| Course | BU 439 Digital and Social Media Marketing Strategy |
|---|---|
| Unit | Unit 1 |
| Paper type | Digital presence audit |
| Length | About 830 words, 6 pages |
| Format | APA 7 student paper |
| School | Herzing University |
| Program | BS in Marketing |
| Updated | September 2026 |
Free sample paper for BU 439 Unit 1
Nine Properties, Three Alive: A Digital Presence Audit of a Composite Toledo Roller Rink Whose Most-Read Page Is a Business Listing Nobody Updates
Student Name
Business, Herzing University
BU 439: Digital and Social Media Marketing Strategy
Instructor Name
January 14, 2026
Nine Properties, Three Alive: A Digital Presence Audit of a Composite Toledo Roller Rink Whose Most-Read Page Is a Business Listing Nobody Updates
The Firm and the Window
Skyline Skate Center, a composite family-owned roller rink created for this course, has operated in Toledo, Ohio since 1978. It runs public skate sessions, a Thursday adult night, Saturday lessons, a small skate shop and about 900 birthday parties a year, which bring in close to half its revenue. The second-generation owners want to rebuild attendance among two groups: adults in their twenties and thirties drawn to retro skating, and parents booking children's parties. Before planning any channel work, this audit records what the rink has already published.
The observation window runs from October 1 to December 31, 2025. The audit was done from the outside, as any member of the public would see the properties, without logging into the rink's accounts. Public counts, such as followers or review totals, are copied only where a platform prints them on the page itself, and no platform's internal reach figures are used. Kaplan and Haenlein (2010) warn that firms often open accounts on many platforms without the resources to maintain them, and the inventory below shows what that looks like fifteen years later.
The Inventory
Each row is one property the rink controls or once controlled, with the same fields for every row so they can be compared.
| Property | Most recent post | Posts in window | Formats used | Pinned or top item | Link in profile resolves? |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Facebook page | December 30, 2025 | 38 | Flyer images, text schedule updates, event listings | A 2023 flyer for a discontinued Sunday adult night | Yes, to website |
| Instagram account | November 18, 2025 | 7 | Reposted Facebook flyers | None | No, an expired link-in-bio page |
| Google Business Profile | No owner posts | 0 posts; 31 new reviews, 3 owner replies | Customer photos only | Hours list a Sunday adult night ended in 2023 | Yes, to website |
| Website | Holiday hours updated November 2025 | 1 update | Static pages; phone number for party booking | Session schedule dated 2024 | Not applicable |
| Yelp listing | Unclaimed | 4 new reviews | Customer photos only | Not applicable | No website listed |
| TikTok account | August 2021 | 0 | Four short skate videos | Slow-motion video from an adult night, 2021 | No link |
| YouTube channel | May 2015 | 0 | Three party promotion videos | None | Link to an old domain |
| X account | March 2017 | 0 | Text posts | None | Link to an old domain |
| Email list (party customers) | Last campaign June 2022 | 0 | Not applicable | Not applicable | Not applicable |
What Is Live and What Is Abandoned
Three properties are live in the sense that people use them to decide whether to visit: the Facebook page, the Google Business Profile and the website. Two more, Instagram and the Yelp listing, are half alive: Instagram receives an occasional repost, and Yelp is kept alive by customers, not by the rink. Four are abandoned: TikTok, YouTube, X and the party email list.
Abandonment is not neutral. The X and YouTube profiles still link to an old domain the rink no longer owns, which now leads to an unrelated page. The Google profile and the Facebook pinned post both advertise a Sunday adult night that ended in 2023; four of the 31 reviews posted in the window complained about arriving for it. Hanna et al. (2011) describe a firm's social presence as an ecosystem in which properties affect one another, and here the neglected listing is undermining the maintained page.
How Each Property Behaves as a Channel
The Facebook page works mainly as a notice board. Its 38 posts in the window were almost all flyers and schedule changes, and the page's public event listings for adult nights showed between 40 and 190 people marking themselves as interested. Parents also use it to ask about parties: visible comments on flyers include eleven questions about party pricing, of which four received public answers.
The Google Business Profile is the property most people actually see. It printed 612 reviews and a 4.3-star average on the day of the audit, far more public activity than any other property, and it is what appears when someone searches for roller skating in Toledo. Yet the rink has posted nothing to it and replied to three of 31 new reviews. The most-read page the rink has is the one it does not manage.
Instagram behaves as an archive of reposts, with no content made for the platform. The abandoned TikTok account is the audit's most interesting finding: one of its four 2021 videos, a slow-motion clip of adult night skaters under colored lights, printed a view count of about 38,000, by far the largest audience any rink content has reached. It was never followed up. Two further properties sit outside the inventory because the rink does not control them. A public Facebook group started by former skaters, with about 4,800 members shown on its page, shares old photographs and memories of the rink and mentions current events only when a member does. And the dormant party email list holds about 2,300 addresses from past bookings; it has not been used since 2022, but it is the only channel the rink owns outright, and parents who once booked a party are the likeliest to book another.
What the Audit Means for the Plan
Kietzmann et al. (2011) describe social media through functions such as presence, conversation and reputation, and ask firms to identify which functions each platform serves for their audience. For Skyline, reputation lives on Google and Yelp, conversation about parties happens in Facebook comments, and the only evidence of what adult skaters share came from a video platform the rink abandoned. The audit points to three things before any new channel is considered: correct the wrong information on the Google profile and Facebook pin, remove or redirect the abandoned properties that link to a dead domain, and decide deliberately whether the TikTok result was luck or a signal. The channel selection that follows will answer that last question. The rink, its accounts and every count in this audit were invented for the course.
References
Hanna, R., Rohm, A., & Crittenden, V. L. (2011). We're all connected: The power of the social media ecosystem. Business Horizons, 54(3), 265-273. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bushor.2011.01.007
Kaplan, A. M., & Haenlein, M. (2010). Users of the world, unite! The challenges and opportunities of social media. Business Horizons, 53(1), 59-68. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bushor.2009.09.003
Kietzmann, J. H., Hermkens, K., McCarthy, I. P., & Silvestre, B. S. (2011). Social media? Get serious! Understanding the functional building blocks of social media. Business Horizons, 54(3), 241-251. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bushor.2011.01.005
What the BU 439 Unit 1 instructions ask for
The first BU 439 unit asks students to audit an organization's existing digital presence before planning anything new. Prompts usually require an inventory of every account and listing the organization controls, a defined observation window, consistent fields for each property, identification of dormant or duplicate accounts, and a reading of what the inventory means. Many instructors specify that the audit should use only what is publicly visible, without logging into accounts or inventing internal metrics. Business listings, websites and email lists often count as properties alongside social platforms. The deliverable is typically an inventory table with a few pages of analysis in APA 7, ending with implications for the channel decisions in the next unit.
Inside the BU 439 Unit 1 example
The audit introduces the rink, its two target groups and the observation window, and explains that it was carried out from outside with public counts only. A nine-row inventory records the same six fields for every property. A section sorts properties into live, half alive and abandoned, and shows the harm abandoned accounts still do, including links to a dead domain and a discontinued session still advertised. A channel behavior section reads the Facebook page as a notice board, the Google profile as the most-read and least-managed property, and the dormant TikTok account as holding the rink's largest audience. Two uncontrolled properties are noted. The close sets three actions before any new channel is chosen.
Where the points sit in the BU 439 Unit 1 rubric
Herzing's audit rubric usually rewards a complete inventory, consistent comparison fields, accurate observation, analysis of what is live and abandoned, and implications for strategy, along with presentation and sources. Completeness earns credit when listings, websites and email lists appear alongside social accounts. Consistency scores highest when every row uses the same fields so properties can be compared. Accuracy is judged on whether figures come only from what platforms display, with the window stated. Analysis earns full points when the student explains how each property actually functions for its audience. The implications criterion rewards specific next steps drawn from the evidence, such as correcting wrong information before adding channels.
BU 439 Unit 1 help before you submit
Audits often lose points by listing only the social accounts the organization posts on, missing business listings, review sites and old profiles. Another common problem is inconsistent rows, where one account gets follower counts and another gets posting history, making comparison impossible. Students frequently cite internal reach or engagement figures they could not actually see, or invent them. Some treat dormant accounts as harmless rather than checking what wrong information they still show. Others describe each platform in general terms instead of how this organization uses it. Finally, auditing the accounts of a current employer from the inside risks sharing private data; an outside view of a composite or public organization avoids that.
Get a BU 439 Unit 1 example written to your instructions
Send the Unit 1 instructions and the rubric posted in your BU 439 classroom, plus the organization your section assigns. We write a custom example that inventories every public property, fixes one observation window, copies only what the platforms display and closes on which of them are functioning channels. First custom sample free, back in 24 to 48 hours.
More BU 439 papers and marketing samples
- BU 439 Unit 2: Channel selection rationale
- BU 439 Unit 3: Content strategy per platform
- BU 439 Unit 4: Content calendar
- BU 439 Unit 5: Paid campaign plan
- BU 439 Unit 6: Influencer or partnership plan
- BU 439 Unit 7: Community management plan
- BU 439 Unit 8: Measurement framework
- BU 423 Unit 1: Opportunity screen
- BU 427 Unit 1: Change driver brief
- BU 323 Unit 1: Situation analysis
- BU 106 Unit 1: Business environment discussion
BU 439 Unit 1 questions, answered
How do I audit a company whose accounts I cannot log into?
From the outside, which is where this piece is supposed to sit. Everything the table needs is on the public page: the posts, their dates, the formats, the pinned item, the bio, the link. Where a count is displayed, record it with the date you looked. Where it is not displayed, write unavailable rather than reaching for a figure from an article about the industry.
How far back should the observation window go?
Far enough to show a rhythm and short enough that you can read every post inside it. Two or three months usually does both, and your instructions may fix the span for you. State the start and end dates in the opening paragraph, then hold every row to them, because a property measured across a longer stretch will always look busier than one that is not.
Can I audit the accounts I run at work?
No, on two counts. The posting record sits behind a login your employer controls, and the analytics exports and ad account screens behind that login are the firm's material rather than yours to reproduce in a graded document. The second problem is that those accounts are your own work, so auditing them asks you to grade yourself. Pick an organization you have no access to.
Where can I find a free BU 439 Unit 1 sample paper?
Anyone can read the complete BU 439 Unit 1 digital presence audit here at no charge, with its nine-row inventory, the live and abandoned reading and margin notes. If you are auditing a different organization, send your instructions and a custom audit is written free, usually within two days.
Can I use follower counts in BU 439 Unit 1?
Only where the platform prints them publicly on the page. The sample copies visible counts such as review totals and view counts, and leaves out reach and engagement figures that only account owners can see.