The Challenge
Over 150 Business Professionals of America (BPA) students from 28 schools across the country competed in the Stukent Social Media Marketing Challenge this year! As part of the challenge, students competed using the social media marketing simulation, Mimic Social.
In the simulation, participants were tasked with:
- Managing a fictitious bag company’s $5,000 weekly social media ad budget
- Scheduling and analyzing posts on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, and Pinterest
- Marketing to target audiences to maximize the success of each post
Each of these tasks gave students hands-on work experience in the social media marketing industry.
The Simulation
Top institutions around the world are using Mimic Social. In this simulation, students learn to excel at social media marketing as they discover how to drive conversions and increase engagement using critical thinking and A/B testing.
Mimic Social also teaches audience targeting and how to promote and schedule content. Students learn how to increase the effectiveness of their marketing strategies and content creation through data-driven decisions and mastering key performance indicators.
This year’s three winners developed these skills and abilities particularly well and proved themselves against their peers.
The three top-performing students were awarded cash prizes and recognized (virtually) by BPA and Stukent.
If you’re an instructor and you’d like to check out Mimic Social, click here for free instructor access.
And the Winners Are…
1st Place – Stephan Brown
Carlsbad High School
New Mexico
“It was exciting and interesting to learn how I could potentially use this in my everyday life or in a future career.”
2nd Place – Gavin Fraley
Covington High School
Ohio
“Running social media for a business can be very challenging and there is a lot more to it than I originally thought. You have to consider the target market of each post you make and you want to be careful to not sell too much. There are also a lot of social media channels to consider, and Facebook isn’t always the answer for every company or every customer.”
3rd Place – Jayden Matheny
Miami Valley Career Technology Center
Ohio
“The BPA Stukent Social Media Competition is a great experience and really challenges you in your marketing skills. This competition really helped me analyze important data about potential customers thoroughly and grow as the challenges moved forward. It was definitely a fun experience and I highly recommend it for any other BPA students.”
Congratulations on your achievement!
Each of the above winners was vetted by BPA, and their posts were reviewed by a panel of judges. The judges reviewed the authenticity and diversity of social media posts from each of the top participants.
Thank you to all of the students who participated this year, and congratulations again to our winners! We hope to see you at BPA’s National Leadership Conference (NLC) next year!
Want to learn more about Mimic Social, the simulation used in the challenge? Request free instructor access to see how it can benefit your students today!
