Author: Nate Lee

Recently, I completed the Mimic Social Simulation, created by Stukent. The scenario of the simulation is this: You have recently been hired as the social media manager by Buhi Bags, a luxury backpack company. Each week, you are given $5000 to spend on social media between content and promotion. Your goals are to build brand awareness, increase engagement, increase sales, and lastly to outperform your peers. That’s the fun of this simulation, you are competing against your entire class, who have the same scenario, and are using the same algorithm.

Although I didn’t finish near the top of the class in profit, I was very happy with my New Follower count, which in a real life setting could translate to sales in the future. My total ROI was $63k over 12 weeks, which I’m certain would be good enough to keep my position at the company if this were real life. There’s a lot of things I would change if I were to complete the simulation again, and a lot of things I would keep the same, so here are some tips and tricks if this is your first time:

#1 Read

Every week you are given a task, and most weeks there is additional reading you can do. Even though reading may take up more of your time, it could change your results significantly.

#2 Try stuff, strategically

The best way to know if something will work is sometimes to do it, especially in a situation like this where there’s nothing more than a grade and potential bragging rights on the line. Try new kinds of posts and take note of what succeeds and what bombs.

#3 Use the personas

Stukent has several preset “personas” or ideal customers already created and researched. Look under the scenario tab at Market and you will see 7 distinct personas, all of whom you can target to. Pay attention to what size of the market share each persona is before trying to market towards them.

#4 Re-purpose material

Real companies do it all the time and you can too. Already used an image on Twitter but want to use it again? That’s fine, crop it and use it on Instagram with a different message, there’s very few people who follow you on both platforms, and those who do are such devoted fans they won’t mind.

#5 Drive Sales

I focused a little too much on social media metrics like engagements and followers, don’t be like me. To climb to the top of the class rankings, focus on what is driving revenue and secure that bag.

What is the Zeigarnik Effect?

In psychology, the Zeigarnik effect states that people remember uncompleted or interrupted tasks better than completed tasks. (Wikipedia.com)

“Have you ever thought about a movie you didn’t finish for way too long? Had a song that you only know some of the words to stuck in your head on loop?…”

History of the Zeigarnik effect

In the 1920’s, Russian psychologist Bluma Zeigarnik performed a series of studies involving task interruption. Her most well known study involved over 100 children, each of whom had to perform a simple challenge such as a jigsaw puzzle. Half of the children were allowed to complete the task, while the other half were interrupted partway through. An hour later the children were asked about the task they performed. Only around 10% of the children who were allowed to complete the task remembered it, while nearly 80% of those who were interrupted remembered it vividly.

Ok cool, why should I care?

Have you ever thought about a movie you didn’t finish for way too long? Had a song that you only know some of the words to stuck in your head on loop? Have you ever clicked on a link titled something like “Doctors hate him! Here’s why” These are all due to the Zeigarnik effect. Our brain wants to finish unanswered questions and uncompleted tasks, and these can take up a significant amount of mental space when not completed. This also takes place at school and work, when you don’t complete a task or assignment you brain keeps reminding you of it. This can lead to high stress and stress about being stressed and having so much to do.

So, it is best to just finish things you start, so you have more mental space to focus on tasks at hand.