Create social media content for a coffee shop.
Overview
- Essential Question: How can businesses best use social media as a tool for marketing and growth, and how can I use this to prepare for a future career in marketing/communications?
- Area of study: Business, Marketing
- Type and amount of credit earned: 4 elective credits total (two trimesters, two credits per trimester)
- Community partner: Owner and manager of a local coffee shop within walking distance of the school
Competencies
Winnacunnet uses the same set of competencies for all elective ELOs to help build and assess common and critical soft skills. The student also established goals specific to this ELO:
- I want to practice being able to run a business’ social media.
- I want to learn marketing strategies for what attracts customers.
- I want to get into a routine of posting daily updates and items we sell.
- Since we’re about to launch a new menu, get as many people as I can to come in and try our new things and push onto the social media platforms that we have a new menu.
When ELOs are created for elective credit within a content area, Winnacunnet uses competencies in that specific content area to assess the student in addition to the ELO-specific competencies below:
- Reflection, Research, Product, and Presentation
- Communication
- Self-direction
- Creativity
- Collaboration
See the detailed ELO description for the full text of these competencies.
Student activities
- Research and take notes on basics of marketing and social media communication. Present findings to your supervisor at the coffee shop to agree upon a marketing strategy.
- Work at a coffee shop to generate video/photo content for social media marketing platforms.
- Begin filming content and tracking analytics for social media.
- Attend an open source marketing basics course to learn the basics of this work.
- Reach out to and have conversations with marketing professionals to garner advice regarding content creation and career paths.
- Set goals each week with the supervisor on which products and content should be pushed out.
- Expand social media presence from one to three platforms to reach different audiences.
- Create a content calendar as the final product and track analytics for each post.
Assessment
The final product was a digital portfolio of one week’s worth of social media content on TikTok, Instagram, and Facebook. The student tracked the analytics for each of the posts, and within the portfolio, included descriptions of why she believed each post got more or less engagement. She also reflected on how formal learning through her marketing courses informed her efforts.
The student’s final presentation will be to the college counselor, her friends and family, business teachers, and the supervisor from the coffee shop.
The student’s final research product will include an annotated bibliography of resources used to learn about marketing, including conversations with marketing professionals.
Student demonstrated mastery of competency through these activities and was graded on the ELO Summative Rubric (see sidebar). Formatively, students was graded on ability to self-reflect and set goals through weekly check-ins with ELO Coordinator.
More information
This ELO was easy to set up because the student was already working with the coffee shop and was familiar with their work.
This ELO could be modified to take place partially remotely, so the student would only need to travel to the site a few times per week. Lots of the activities involved video editing, planning strategy, and tracking analytics, which could be done from the school.
The supervisor also allowed the student to be paid as an employee at the same hourly rate as when she works as a barista, which provided extra incentive and the student went above and beyond in this work.
I would recommend that students take any business/marketing courses offered at the school beforehand, so that when learning from the open source or internet-based content about marketing, they already have a baseline understanding of the industry.
This ELO was submitted by Matt Long, ELO Coordinator, and Donna Couture, Director of Extended Learning, Winnacunnet High School. Email ELO Coordinator for more information
May 2025
