Social Media Marketing Course Syllabus: what you must look for?

It’s difficult to tell what could be the perfect Social Media marketing course syllabus as social media is dynamic and we have humongous number of social media platforms to learn and work upon.

In this post, I would try to put in my experience of handling clients for social media consultancy and training students and working professionals in the domain of Social Media Marketing. I would try to put up minimum to have components in a social media marketing course or training program. Regardless of the course- certification, diploma, workshop, degree, training- you pick, you must look for most of these below listed modules in a Social Media Marketing Course.

1. Social Media Channels and their utility
2. Facebook Marketing
3. YouTube Marketing
4. Twitter Marketing
5. LinkedIn Marketing
6. Instagram Marketing
7. Pinterest Marketing
8. Google+ Marketing
9. Online Reputation Management
10. Influencer Marketing
11. Other Social Media Marketing channels
12. Social Media Management
13. Social Media Marketing automation
14. Social Media Marketing Strategy
15. Social Media Marketing Certifications for Jobs
16. Preparing Content for Social Media

Social media channels and their utility

This is where a foundation or introductory course in Social media marketing should begin. Before learning different social media marketing channels, it’s important to learn the uniqueness of each of them and their utility for different types of businesses.

With social media, it’s easy to fall for ‘one size, fit all’ strategy wherein social media managers start working upon each channel without a clear goal. Even working with selected channels can be different for different businesses. For example, for some businesses managing Facebook can be only about publishing motivational quotes in the morning while other might be publishing critical news and latest trends from their industry.

Facebook Marketing

A social media marketing course must include Facebook irrespective of what kind of business you manage. It’s no strange fact that your marketing should reach out where your customers are. Facebook is the largest social media channel currently and people across the globe spend maximum time of their browsing on internet on Facebook.

A module on Facebook must train you on how to create and manage organic posts and increase fans/followers on your Facebook business page using Facebook page manager. It must train you on creating and managing paid campaigns using Facebook ADs Manager. Open Graphs and Facebook Power Editor Tool can be included in the course content depending upon how in-depth the course content is. If the course helps you become a Facebook blueprint certified professional, nothing like that.

YouTube Marketing

Day by day, our fascination with visual and video content is increasing and a lot of people watch different kind of videos online. This explains why YouTube is the second largest search engine after Google. That’s right! YouTube is next only to Google in terms of searches being made- though for videos.

YouTube being Google owned company and a popular social media channel has become very important from an SEO perspective for competitive keywords and virality of video content.

A good course module on YouTube will train you on managing a YouTube channel while optimizing it for organic search results on both Google and YouTube. It should also train you on how to create, run & manage Video AD campaigns in Video Advertising using Google Adwords on display networks such as Website, Mobile Apps, YouTube videos etc. You can become a Google Adwords certified professional which can eventually help you gain a nice job in Digital Marketing.

LinkedIn Marketing

Though LinkedIn can be used to promote both B2B and B2C businesses, but its effectiveness for B2B businesses is awesome. The fact that we don’t have too many social media channels dedicated to companies and professionals helps as well. An integration with SlideShare, Lynda, Pulse etc. has enforced LinkedIn as the largest professional networking channel.

A Module on LinkedIn Marketing will train you on how to create and manage a top professional image both for yourself and your company. It will also teach you how to publish right content and engage with the professional and community related to your business. LinkedIn Ads, when learnt, can be used to target highly specific audiences based on their profession, designation, location and other important demographic factors. LinkedIn must be learnt for both.

Twitter Marketing

Twitter is known to be a micro blogging platform and its ease of use and effectiveness in spreading a message or news makes it one of the fastest growing social media channel. Without a debate, it must be part of a good Social Media Marketing Course curriculum. Interestingly, Twitter is effective for both B2B and B2C businesses equally and can quickly make a text, image or video viral for any brand or individual.

A good course module in Twitter Marketing must train you on how to create and manage organic as well as paid campaigns on Twitter using Twitter Cards, Twitter Ads, Hootsuite, Statusbrew etc. There is a lot of Apps which, when connected with Twitter, can throw tremendous results for brands and individuals both in terms of branding and conversions.

Google+ Marketing

You won’t find too many Social Media Courses referring Google+ and you might even struggle to find friends and followers who are highly active on Google+. Google+ is critical because of two important reasons, first- for its close integration with Gmail and YouTube and second- for its role in local SEO. It might not look glamorous like other social media channels but a working knowledge of Google+ would help you as a Social Media Professional.

This course module on Google+ will train on how to create and manage multiple Google profiles such as Google Business, Google+, Youtube etc. from the same individual and business profile to gain both search and social media presence.

Instagram Marketing

Instagram is no more aa fun App to share your smartphone snaps and tag your friends. Brands are using Instagram big time to leverage upon its ability to create and share stunning visual posts which now includes videos as well. Younger audience in the age range of 18-24 use Instagram more than Facebook. After their buyout, Instagram is part of Facebook Advertising.

If a Social Media Marketing Course syllabus doesn’t include discussions surrounding Instagram Marketing, it is bound to be obsolete. A Course module on Instagram Marketing will train you on how to create and manage organic as well as paid campaigns on Instagram using Page Manager and Facebook Power Editor Tool. You can become a Facebook Blueprint Certified Professional after learning Instagram.

Pinterest Marketing

Pinterest might be old and might not be as good and viral as both Facebook and Instagram. But, Pinterest is still being followed by people from a creative background for both work references and fun. An average person might research well on Pinterest for some unique and visually appealing products or designs and hence a must to have for design centric products and firms.

Pinterest can help brands send a lot of targeted traffic and does help in SEO as well. A Course in Social Media Marketing must include Pinterest for its simplicity of use and impact on branding of a product.

Other Social Media Marketing channels

Apart from the Top 7 social media channels mentioned above, there are plenty of other popular social media channels. Not every Social Media Marketing Course syllabus would cover them. But if a Course does that, you must grab the benefits. Tumblr, Vine, Snapchat, Reddit are few of these social media channels to name.

Social Media Management

We are all busy with some or other work. And Social Media might take a backseat while we are travelling, on vacation, celebrating festivals or even because of bad health of some other priorities. Social Media is all about continuity and discipline.

A Training with good Social Media Marketing Course Syllabus would always teach and train you on an effective social media management using popular tools such as Hootsuite, buffer etc. This module would train you on advanced planning, scheduling and managing multiple social media platforms from a single dashboard using one of these tools. Trust me, It would change your life forever and your efficiency would increase at least 5 to 10 times.

Social Media Marketing automation

We are living in a digital age and automation is everywhere and Digital Marketing is full of automation. You can automate your activities on social media so that most of the mundane and redundant tasks don’t require your personal handling.

A good Social Media Marketing Course syllabus would cover a thing or two about the marketing automation using Social Media. Your knowledge would be incomplete and you would find it obsolete if you don’t know social media automation along with social media management.

Social Media Marketing Strategy

No form of marketing plan can be complete without Strategy. Social Media Marketing Strategy should be an integral part of the course curriculum for any Social Media Marketing Course. This module must teach you about planning content creation and promotion for achieving different marketing objectives on your social media channels.

Social Media Marketing Certifications for Jobs

A good Social Media Marketing Course syllabus must include few certifications which are targeted towards getting you prepared for Jobs. Facebook offers Blueprint certification and Twitter offers Flight school certification. Similarly, YouTube has video advertising certification.

Apart from this, Hootsuite certification is valued a lot in the market as Hootsuite is world’s most popular social media management tool. The institute providing you training must be offering their own certification after the completion of the course. In total, you can acquire somewhere between 3 to 5 certifications after completing a single course in Social Media Marketing.

Preparing Content for Social Media

Social Media offers a lot of opportunities in terms of posts being shared on them. You can create text posts, image posts, Blog URLs and even video posts to share on different social media channels. Easier said than done, creating posts other than that of text takes a lot of time.

But, there are plenty of tools available in the market which provides you with the DIY ability to create attractive visual and audio visual content for your social media channels. A good course in Social Media Marketing will guide you and train you on using these tools so that you can rocket your social media growth with ease.

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