MK4900 instructor Stephanie Herbst-Lucke meets with the Austin Rapids team.
In MK 4900, marketing majors spend the semester developing marketing plans for clients who contact the Department of Marketing for assistance. Past clients include the American Gas Association, Credit Karma and the Federal Bureau of Investigation. This semester, MK 4900 students worked with Grady Health System and Austin Rapids.
Grady Health System
Graduating senior Kimberly Nicole Perry “tried to view the Grady challenge through a personal lens, I couldn’t help but think of the Black Lives Matter movement that was amplified so broadly around the world this past summer, raising thousands of dollars very quickly. That’s why much of the messaging we developed played out over Instagram.”
Perry and team developed a marketing strategy, targeting, segmentation and marketing implementation material including Instagram mini-albums, content posts, local influencer cultivation and a live commercial showcasing Grady’s mission.
“The students who worked with Grady were inspired get the message out, and the result was some truly great marketing ideas. My hope is that as this message reaches a larger audience, we will all remember that giving back not only enhances someone else’s life, it also enhances ours,” Perry said.
Ian Ronfeldt, Molly Britting, Jamirhan (Jaleel) Jackson, and Liah Beaver developed infographics and video content for Grady. “Our goal was to contact influencers at various levels of social media platforms to work with them to distribute our content on no budget,” said Ronfeldt.
When initial outreach to local influencers did not gain traction, the team contacted friends of the influencers. They eventually reached a close friend of Tyler Gillet, an American Ninja Warrior contestant who had a large Instagram following.
Within three weeks of launching their influencer campaign for Grady, the team accumulated impressions comparable to those of a large influencer, generating 5,000 social media impressions including 300 impressions on Facebook, 2,395 impressions on Instagram and 1,372 impressions on Twitter, while also increasing the level of consumer interaction and engagement with the posts.
Austin Rapids
MK 4900 students also worked with Austin Rapids, a private equity-owned startup producing Covid-19 tests. MJ Villacis, Xochitl Gomora, Nancy Ramos, Evan Nguyen, James Garrett Weed, and Abel Cruz had never previously worked together. Yet in one semester, the team researched the COVID-19 landscape and respected medical journals, and developed Austin Rapids logo options and digital advertising. They also launched and managed Austin Rapids social media accounts.
Social media activities included content creation (graphics, memes, posts and stories), hashtags, buffer account, SEO strategies, administrative responsibilities and management of analytics and key performance indicators for LinkedIn, Instagram, and Facebook. The accounts have been up for less than two months, and are gaining attention for Austin Rapids.
Facebook
• Most Viewed Post- 272 people reached
• Page Likes Gained Since we took over- 120 Likes
• Post Reach Increase- 354%
• Post Engagement Increase- 136%
• New Page Likes- 207%
Instagram
• Most Viewed Post- 37
• Impressions- 463
• Accounts Reached- 123
• Follower Increase- 127%
• IG Stories- 47 Total Stories
• Posts- 10 Actual Posts
LinkedIn
• Most Viewed Post- 27
• Connections Made- 25
• Profile Views- 30
• Search Appearances- 8
"Working for Austin Rapids took a significant amount of time for all of us, but we all found it very valuable to gain the experience of launching platforms and seeing the impact of our own content creation," said Garrett Weed who, along with other team members, was offered a paid internship to stay on with Austin Rapids. Weed, who was responsible for logo and graphic development work, will join Austin Rapids in spring 2021.”
Learn about Robinson’s B.B.A. in marketing program.