5MK510 Digital & Social Media Assessment Brief 2025

5MK510 Part 2: 70% weighting 

An individual academic report - (2000-word limit, max). 

A report to academically validate content marketing as a digital marketing strategy using the 30- second video as a case study. The report should cover the importance of this strategy and its role in attracting, engaging, and maintaining an audience to gain a competitive edge. 

The report should include no more than 20 theoretical references. The report meets learning objectives 1 and 3: Analyse the key components in digital marketing for organisations Evaluate a range of digital marketing tools and technology

5MK510 Assessment Content 

The client: 

University of Derby's External Relations Department, which is responsible for all marketing and communications.

5MK510 The brief: 

The University of Derby needs some video content for use on its website and in its social media channels. It is keen to have some user-generated content to appeal to people interested in doing an undergraduate degree. This could be students currently in school or college or those returning to education after a break, students living in the UK or abroad, and students from a wide variety of backgrounds. For this reason, a wide variety of video content is needed to serve this diverse target audience. The Head of External Relations will review the videos and will use some (or maybe all!) of them in a real campaign (please refer to the client's brief for more details).

The report accompanying the video must include:

1. an executive summary (not in the word count) 
2. an introduction that gives an overview of the target market and the university's situation 
3. well-defined objectives for use of the video as part of an integrated marketing communications plan, explaining how it fits within the university's broader communications strategy 
4. an action plan showing the steps used to design and film the video, from initial ideas to completion including planning, timelines, resource allocation, tasks and milestones (you may like to use a Gantt chart for this) 
5. suggested measures for success - what can be measured and what does success look like? 
6. a critical evaluation of the efficacy of digital and social media marketing with reference to appropriate theory 
7. conclusion. 

You may like to include screengrabs of your video. Keep the introduction and conclusion short and punchy, saving the bulk of the word count for the other sections of the report in about equal measure. Appendices are not expected in this report. Remember this is a report for a client, so you need to use professional language throughout. 

What is excluded from the word count: 

• cover page 
• contents page 
• executive summary (just a short paragraph summarising the whole report). references.

How this assignment will improve your skills 

This assignment will help you to develop and/or improve a number of skills: 

• Critical awareness and analysis of the ideas that you explore. 
• Synthesis and presentation of key ideas. 
• Evaluation of complex matters. 
• Clear presentation of key concepts/ideas. 
• Application of academic research. Correct use of Harvard referencing. 
• Professional short-form video planning and production 
• Professional tone and style.