Assignment on Evaluating Social Media & Viral Marketing Strategies

Guide for assessment

Assignment structure, format and details    Individual assignment (100%) (3,000 words). Drawing upon a review of relevant literature, students are required to evaluate the social media and viral marketing strategy of a real-life organisation, suggest areas for improvement and design social media and viral content. This assessment will address Learning Outcomes 1, 2, 3 and 4 

First thing’s first you need to pick a brand. 

Pick something you are interested in. It is much easier to write about things that you are interested in. As an example...when I was at uni I did my social media assignments based around an obscure, experimental record label. It was much easier as I had an interest and had already been following them on social media. If you like football, then perhaps you could pick a football team? Or if you want to pick a company you work at, do that? Whatever you pick, just make sure it gives you lots to write about. 

Evaluation of company current social media and viral activity 40% (approx. 1500 words)

Here you will analyse what the company/brand is currently doing in their social media/viral marketing strategy.

Pick 4-5 aspects of the social media/viral marketing strategy and evaluate. So essentially look at what was good? What was bad? What are the challenges they face? Say what you believe the company was trying to do and why. Then cover to what degree you believe it achieved this and why? For each aspect you pick make sure to state if it is owned, paid or earned. So a rough structure for each point could be: 

• So pick your aspect. E.g. Instagram posts (and include screenshots)
• State whether it is owned, paid or earned.
• State what you think they were trying to achieve with this (i.e. the strategy). Were they trying to drive awareness, or driving sales etc. You could even build this around were they building long term branding or short term sales activation (i.e. using Binet and Fields Long and Short of it research)
• Discuss why you think they were trying to achieve this. I.e. was the fact that the name was very prominent and no sales promotion meaning they were aiming to build awareness and mental availability with their posts? Back up your ideas with references.
• State whether you believe it’s good or bad at achieving what you think it was trying to achieve (show screenshots to highlight your points)
• Again, make sure to back up with references why you think it is good or bad at achieving what you believe it was trying to do. e.g. How successful do you think it was at driving sales and why? Using theory/references to back this up. 

A Note On Channels: If the brand is using multiple channels/platforms feel free to draw your examples from different channels. E.g. pick 2 from Facebook, 1 from Instagram, 1 from TikTok. What is important is the discussion of why you think it is doing well or not. You may even think that their use of multiple platforms is a point in itself... 

Improvement/recommendations (include design of recommendations) 40% (approx. 1500 words)

This is where we take our observations from the first section and produce some recommendations. It Is Vital That You Link This To The Analysis You Carried Out In The First Section. These Recommendations Should Therefore Be Solutions To Problems You Identified In Part One.

So in Part One where you identified what was bad/challenges. Here you can say how the organisation could deal with them, by giving 4-5 recommendations. What I suggest here is be very clear about your recommendations. I think the best approach here is to use subheadings for each recommendation. And in the subheadings state clearly what the recommendation is and what it is trying to achieve. I.e. Do X to achieve Y. 

Then discuss your recommendation in depth. Show a design for your recommendation (this can be designed in whatever way you wish, even if you want to use hand drawn images).
So a structure for each point could be: 

• Clear subheading for your recommendation
• Show a design of your recommendation (if applicable, but make sure you have at least two designs overall). So this could be an improved Instagram post, a TikTok storyboard and song ideas, a Snapchat story
• State what challenge it is solving from the ones you’ve identified in section 1 

Discuss what your recommendation is and why you think your recommendation would work, using references to be backing up your ideas. Argue your case well. 

1. Critically evaluate social media practice with reference to owned, paid and earned tactics
2. Apply relevant theory and models to recommend solutions to social media challenges 
3. Identify, synthesise and review literature on viral marketing 
4. Design viral content with due attention to the psychology and sociology of viral marketing, ethical issues and content sharing research