Part A – Weekly Executive Question
Imagine you are the Vice President of Marketing for a mid-sized retail company.
Your CEO states:
“Our company spends thousands of dollars on social media marketing every month. We have more followers than ever, but I am not convinced social media contributes to our business success. Perhaps we should reduce our investment.”
How would you respond?
Evaluate the strategic value of social media marketing, explain why follower growth alone may not demonstrate success, and recommend what management should consider before making an investment decision.
Support your response using concepts from Chapters 1 and 2.
Part B – AI Evaluation: Can AI Understand Social Consumers?
Using ChatGPT, Gemini, or Claude, enter the following prompt:
“Explain how Starbucks can use social media to strengthen customer relationships, influence consumer behavior, and create long-term business value.”
Critically evaluate the AI-generated response.
Which recommendations were strategically useful?
What important aspects of social consumer behavior were overlooked?
Which recommendations would require additional research or verification?
What decisions should remain the responsibility of marketing managers?
Your evaluation should demonstrate independent judgment rather than simply accepting the AI-generated recommendations.
Part C – Current Event: Social Media in the Business Environment
Locate one credible news article published within the last 60 days involving a company or organization and one of the following topics:
Social media marketing effectiveness
Consumer behavior and brand engagement
Online reputation or customer complaints
Social media’s influence on business performance
Briefly explain what happened, why the issue matters to managers, and how it relates to concepts from Chapters 1 and 2.
Submission Requirements
Prepare a minimum 2 pages excluding the title page, references page, and AI screenshot.
Use APA 7th edition formatting, 12-point Times New Roman, double spacing, and one-inch margins.
Include the AI prompt and a screenshot or copy of the AI-generated response.
Support your analysis using the course textbook and at least one recent peer-reviewed journal article.
Include the current-event article in your references.
Submit as a Microsoft Word document (.docx) only.
Academic Integrity
AI use is permitted for the specific activity in Part B. Students must independently evaluate the AI response and write their own analysis, conclusions, and recommendations. AI-generated responses must not be presented as original student analysis.
This two-part assignment asks you, as VP of Marketing, to answer a skeptical CEO about social media’s value (Part A), then evaluate an AI’s response about Starbucks’s social strategy (Part B). The key is defending social media on outcomes, not vanity metrics, and critically assessing the AI output.
Key takeaways
- Defend social media on business outcomes, not follower counts.
- Explain why follower growth alone is a vanity metric.
- Recommend what to measure before cutting investment (engagement, conversion, ROI).
- In Part B, critically evaluate the AI’s answer — strengths and gaps.
- Ground Part A in Chapters 1 and 2 concepts.
Part A: Respond to the CEO
Agree that the concern is fair, then reframe: follower count is a vanity metric — it shows reach, not results. Make the strategic case that social media builds brand awareness, customer relationships, and influences the buyer journey, but only when tied to business goals. Recommend what to evaluate before cutting spend: engagement quality, website traffic and conversions, customer acquisition cost, retention, and social ROI. Advise measuring attribution before deciding. Ground this in Chapters 1–2 concepts.
Part B: Evaluate the AI response
Run the Starbucks prompt through an AI tool, then critically assess its answer: Does it understand social consumers? Note its strengths (plausible strategies, structure) and gaps (generic advice, no real data, missed nuance about community or specific platforms). Judge whether AI genuinely ‘understands’ social consumers or just pattern-matches.
Format
Answer both parts, cite the chapters, and include the AI output with your evaluation.
The post This assignment examines the strategic importance of social media marketing, the influence of social consumers, and the role of managerial judgment in evaluating business opportunities and challenges appeared first on Writeden.