MKTG2001 Digital and Social Media Marketing
The Complete Study & Assessment Guide · T2 2026MKTG2001 Overview
- University of Newcastle
- T2 2026
- 11 chapters
- Marketing
MKTG2001 Digital and Social Media Marketing is the University of Newcastle's second-year Newcastle Business School unit in digital and social-media marketing, and it is assessed entirely by coursework — there is no final exam.
- Assessed by Voice of Customer Analysis (A1) 25% · Digital Marketing Performance Analytics (A2) 30% · Digital Marketing Plan (A3) 45%
- Key terms POEM (Paid / Owned / Earned Media), RACE planning framework, Social Media SWOT, SMART objective
- Assessment move Treat MKTG2001 as a pipeline, not a set of isolated weeks: the Voice-of-Customer task (A1) feeds the analytics task (A2)…
- Most asked Does MKTG2001 have a hurdle?
How MKTG2001 is assessed
| Component | Weight | Format |
|---|---|---|
| Voice of Customer Analysis (A1) | 25% | Individual; netnography / Voice-of-Customer analysis of two brands; due ~Week 6 |
| Digital Marketing Performance Analytics (A2) | 30% | Build a measurement/KPI framework and interpret digital-marketing performance; the handbook lists a group interactive presentation while some cohort materials describe an individual report — confirm the exact mode on Canvas; due ~Week 10 |
| Digital Marketing Plan (A3) | 45% | Group (groups of 6); a full digital & social-media marketing plan for the Australian brand with the weakest social performance; due ~Week 13 |
What MKTG2001 covers
MKTG2001 Digital and Social Media Marketing is 100% coursework — there is no final exam — assessed by three connected tasks: a Voice-of-Customer netnography (25%), a Digital Marketing Performance Analytics assessment (30%, which carries a 50% pass hurdle) and a group Digital Marketing Plan (45%).
This eleven-chapter map follows the teaching schedule from the POEM media model and RACE planning through customer-engagement analytics, social listening, search-engine marketing and mobile, showing how each week's framework feeds the assessment pipeline. Use it to see which chapter powers which task.
Introduction to Digital & Social Media Marketing
Digital vs traditional · POEM (paid/owned/earned) · 7 myths · T-shaped marketer (Week 1)Week 1 sets the vocabulary the whole unit is written in: what social-media marketing is, how it differs from one-way traditional marketing, and the POEM (paid / owned / earned) media model you will use to audit a brand's channel mix.
- Social-media marketing definition — creating, distributing and exchanging content to engage audiences and deliver measurable value
- Digital & social vs traditional marketing: control vs contributions; trust is slow to earn, easy to lose
- POEM model — Paid (advertising, paid search), Owned (website, brand page, app), Earned (word of mouth, reviews, mentions)
- The seven myths of social-media marketing (a fad, only for the young, no ROI, not for this business, new, time-consuming, free)
- 'Marketing the Pinball Way' (Hennig-Thurau et al.) — from one-way 'bowling' to networked 'pinball' where consumers hold power
- The T-shaped marketer: broad generalist skills plus one or two deep specialisms (SEO, content, social, PPC)
Integrated Marketing Objectives
RACE planning framework · SWOT · SMART objectives · short vs long term (Week 2)Week 2 gives you the planning spine of the whole unit: the RACE framework (Reach, Act, Convert, Engage, after a Plan step), the Social Media SWOT used to pick a focal brand, and the discipline of writing SMART objectives.
- RACE planning framework: Plan (situation analysis, SWOT), Reach, Act, Convert, Engage
- Social Media SWOT (Strengths / Weaknesses / Opportunities / Threats) — profiling a brand's platform position to select the weakest/focal brand
- SMART objectives — Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic/Relevant, Time-delimited (note the R/T wording varies by source)
- The objectives cascade: business objectives → marketing objectives → SMM objectives → campaign-specific objectives
- SMM planning cycle (8 stages): Listen → Goals → Strategies → Target → Tools → Platforms → Implement → Monitor/Tune
- Key SMM objectives: customer service, brand awareness, brand preference, leads/sales, loyalty
Social Networks & the Rules of Engagement
Permission vs interruption · holistic SMM framework · inbound (Attract-Engage-Delight) · SMM ethics (Week 3)Week 3 covers how brands actually behave on social networks: permission versus interruption marketing, the holistic SMM framework (Felix et al.), the inbound Attract-Engage-Delight methodology, and the ethics and governance rules that keep a brand out of trouble.
- Permission vs interruption marketing — earning attention (opt-in, following) vs buying it (ads, pop-ups); modern SMM blends both
- Holistic SMM framework (Felix, Rauschnabel & Hinsch): Scope, Culture, Structure, Governance dimensions
- Inbound methodology (HubSpot): Attract strangers → Engage prospects → Delight customers who become promoters
- SMM ethics — Honesty, Privacy, Respect, Responsibility; crisis response = Acknowledge → Apologize → Act
- The seven rules of engagement (use channels as intended, don't spam, have personality, respond to negatives, stay on topic, pace posts, be careful with bots)
- Choosing a platform by audience (LinkedIn for B2B; visual products on Instagram/Pinterest/YouTube)
Customer Engagement & Social-Media Analytics
CEB theory · Valid Metrics Framework · KPIs · competitor analysis (Week 4)Week 4 is the analytical core of the unit and the direct engine of the Digital Marketing Performance Analytics task.
- Customer-engagement behaviour (CEB) — customers' beyond-purchase behaviour (word of mouth, feedback, helping others), Van Doorn/Kumar
- Customer-engagement cycle (Sashi): Connection → Interaction → Satisfaction → Retention → Commitment → Advocacy → Engagement
- Vocabulary (Kaushik): metric vs goal vs strategy vs objective vs KPI vs ROI
- Valid Metrics Framework — Exposure, Engagement, Influence, Impact, Advocacy — with quantitative and qualitative metrics
- Net Promoter Score (NPS) = %Promoters − %Detractors; promoters 9-10, passives 7-8, detractors 0-6
- Social ROI (%) = Value / Investment × 100 (or (Value − Cost)/Cost × 100)
Social Listening & Voice of the Customer
Netnography · VoC · segmentation profiles · visual storytelling (Week 5)Week 5 is the method behind the individual Voice-of-Customer Analysis (A1): social listening, user-generated content and netnography (Kozinets) as a way to hear what customers actually say.
- Voice of the Customer (VoC) — capturing everything customers say and packaging it into a brand perspective; the expectation-experience gap
- Netnography (Kozinets) — ethnography adapted to online communities; the seven practical steps; the core method of A1
- Good vs bad netnography — triangulating and interpreting cultural codes vs cherry-picking and over-generalising
- Melancon & Dalakas segmentation profiles — the help seeker, the social activist, the unsolicited advisor (plus your own)
- Perceived-value theory (Whittaker et al.) — Functional, Epistemic, Emotional, Social, Image, Price/Quality
- The VoC segmentation method (collect → categorise → develop opportunities) — the A1 deliverable
Search-Engine Marketing: Website Analytics
GA4 (AEM+R) · E-E-A-T · AI Overviews & zero-click · organic SERP ranking (Week 6)Week 6 turns to search-engine marketing and website analytics — the second half of the analytics toolkit.
- Search-engine marketing = organic (SEO) + paid search; trade-offs (paid = fast/targeted, organic = sustainable/trusted)
- GA4 'AEM+R' reporting model: Acquisition, Engagement, Monetisation, plus Retention
- Engaged session (GA4) = a session > 10 seconds, OR with a key event, OR with ≥ 2 page/screen views
- E-E-A-T — Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness — and the shift toward answer-engine optimisation
- AI Overviews & zero-click search — AI summaries above organic results erode click-through; success shifts to citations
- Click-through rate (CTR) = clicks / impressions; keyword rankings via Search Console (clicks, impressions, CTR, position)
Content Optimisation for Organic Ranking
SEO on-page · keyword & content structure · technical SEO basics (Week 7)Week 7 continues search-engine marketing into on-page and technical SEO: how content is structured, optimised for keywords and made crawlable so it ranks organically.
- On-page SEO — title tags, headings (H1/H2), keyword placement, meta descriptions, internal links, image alt text
- Keyword research and search intent — matching content to what users actually search
- Content structure and readability — organising a page so both users and crawlers can follow it
- Google SEO Starter Guide — the industry-standard reference for the elements Google prioritises
- Technical SEO basics — crawlability, site structure, mobile usability, page speed
- SEO audit tools — Screaming Frog SEO Spider for competitive on-page audits
Audience Targeting: Personas & Value Creation
Customer personas · Value Proposition Canvas · segmentation (Week 8)Week 8 turns to who the marketing is for: building customer personas and creating value for a target segment using the Value Proposition Canvas (customer profile versus value map).
- Customer personas — semi-fictional profiles (demographics, platforms, goals, fears) that map a segment to the buyer's journey
- The Value Proposition Canvas — the customer profile (jobs, pains, gains) versus the value map (products, pain relievers, gain creators)
- Achieving fit — matching pain relievers to real pains and gain creators to desired gains
- Segmentation — dividing an audience into meaningful groups to target distinct value propositions
- Grounding personas in evidence (the Voice-of-Customer insights) rather than assumption
- Linking personas to platform and content choices from earlier weeks
Paid Social-Media Marketing
Paid social advertising · campaign design · targeting & bidding (Week 9)Week 9 covers paid social advertising: how a campaign is structured from objective to audience to creative to budget, and how to prioritise which campaigns to run.
- Paid social as interruption marketing — buying reach the audience did not request; complements organic (permission)
- Campaign structure: objective → audience → creative → budget/bidding
- Choosing a campaign objective (awareness, traffic, engagement, conversions) and matching it to a metric
- Audience targeting — demographics, interests, behaviours, custom and lookalike audiences
- Cost metrics — CPM, CPC, CTR — and matching each to the right objective
- Prioritising campaigns with the PIE model (Potential, Importance, Ease; score = average; below 8.0 needs approval)
Content-Marketing Tactics
Content planning & scheduling · editorial vs content calendar · formats (Week 10)Week 10 covers content-marketing tactics: planning and scheduling content, the difference between an editorial calendar and a content calendar, and how to repurpose one idea across formats.
- Content marketing — attracting and retaining an audience with valuable, consistent content rather than direct selling
- Editorial calendar vs content calendar — broad, longer-horizon themes vs granular per-post scheduling
- Content planning and scheduling — cadence, timing and consistency across platforms
- Content formats — text, image, video, stories, live — and choosing the format for the platform and objective
- Repurposing and cross-utilising — breaking one pillar idea into multiple formats and channels
- Content curation — sharing relevant third-party content and why brands do it
Mobile Marketing on Social Networks
Mobile customer experience · mobile-first content · location & app marketing (Week 11)Week 11 covers mobile marketing on social networks: the mobile customer experience, designing mobile-first content, and location- and app-based marketing.
- The mobile customer experience — most social engagement happens on small screens and on the move
- Mobile-first content and design — vertical video, thumb-stopping openers, concise copy, fast loading
- Location-based marketing — geo-targeting and place-based offers
- App-based marketing — push notifications, in-app engagement and loyalty apps
- Mobile funnels — diagnosing where mobile users drop off versus desktop
- Designing the buyer's journey for mobile touchpoints
The University of Newcastle frames MKTG2001 around three connected tasks that build on one another: an individual Voice-of-Customer Analysis (25%) that uses netnography to read what customers say about two competing brands; a Digital Marketing Performance Analytics assessment (30%) that asks you to build a measurement and KPI framework and interpret real analytics; and a group Digital Marketing Plan (45%, groups of six) that produces a full social-media strategy for the Australian brand with the weakest social performance.
The three tasks form a pipeline — the customer insight from the first feeds the metrics of the second, which feed the plan of the third. MKTG2001 is a frameworks-and-evidence unit: the marks live in naming the right model (POEM, RACE, SWOT, SMART, the Valid Metrics Framework), grounding claims in real social data, and writing a clear, referenced argument.
One item carries a hurdle — you must score at least 50% in the 30% Performance Analytics assessment to pass the unit — so steady weekly work matters, and the exact mode of that task (the handbook lists a group interactive presentation while some cohort materials describe an individual report) should be confirmed on Canvas and in your course outline.
All submissions must be in English, and your MKTG2001 result feeds the GPA that later marketing units build on.
Worked example · free
Engagement rate vs follower count: picking the weaker brand for the plan
- +1State the taught formula. Average engagement rate = (Comments + Likes + Shares) / Followers × 100. Follower count on its own is a reach/exposure figure, not an engagement figure.
- +1Brand A: interactions = 120 + 1,850 + 30 = 2,000. Engagement rate = 2,000 / 50,000 × 100 = 4.0%.
- +1Brand B: interactions = 80 + 900 + 20 = 1,000. Engagement rate = 1,000 / 20,000 × 100 = 5.0%.
- +1Interpret. Brand A has 2.5× the followers of Brand B but a lower engagement rate (4.0% vs 5.0%), so a larger audience is interacting less. Follower count is a vanity metric; the engagement rate is the actionable one.
- +1Decide. On engagement rate, Brand A is the weaker social performer, so under a SWOT-driven selection it becomes the focal brand for the group Digital Marketing Plan — the plan targets the brand with the most headroom to improve.
Key terms
- POEM (Paid / Owned / Earned Media)
- The media taxonomy taught in Week 1. Paid = advertising and paid search you buy; Owned = channels you control (website, brand page, app); Earned = coverage others give you (word of mouth, reviews, mentions, shares).
- RACE planning framework
- The unit's master digital-planning spine: Reach, Act, Convert, Engage, preceded by a Plan step. It structures the group Digital Marketing Plan into awareness, interaction, conversion and retention tactics.
- Social Media SWOT
- A Strengths / Weaknesses / Opportunities / Threats audit of a brand's social-media position, used to pick the weakest focal brand and to justify strategy choices in the assessments.
- SMART objective
- An objective that is Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic (some materials say Relevant) and Time-delimited — the required form for every objective written in the analytics task and the plan.
- Valid Metrics Framework
- An AMEC-adapted progression — Exposure, Engagement, Influence, Impact, Advocacy — that maps metrics to objectives, so you choose KPIs that track a real business outcome rather than vanity counts.
- Netnography
- Kozinets' adaptation of ethnography to online communities: listening to and interpreting public user-generated content to surface the Voice of the Customer. It is the core method of the individual Voice-of-Customer task.
MKTG2001 FAQ
Is MKTG2001 hard?
It is more about steady application than difficulty. There is no exam and little heavy maths — the arithmetic is engagement rates, CTR and simple ROI — but the unit is broad and cumulative: the Voice-of-Customer task feeds the analytics task, which feeds the group plan.
Students who keep up with the weekly frameworks (POEM, RACE, SWOT, SMART, the Valid Metrics Framework) and set up the tools early tend to find MKTG2001 manageable and score well against the HD/D/C/P bands. The load spikes around the group Digital Marketing Plan, so start the group early.
How is MKTG2001 assessed?
MKTG2001 is 100% coursework with no final exam. There are three connected tasks: a Voice of Customer Analysis (25%, individual netnography of two brands), a Digital Marketing Performance Analytics assessment (30% — confirm on Canvas whether your cohort runs it as a group presentation or an individual report), and a group Digital Marketing Plan (45%, groups of six). Weights total 100%.
Confirm the exact task specifications, weightings and due dates on Canvas and in your course outline / course profile, since offerings can differ.
Does MKTG2001 have a hurdle?
Yes — the University of Newcastle handbook attaches a 50% pass requirement to the 30% Digital Marketing Performance Analytics item: you must score at least 50% in that item to pass the course, regardless of your total. The other two tasks carry no hurdle. All submissions must be in English (a non-English submission scores zero).
Because the hurdle sits on one item, do not treat the analytics task as the one to coast on — confirm the current rule on Canvas and in your course outline before you plan your effort.
Can AI help me with MKTG2001?
Yes, as a study aid. Sia is an AI tutor trained on how MKTG2001 is actually taught and assessed — it can explain the RACE framework, walk an engagement-rate or social-ROI calculation step by step, show how a netnographic categorisation turns user-generated content into a Voice-of-Customer insight, and check your reasoning on a practice case.
It explains the method and does not complete a graded assessment for you; University of Newcastle academic-integrity rules and the unit's GenAI policy still apply, so use it to learn and always confirm the rules on Canvas.
Do I need the textbook, and what should I set up early?
The prescribed text is Zahay, Roberts, Parker, Barker & Barker, Social Media Marketing: A Strategic Approach (3rd ed, Cengage, 2023); confirm the current reading list on Canvas. Set up the free tools the workshops use as soon as they are introduced — a Meta Business Suite / Facebook business page, a Rival IQ free trial and a Google Analytics 4 demo account — because the analytics task and the plan both need real data.
Form your group of six early via myUni/Canvas, since the 45% plan depends on it.
Questions students ask in each MKTG2001 chapter
- How is digital and social-media marketing different from traditional marketing?
- Traditional marketing is largely one-way and about control — the brand broadcasts a fixed message. Social-media marketing is two-way and about contributions: consumers participate, share and talk back, so brands earn attention rather than simply buy it. Hennig-Thurau's 'pinball' metaphor captures the shift — the message ricochets through a networked audience the brand cannot fully steer. Chapter 01 · Introduction to Digital & Social Media Marketing
- What does the 'R' and 'T' in SMART stand for — the sources disagree?
- The unit's textbook slide uses Realistic and Time-delimited, while the Week 2 workshop page uses Relevant and Time-bound. Present the canonical S-M-A-R-T and note both R wordings; either is defensible in your plan as long as your objective genuinely satisfies it. The key is that every objective is specific, measurable and has a deadline. Chapter 02 · Integrated Marketing Objectives
- Should a brand ever delete a negative comment?
- Only when the content is threatening, defamatory, discriminatory, obscene, unlawful or infringing — not merely because it is critical or disagrees. The taught moderation logic is to review first, remove genuinely harmful content (and document why), and otherwise respond helpfully or let it stand. Deleting honest criticism usually damages trust more than the comment did. Chapter 03 · Social Networks & the Rules of Engagement
- What's the difference between a metric and a KPI?
- A metric is any number — a count like page visits or a ratio like conversion rate. A KPI is a metric you have chosen because it directly tracks progress against a specific objective. Every KPI is a metric, but not every metric is a KPI. The analytics task rewards choosing KPIs that map to objectives rather than listing every available number. Chapter 04 · Customer Engagement & Social-Media Analytics
- What exactly does the Voice-of-Customer task want me to do?
- At its core: collect real user-generated content about two brands, categorise the voices using the Melancon & Dalakas profiles (and any additional categories you justify), and translate the patterns into marketing opportunities. It is a netnographic analysis, so the marks reward evidenced interpretation of genuine social conversation, not opinion. Confirm the current brief and word limit on Canvas. Chapter 05 · Social Listening & Voice of the Customer
- What is the GA4 AEM+R model and why does it matter?
- It is the way GA4 organises reporting: Acquisition, Engagement, Monetisation, plus Retention. It matters because the analytics task asks you to read a real GA4 report and recommend action, and AEM+R tells you where to look — where traffic came from, whether it engaged, whether it converted, and whether it came back. Structuring your analysis around it keeps the report coherent. Chapter 06 · Search-Engine Marketing: Website Analytics
- What's the difference between on-page and technical SEO?
- On-page SEO is about the content elements of a page — its title, headings, keywords, links and images. Technical SEO is about the site's plumbing — whether crawlers can reach and index pages, site structure, mobile usability and speed. A page can be well written yet invisible if technical SEO blocks crawling, so both matter for organic ranking. Chapter 07 · Content Optimisation for Organic Ranking
- What makes a persona good enough for the plan?
- A good persona is grounded in evidence — ideally your Voice-of-Customer findings — not invented, and it is specific enough to drive decisions: it names the segment's platforms, goals, pains and buying context. Generic personas ('busy professional, likes quality') do not help you choose channels or messages; evidenced, specific ones do, which is what the target-market section of the plan rewards. Chapter 08 · Audience Targeting: Personas & Value Creation
- How is paid social different from the organic marketing we studied earlier?
- Paid social buys reach — it is interruption marketing that puts a message in front of people who did not seek it — whereas organic social earns attention from people who chose to follow. The two work together: organic builds the permission-based relationship, paid extends reach and accelerates specific objectives. In the plan, justify paid spend by objective and audience, not by reach alone. Chapter 09 · Paid Social-Media Marketing
- What's the difference between an editorial calendar and a content calendar?
- An editorial calendar works at the theme level over a long horizon — the quarterly or yearly campaigns and topics. A content calendar is granular and operational — the specific posts, formats and exact dates that deliver those themes. In the plan you typically need both: the editorial calendar shows strategy, the content calendar shows execution. Chapter 10 · Content-Marketing Tactics
- Why does mobile deserve its own week?
- Because most social-media use — and a large share of the resulting traffic and conversion — happens on mobile, so content designed for desktop often underperforms. Treating mobile as the primary context (vertical creative, fast pages, simple checkout) rather than an afterthought materially changes engagement and conversion, which is why the plan's creative and journey design should be mobile-first. Chapter 11 · Mobile Marketing on Social Networks
How to prepare for the assessments
Treat MKTG2001 as a pipeline, not a set of isolated weeks: the Voice-of-Customer task (A1) feeds the analytics task (A2), which feeds the group Digital Marketing Plan (A3), so keep one running brand pair from early in the term and reuse the evidence across all three.
Each week, take that week's framework and apply it once to your chosen brands — sort their channels into POEM, write one SMART objective inside RACE, run a Social Media SWOT, compute an engagement rate and a share-of-voice figure — so by the time each task is due you already have worked material.
Because the 30% analytics item carries a 50% hurdle, prioritise getting the metric-choice logic right: for every objective, name the Valid Metrics category and the KPI that actually tracks it, and avoid vanity metrics. Set up Meta Business Suite, Rival IQ and a GA4 demo account the week each is introduced, form your group of six early, and confirm every weight, mode and due date on Canvas and in the course outline.
When a framework or a calculation will not click, ask Sia to re-explain that single step a different way and to set a fresh practice case in the same style — it teaches the method and checks your reasoning, and it never substitutes for your own graded work.
Your AI Marketing tutor for MKTG2001
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