Decoding Social Media is a pioneering course that partners students from the UBC Sauder School of Business and the Graduate School of Journalism to research and develop strategic social media plans for major news outlets like the Vancouver Sun and CBC Music.

One of the groups from last year’s course received an Excellence in New Communication Award from the Society for New Communication Research, a global non-profit research and education foundation and think tank. The awards honour excellence in new communications, digital, mobile, social media and information and communications technology developments.

The students took the Social Media Marketing award in the academic category for a campaign created for Vancouver Magazine as part of the course.

The social media project was also a finalist in the Canadian Online Publishing Award (COPA) for Best Use of Social Media.