Student networks and educational social responsibility: promoting innovation through social marketing and digitalization

Social marketing strategies and digital transformation would facilitate innovation and sustainability of university educational responsibility programs through self-managed interdisciplinary networks of students. The article presents the case of an interdisciplinary network of university students that promotes the formation of proactive entrepreneurs committed to their professional, social and personal development in a context of cultural and technological transformation. While from its beginnings, in 2017 the initiative organized a range of face-to-face activities for students that fostered its growth and legitimization in the educational community, the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic in early 2020 forced it to innovate in the use of digital tools. Thus originated CIMAS, a massive two-day streaming event based on a social marketing strategy and digital processes. The strategy fostered innovation and entrepreneurship, digitized the student network and increased its national positioning. This case study develops how the idea was approached through social marketing, and how lessons could be learned from the project to address digitization and new challenges ahead such as the pandemic and the new normal.