SIM Blog

 Over the course of this semester I had to complete a social media simulation for my Principles of Social Media course. Throughout the simulation I learned how to effectively run advertisements for a company. In this case the company was called Buhi. Buhi sells backpacks, hiking bags, work bags and other types of bags. 

    The simulation begins with a lady from the company explaining the tasks for the round. The first few rounds included creating organic posts. I was given money by Buhi to use on advertising and I was able to purchase images to use for content. These posts do not cost money to run and you can select days and times to post the content. I had to come up with captions, figure out the ideal times, the ideal days to post and figure out the target audience. Every social media platform had different ideal times, different target audiences and varying recommended times to post per day. Each platform also gave statistics regarding how much engagement and revenue the platforms receive. I rarely utilized YouTube because the platform did not reach as many people and companies had much lower revenue. On the other hand, Instagram performed amazing in all areas.

    Later in the simulation I was required to create paid posts. The paid posts run for an entire week and you can choose how much money you want to spend on each post. Paid posts reach larger and more specific audiences. I also had to create captions, headlines, call-to-actions, goals for my post and target audiences for these posts. The goal for my post could be reach, engagement, conversations, sales and quite a few other options. 

    Finally, I had to partner with influencers to promote the Buhis' content. This process included choosing a micro, macro or mega influencer to promote the content. Then I had to offer a price I was willing to pay them. If the influencer was unhappy with my offer they could decline it and refuse to work with me. I could also select my preferred form for my influencer to promote content. For example, affiliate marketing, takeovers, giveaways and sponsored posts were a few of the options to use to promote Buhis' products. In the final rounds of the simulation I had to utilize all of the types of social media marketing to advertise for Buhi. This process took a ridiculous amount of time because I had to figure out how much money to spend on influencers, how much to spend to spend on paid posts, etc. 

    At the end of every round I could look at the results for my posts. Analytics were given for each social media platform and I could view the number of conversations, likes, reach, engagement, revenue and more. In order to perform well, I had to make the most revenue. At the end of the simulation I ended up with $360,000 over a span of twelve weeks. I placed third in the class and was impressed by my classmates' revenue and success. Congratulations to everyone who completed the simulation and good luck on the final exam!