01
Mar 2024
Aristotle University of Thessaloniki Uses Mentionlytics in MSc programme
Determined to bridge the gap between academic training and the marketing industry’s requirements, AUTh cultivates students’ practical skills
CASE STUDY
How the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki Uses Mentionlytics to Train Future Digital Marketers
University: Aristotle University of Thessaloniki
MSc Programme: MSc in Strategic Marketing
Course: IT Trends for Digital Marketing
Professor: Athanasios Tsadiras
Bridging the Gap Between Academia and Industry.
Learning by Doing: Hands-on Experience with Industry Tools.
Actionable Skills for Real-World Marketing Challenges.
Data analytics tools have revolutionized marketing by offering precious insights into customer behavior, pain points, and preferences of targeted audiences. Thus, it’s essential for marketing students to know how to use these tools to make data-backed decisions in their future careers.
With this in mind, the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (AUTh) — ranked as the second-best university in Greece — is committed to familiarizing students with emerging technology trends by giving them hands-on experience with the latest digital marketing innovations.
In particular, all students of the MSc program in Strategic Marketing had the chance to explore state-of-the-art IT trends and learn how they can be applied in digital marketing.
During the practical course “IT Trends for Digital Marketing,” students were introduced to popular data analytics tools for various purposes. For brand monitoring and data visualization, they used the Mentionlytics platform.
Aristotle University of Thessaloniki’s Innovative Approach for Shaping the Next Generation of Digital Marketers
Determined to bridge the gap between academic training and the marketing industry’s requirements, AUTh cultivates students’ practical skills into the latest digital tools.
“In my experience, students who show practical proficiency in data analysis on their CV have a higher chance of securing a job.”, says Prof. Athanasios Tsadiras who is in charge of the course.
New marketers have to know how to use these new, multipurpose tools to understand their audience better, as customers seek personalized experiences now more than ever. However, personalization strategies can’t be implemented without the necessary data insights.
The main objective of “IT Trends for Digital Marketing” is for students to understand how advanced analytics tools can help them become better strategists.
In the words of Prof. Tsadiras: “I hope students become not just better decision-makers but also great strategists. I want them to walk away with the confidence to say, ‘Yeah, I’ve got the data and I know how to use it to make things happen.”
Recognizing that social media is a treasure trove for marketing data, prof. Tsadiras turned to Mentionlytics for access to accurate analytics with a straightforward user experience, even for beginners.
Mentionlytics: The Key to Unlocking Next-Level Data Analysis Skills
Mentionlytics has a long history of assisting university students in getting familiar with social media data analysis.
Through this platform, young aspiring marketers learn how to automatically collect and analyze vast amounts of web and social media data without manual work or coding skills required.
Therefore, they focus only on interpreting this data and turning them into actionable insights for solving business problems in any kind of industry.
“Without Mentionlytics, students would need to manually collect data from social media or the web — lots of Excel sheets — and use Python for analysis. So they’d need to know how to code, which is no easy task. Thanks to Mentionlytics, the data is already gathered and analyzed which saves them time to focus on more important tasks.”, explains Prof. Tsadiras.
With the Mentionlytics platform, students saw in action how demanding digital marketing processes such as brand monitoring and competitor analysis are being simplified by employing the latest data technologies.
I decided to use Mentionlytics as the social media analytics tool for this course for two reasons: its comprehensive features and its user-friendly interface. Since we were looking for an analytics tool for educational purposes, it had to be very easy to use and also powerful to guarantee the best learning experience. Mentionlytics was exactly the sweet spot between these two.
Athanasios TsadirasProfessor at the School of Economic Sciences of Aristotle University of Thessaloniki
In Classroom: Student Experience and Outcomes
During the 2024 Spring semester, the students of the MSc in Strategic Marketing had to complete the following assignment: Use Mentionlytics to monitor the online presence of a brand of their preference for two months and compare it with two competitors to assemble a performance report.
The students had to be focused on their monitoring process as they should include examples of potential online crises their brands had faced during this period or successful events that had happened. They had to comment on these examples and draw meaningful conclusions about the presence of their preferred brands. For example, how long a social media backlash can last or what activities can improve a brand’s performance.
To monitor their brands and competitors, students created their own Mentionlytics accounts, adding up to 6 keywords to scan the web and social media. They followed the process carefully, examining day-to-day the new brand mentions automatically collected into their dashboards.
The most important feature students used was AI Mention Clustering to identify key topics of the online chatter around their brands. They could see all mentions categorized into different topics and spot emerging issues or triumphs of their brands through sentiment analysis of these clusters to use as specific examples for their assignment.
The Share of Voice, one of the most powerful metrics, was also useful for comparative analysis. Through this feature, students could see which brand was prevailing in the online discussions.
Sentiment analysis also helped them understand if people were talking more positively or negatively about their brands and competitors.
With our Social Intelligence Advisor (SIA) alerts, students were always aware of any sudden increase in their online brand mentions, which could indicate potential crises.
Of course, with Mentionlytics’ Reports, students created their final report to present their findings in class and reinforce their conclusions with data insights.
“I learned so much about monitoring competitors using Mentionlytics. For example, I learned how to benchmark several brands side by side over a period. But the most interesting thing I did was spotting potential crises for my chosen brand.” (student)
Conclusion
Upon completing the assignment using Mentionlytics, students became familiar with the power of social media data analytics. Our platform helped them comprehend the importance of brand monitoring and competitive benchmarking in crafting informed marketing strategies.
“Mentionlytics helped me understand the concept of brand monitoring in real life and see how much you can learn for your customers just by paying attention to social media conversations.” (student)
So, giving university students the chance to work with popular, industry-standard tools is the most effective way to prepare new marketers for their future roles. Knowing how to take advantage of data analytics in marketing is a highly demanded skill.
“I do believe that offering students hands-on experience with Mentionlytics and other data analytics tools is a significant contribution to closing the gap between academic training and a professional career in marketing.”, concludes Prof. Tsadiras.
After all, universities that efficiently incorporate practical courses with such tools along with theoretical classes are set to create top young professionals with promising careers.
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