TexasMedia Students Selected as the First Annual Google Global Social Media Award Winners
By Lindsey Kuhn
For students, the opportunity to gain real-world experience within a classroom setting is often worth its weight in gold. This summer, TexasMedia students Caroline Snavely, Kristin Carden, Kimberly Bolton, Erika Willrodt and Ellen Webb earned much more than that.
The team of TexasMedia students, also known as Pulse 5, was selected as the global winner of the first annual Google Online Marketing Challenge (GOMC) Social Media Award.
TexasMedia is a communications planning concentration program within the University of Texas Department of Advertising and PR. Students are hand-selected by media faculty via a highly competitive application process. Their first course in the program is Advanced Media Strategies, taught by Senior Lecturer, Lisa Dobias.
“Inspiring students to become great media thinkers of today and the future, while familiarizing them with the practical tools and methodologies to make their visions a reality is the dual mission of TexasMedia,” said Dobias.
Providing hands-on experiences with real problem solving is key to the program’s curriculum. Last semester provided a unique chance to get current TexasMedia students closer to the industry’s front line than ever before.
The student agencies in Dobias’ class were tasked with selecting a small-to-medium business or non-profit organization and managing a Google AdWords campaign for their clients. This year, Google added the Social Media Award, which requires that students create and manage a Google+ page for their selected business or non-profit, in addition to the AdWords campaign.
“[GOMC] offered a unique chance for my students to generate their own real media campaign analytics, and to put into action the concepts of monitoring and optimizing digital media channels, including paid search and social media,” said Dobias. “These are concepts they might otherwise only get to hear about in lecture or execute with mock data.”
Pulse 5 partnered with Dallas-based retail chain, The Impeccable Pig, to bolster their online presence. “We knew we could make a big difference and help them increase sales and their social media presence a lot,” said Snavely, a public relations senior. “The owners were also very excited and willing to work with us, so they let us pretty much have free reign over our project.”
Using Google+, the team was able to increase brand awareness for The Impeccable Pig by engaging customers with behind-the-scenes access to a fashion show featuring the store’s merchandise, and showcasing upcoming fashion trends.
Besting the competition was no small feat. Each year more than 50,000 students from over 100 countries enter the competition, and there were more than 150 entries for the Social Media Award alone. To initially be considered for this award, teams must place in the top 15 teams in their region for the AdWords competition.
“We all learned tremendously at every stage,” said Dobias. “To have our students recognized as global winners in the competition is a pleasant bonus. I have always known how talented our TexasMedia students are. Now the world knows as well.”
For a complete listing of the 2012 GOMC winners, please visit http://www.google.com/onlinechallenge/winners.html.