Congratulations to the more than 5,200 DECA members who competed in the second annual Stukent Social Media Marketing Challenge. Students competed against each other using the world’s first social media marketing simulation, Mimic Social, which is used by top institutions around the world.
Participants tested their social media skills by managing a $5,000 weekly budget in simulated ad dollars for a fictitious bag company by marketing on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, and Pinterest. Participants were taught audience targeting, how to promote and schedule content, as well as mastering the key performance indicators that drive product sales.
Top 3 Winners
The top three overall competition winners received a travel scholarship to this year’s DECA International Career Development Conference in Orlando, Fla.
1st Place: Cosmo Lovig – Nonnewaug High School
2nd Place: Ashigan Ali – Central Crossing High School
3rd Place: Allessia Mauro – Nonnewaug High School
Student Experiences
“My overall experiences using Mimic Social was very good, it’s great at fiving students a chance to learn social media marketing and get a feel of what it may be like in the real world. From this challenge I learned that to be successful you need to be prepared to fail. You need to test all types of posts, times, and platforms and be prepared to mess somethings up and waste some money on posts that don’t end up working. However once you notice what failed you and what benefited you, you need to take what benefited you and run with it. Students that are willing to put in time and learn from this experiences, this simulation is really a situation of what you put into it is what you’ll get out of it.” – Cosmo Lovig
“Through the Stukent Social Media Marketing Challenge, I learned so much about marketing. It provided me with the tools and theories that worked great with the simulations, which I can take into the real world and apply there. The simulation is a great tool for anyone that is interested in learning more about social media marketing. Students using the simulation will learn more about content promotion strategies, how to measure different types of key performance indicators, promote content scheduling, ads budgeting, and much more. Mimic Social really gives you a head start in life, and it’s great to master your skills.” – Ashigan Ali
“The most important thing I learned from this challenge is that it is vital to understand the target audience and how to appeal to their diverse qualities and interests. I also became aware of the necessity of trial and error. It is important to test different content, timing of posting, as well as amount of money spent. If something is proven to work, it should be employed in an effective manner. Conversely, if a strategy does not generate interest or revenue, it should no longer be used.
The simulation opened my eyes to a new realm of social media other than the use I am familiar with. I liked learning how companies can use the modern system to their advantage in terms of reaching a broad audience. Overall, I learned important strategies in the world of marketing and had fun while doing so.” – Allessia Mauro
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