing Class (MKTG 495). The purpose of this course was to teach students how to manage a marketing agency, which would later support the UIndy Graduate School of Business social media accounts. 

As the semester began, the students broke into various teams based on their interests, such as project managers, copywriters, designers, analysts, and team leaders. By setting up the students into their teams, they were able to start planning and executing their social media campaigns. The students were provided with help from Crystal Grave about the vendor process and the UIndy Office of Communications and Marketing to provide them with more information about applying the University’s brand elements and some of the do’s and don’ts of social media.

The students in the Applied Marketing Class were also visited by a few professionals in the field, including Jennifer Lisak-Golding, Owner of Sapphire Strategies and Rachel Boyle, Social Media Manager at OneAmerica. Having these guest speakers allowed the students to learn more about different career opportunities and to receive feedback on how their social media campaigns would work in the real world.

At the end of the semester, the students gave a formal presentation for University and School of Business leadership. By having this agency, it gave the students a perfect environment to not only learn, but practice social media marketing where they would see their hard work and dedication pay off, and due to this class’s success, the Applied Marketing Simulation Class (MKTG 497) will be the next to manage the agency and hope to earn a Hubspot Certificate.