CASE STUDY
Babson College
Learn how Babson College increases student employability by equipping them with skills for the workplace with Brandwatch for Classrooms
Mike McGuirk is a lecturer and full-time faculty member at Babson College, teaching undergraduate level courses in marketing and digital analytics. Mike worked in the analytics field for over 25 years as a data-driven marketing and analytics consultant before teaching at higher education institutions.
The challenge
The graduate employment market has never been more competitive. For leading business schools like Babson College, it is essential to create courses that fully equip undergraduate students with the real-world experience they need to succeed.
With this goal mind, the college needed to construct a Digital Analytics course which provides students with access to the same tools commonly used in the workplace. These tools must be recognizable to employers, while also providing students with the full breadth of analytics techniques they need to make a difference in their careers.
The solution
Brandwatch for Classrooms enables students at Babson College to run complex research projects using one single platform. These projects include brand monitoring and competitor analysis of a selection of real-world organizations, incorporating data collection, preparation, analysis, and reporting techniques into each assignment.
"As I researched different platforms that could be used in this course, it became clear that the capabilities provided in the Brandwatch platform were a perfect fit for my needs."
The fact that students could perform all the necessary steps in one place was critical, as they would not have had sufficient time in the course to be trained across different software. It also helped that comprehensive training materials and a certification exam were all included, so students could quickly get up-to-speed on the full capabilities of the platform before diving into their assignments.
At the end of the course, the students were able to:
- Develop a comprehensive query that accurately collected relevant data for topics and organizations.
- Make the most of the platform's machine learning capabilities by training models to segment unstructured text data into nuanced categories that provide different lenses to view their data through, and comparing the results across the brands.
- Build comprehensive dashboards to organize core insights in a way that could be easily interpreted by their chosen organizations.
The results
Using the platform to gather insights on real-world organizations creates an exciting learning experience that the students really value.
"Students would frequently tell me that the use of Brandwatch was one of the most important and rewarding elements in the course structure. In fact, several of my students have used the reports they created from the analytics platform to showcase their skills and expertise during job interviews."
Using Brandwatch's leading digital consumer intelligence platform as part of their academic studies means that students are already equipped with the skills they need in the workplace. They gain an unparalleled confidence in social media analytics, allowing them to hit the ground running in their careers.