PROFESSIONAL CERTIFICATION
- Live Classroom
- Part-Time
- Expert Instructors
Online LiveNew YorkChicagoMiamiSeattleSan FranciscoDallasTorontoVancouverLondon
Accelerate your marketing career with essential social media marketing skills. Build a social media strategy tailored to your target audience, on the social media platforms they use.
View the Course Package to access:
- Tuition details and scholarships
- Financing options
- Employer sponsorship
Next Kickoff:
March 6
6:30 pm – 9:30 pm EST
Enroll Now
Limited Capacity
Find a class that fits your schedule.
All my jobs have had some sort of aspect of social media... [and] the skills I learned from BrainStation have helped me stay motivated to keep up-to-date and as current as possible.
Kelsey Rizzo
Social Media Specialist at Nike
Learn Social Media Marketing
Social media has emerged as one of the top digital marketing channels for all brands. Customers go to the top social media platforms to search for purchase inspiration, explore different social media content, and engage in conversations. In BrainStation’s live Social Media Marketing course, learn to understand your customers and build a tailored social media strategy. Evaluate and choose your social platforms, define your social media content strategy, and leverage social media advertising opportunities across paid and organic channels to build brand awareness and a social community.
Learn Social Media Marketing
Online classroom. Live and expert-led.
Build Social Media Management Skills
Ideal for learners looking to upskill.
Get Ready for Social Media Jobs
Build an interview-ready social media portfolio project.
Social Media Certification
Earn a BrainStation Social Media Marketing Certificate.
Social Media Marketing Courses
Ready to get started learning social media marketing? Take BrainStation’s Social Media Manager courses online or in-person at any of BrainStation’s campuses. See below for our list of upcoming courses in social media management.
| FirstClass | LastClass | #ofClasses | Class Times | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| March 6 April 17 | April 17 | 7 Wednesdays | Enroll Now | ||
| April 4 May 16 | May 16 | 7 Thursdays | Enroll Now | ||
| May 1 June 19 | June 19 | 7 Wednesdays | Enroll Now | ||
| May 28 July 9 | July 9 | 7 Tuesdays | Enroll Now | ||
| June 27 August 15 | August 15 | 7 Thursdays | Enroll Now |
This Course is Offered Online in Los Angeles
This Course is Offered Online in New York
This Course is Offered Online in London
This Course is Offered Online in Toronto
This Course is Offered Online in Vancouver
Unit 1
Social Media Strategy
Digital marketing is about strategically connecting people with information, products or services that make life easier or solve problems. Social media marketing is a hyper-relevant way to achieve this in today’s economy. The first unit of BrainStation’s Social Media Marketing course is designed to build your marketing skills and knowledge, preparing you for more advanced topics ahead. Learn about social media planning, understand your customers, and explore content strategy for social media.
- Key Skills:
- Customer Segmentation
- User Personas
- Customer Journey Mapping
- Social Content Strategy
- Social Media Listening
Learn Digital Marketing
Digital marketing is truly a diverse field. Learn about essential marketing concepts including digital marketing strategy fundamentals, branding, metrics in digital marketing, and more.
Social Listening
Marketing success is predicated on understanding your customers. Uncover critical insights through social media listening, customer journey mapping, user personas, and exploring segmentation variables.
Social Media Content Strategy
Successful social media content can look very different between social platforms. Learn how to approach your content strategy for social media by exploring universal ideas like a social media content calendar that help to structure and define the types of social media content you create.
Unit 2
Social Media Platforms
Social media is a diverse and nuanced landscape with different social platforms, features, communities, and content requirements. In the next unit of this Social Media Manager course, you’ll explore key social media platforms and better understand where to focus your efforts, how to connect with a platform’s audience, and how to leverage platform features and paid media to support growth.
- Key Skills:
- Social Platform Selection
- Social Media Content Development
- Social Media Advertising
- Custom Audiences
- Social Media Metrics
Social Media Marketing Platforms
Dive into the top social media platforms, learning best practices, social content considerations, key metrics and more. Explore commonalities between social platforms such as pixel marketing, and communities, and unlock the ability to leverage a suite of social media platforms for your unique marketing strategy.
Learn Social Media Advertising
Leverage the power of paid media on social platforms to target and capture custom audiences as part of your marketing strategy. Learn to analyze advertisem*nts, apply core concepts, practice creating ads, and interact with platforms such as Facebook Ads Manager.
Unit 3
Social Media Engagement
Developing a social media presence is only part of an effective social media strategy. To see lasting benefits, brands need to find ways to continuously grow and engage their audiences. In the final unit of this social media management course, you’ll learn about influencer marketing, community management, and customer service in social media. Build awareness around changes to social platforms, new technologies, and regulations to inform strategic efforts and growth into the future.
- Key Skills:
- Influencer Marketing
- Community Management
- Social Media Planning & Strategy
Explore Influencer Marketing
Learn how to get started with influencer marketing by understanding the benefits and risks, how to identify the right social media influencers, and more.
Community Management on Social Media
Nurture and grow your following by exploring social media customer service and community management in social media. Learn about Reddit and Quora as potential distribution channels to increase your presence and grow your audience.
Social Media Trends
Social media is constantly changing. Stay ahead of the curve by building awareness of new dynamics such as artificial intelligence, chatbots, legislation, and more.
Social Media Marketing Course Instructors
Instructors in BrainStation’s social media courses are experienced digital marketing professionals who work at the world's most innovative companies. You’ll learn from experts in their field with years of marketing experience, ensuring that you're learning the most up-to-date and practical skills companies around the world need.
Kayla Cabilin
Marketing Strategist at Snap Inc.
Seun Shobande
Consumer Marketing Lead at Instagram
Michael Palombo
US Content Partnerships at X (Twitter)
Sandra Hoefler
Director of Performance Marketing at Ticketmaster
Lauren Powell
Social Listening & Analytics Lead at PepsiCo
Kayla Cabilin
Marketing Strategist at Snap Inc.
Michael Palombo
US Content Partnerships at X (Twitter)
Sandra Hoefler
Director of Performance Marketing at Ticketmaster
Lauren Powell
Social Listening & Analytics Lead at PepsiCo
Industry-Led Social Media Training
BrainStation partners with industry experts when building all of our courses, ensuring every course covers the latest industry-relevant topics and tools businesses need. We continue to work with our network of experts to update our courses so they're always up to date.
Build a Social Media Portfolio
Showcase everything you’ve learned with a real-world Social Media Manager portfolio project for a brand of your choosing. In each week of the Social Media Manager course, you’ll be provided with clear steps to iteratively develop your final project. By the end of the course, you will have created a social media marketing strategy that highlights user personas, social media platform selection, sample social media content ideas, and key marketing metrics, all of which will be ready to be added to your social media marketing portfolio.
View Tuition, Financing Options, and More in the Course Package
View the Course Package to access:
- Tuition details and scholarships
- Financing options
- Employer sponsorship
Social Media Marketing Certification
Upon completing BrainStation's Social Media Marketing course, you’ll receive an industry-recognized professional social media marketing certificate to share with your network and showcase all that you’ve learned. BrainStation social media certificates are formatted for sharing on LinkedIn.
What Our Graduates Are Saying
Dylan Hebb
Senior Consultant at Content Bloom
When you take a BrainStation course, you're learning with some of the very best in the industry. You collaborate with product managers, digital strategists, UX designers, and all kinds of other backgrounds.
#brainstation #BeFutureProof #LearningAtBrainStation #remotelearning
Andrew Gosine
Product Designer
Our instructor... was clear, detail oriented, and made the learning environment safe and collaborative. We got a lot of real world examples from him, and all the little details he shared made this entire course special, and more than simply reading a textbook.
Overall, I'm a big advocate for Brainstation's courses - they've proved to be extremely valuable in my career.
Kelsey Rizzo
Social Media Specialist at Nike
I wanted to learn from industry professionals. You can only learn so much from college and university courses and they tend to be taught by those who retired from their trade. BrainStation's Digital Marketing Certificate Course is what helped me be more confident and certain about my love and understanding for social media and digital marketing.
Read Full Testimonial
Lauren Marshall
The best thing about BrainStation courses in my opinion (I have previously taken the Digital Marketing course as well) is the hands on approach they take to teaching the content and having industry professionals as their instructors. Having to apply the concepts throughout the course while learning about real life examples has really aided me in understanding the concepts and being able to put these into action.
Join our growing community of 15,000+ alumni.
Social Media Certification FAQs
Do you cover paid or organic social media marketing?
In BrainStation’s Social Media Marketing course, you’ll develop an extensive social media strategy, planning paid advertising and organic efforts across multiple social media platforms.
What payment options do you offer?
BrainStation offers some of the most competitive payment options for social media training, with a range of flexible plans and scholarship opportunities.
These include:
- Monthly payment installments
Allowing you to split your tuition into smaller monthly payments.
- Employer sponsorship
Get your tuition reimbursed by your employer.
- Scholarships
We offer a range of scholarships to make learning social media and content marketing more accessible.
- Monthly payment installments
Are there any prerequisites for this Social Media Marketing course?
BrainStation’s Social Media Marketing course was created for those who would like to use social media but have not done so yet, as well as professionals who have experience with digital marketing, but are looking to get a better understanding of social media marketing strategy. There are no prerequisites for this course.
What kind of backgrounds do people have that take this course?
By enrolling in the Social Media Marketing course, you can expect to learn from Instructors experienced in the field, and collaborate with like-minded, ambitious professionals keen to boost their marketing and social media skills.
From an educational point of view, 80 percent of learners at BrainStation have a post-secondary education, with 20 percent having earned a Master’s degree or PhD.
Professional backgrounds will vary, but can include digital marketing professionals looking to update their social media marketing skills, entrepreneurs who want to learn social media marketing to better position their brands, and sales professionals hoping to work more cross-functionally with their team.
What social media marketing tools do we learn?
Throughout the Social Media Marketing course, you will learn to work with tools that help you become a more efficient and effective digital marketer.
You’ll get hands-on experience with Facebook Business Manager, Instagram, LinkedIn, Hootsuite, and more, to help you build a cohesive social media marketing campaign.
Can I take this course online?
Yes, you can take BrainStation's Social Media Marketing course online.
BrainStation's online Social Media Marketing courses are taught by leading industry experts in a live, interactive classroom environment. Our project-based online course encourages collaboration and communication between classmates, who work together on cross-disciplinary teams to create real-life projects that eventually become the basis of their professional portfolio.
Students in our online social media marketing courses stay in touch with each other and instructors alike through BrainStation's industry-leading student learning platform, as well as a lively Slack community, which provides support and updates even beyond graduation.
Social Media Marketing 101
What Can I Learn in a Social Media Marketing Course?
BrainStation's Social Media Marketing course begins by establishing your foundations in social media strategy and digital marketing more generally. It then explores how to leverage different marketing techniques, platforms, and social media advertising to grow and engage your audiences online. The course covers the basics of using social media as one of your key digital marketing channels.
BrainStation's Social Media Marketing course helps students understand how social listening, customer segmentation and customer journey mapping, building user personas, and developing content marketing strategy fit together to form the basis of social campaigns.
Next, the Social Media Marketing course explores the unique features of different social platforms, helping you understand where to direct your marketing efforts and paid social advertising budget. Finally, you'll learn how to build loyal communities and identify industry trends that could prove relevant.
A good social media marketing certificate program should also be immersive and project-based, allowing you to build a portfolio of completed social media marketing projects by the time you complete the course.
What Are the Most In-Demand Social Media Job Titles?
Some of the most in-demand social media job titles include Social Media Marketing Manager, Social Media Marketing Specialist, and Digital Marketing Specialist, among many others.
At a large company with an entire social media team, you would find a wider range of titles and specific responsibilities. Entry-level social media job titles would include Social Media Assistant, Social Media Marketing Coordinator, or Social Media Marketing Intern. Intermediate social media jobs might have titles including Social Media Manager, Community Manager, or Social Media Specialist, while senior-level job titles would be Vice-President of Social Media Marketing, Vice-President of Brand Strategy, or Head of Social Media.
Meanwhile, many other digital marketing jobs would include a significant amount of social media marketing even if "social media" isn't specifically included in the job title. Many Digital Marketers are expected to be experts in social media marketing as well as related disciplines including email marketing, content marketing, search engine marketing, and search engine optimization (SEO).
How Can I Get Into Social Media Marketing?
To get into social media marketing, you should consider gaining formal training through a social media marketing or digital marketing course, focus on building your brand online and establishing followings across multiple social media channels, and finally look for freelance work, internships, or entry-level social media marketing or digital marketing jobs.
Social media marketing certification will also help you learn more about the latest tactics, tools, and strategies that aspiring Social Media Marketing Managers need. That means that employers know that you will have the most up-to-date possible training in areas like influencer marketing, social media advertising, and community management.
A social media course will also help you build a portfolio of real-world projects, which you can then develop further by seeking out freelance work, boosting your social media presence to draw more attention in the digital world, and looking for social media marketing internships and entry-level digital marketing jobs.
What Is the Best Way to Stay on Top of Social Media Marketing Trends?
The best way to stay on top of social media marketing trends is to stay active on social media, follow top marketing accounts, and to proactively network with other Digital Marketers as well as professionals outside your industry.
Keeping up with trends is particularly important in the fast-changing world of social media marketing, where you have near-unlimited competition for the attention of your target audience. As simple as it sounds, the most important thing if you're a Social Media Manager is to spend a significant amount of time using social media. Be sure to watch what the competition is up to, don't ignore any social media platforms or channels even if you don't personally use them, set up alerts around companies or keywords that are relevant to your band, and pay attention to what's trending in the larger conversation on social media to see how your company could be affected or might join the conversation.
Networking with colleagues is another essential part of keeping up with social media marketing trends. BrainStation regularly holds panel discussions with top digital marketing industry experts, thought leadership events, and other networking gatherings to give students opportunities to build their professional networks while also discussing the most current trends and issues in their fields.
How Do You Build a Social Media Marketing Strategy?
To build a digital marketing strategy, you must conduct market research and analyze the competition, define your target audience, choose your preferred social media platform or channels, determine key performance indicators and measurement metrics, and actively analyze the success of your campaign, making changes if necessary.
Given the amount of competition Digital Marketers face to capture their audience's attention, creating a successful social media marketing campaign requires careful planning and constant analysis. Social media analytics are crucial, and you should be carefully monitoring every aspect of the campaign, whether paid or free.
Social media marketing strategy often comes down to timing, and that also means staying on top of the larger discussions online and what's happening in the world. Even the best-planned campaign will fail if your content is delivered at a time that doesn't make sense for your target audience.
Why Is This the Best Social Media Marketing Course for Me?
BrainStation's Social Media Marketing course is the best social media marketing program because our hands-on, project-based learning experience gives students real-world marketing experience, our innovative curriculum covers the most current-possible social media marketing strategies and tools, and our live online courses are led by experienced professionals with a thorough understanding of what it takes to succeed as Social Media Marketers.
BrainStation's Social Media certification course is ideal for learners looking to boost their skills, whether you're already a Digital Marketer looking to develop a social media marketing specialization or if you simply want to gain valuable skills that would be valuable to any number of fields, including communications, design, business analytics. With an innovative curriculum that teaches students every component of how to build a successful social media marketing campaign, BrainStation's Social Media Marketing course is designed to help students develop an end-to-end understanding of effective social media strategy and how to plan a successful social media campaign.
To then help students leverage their new social media marketing training to meet their professional goals, BrainStation offers networking opportunities, thought leadership events, and panel discussions featuring experts from our global hiring partner network of top companies.
Search Engine Marketing
The Search Engine Marketing course was designed to introduce advanced SEM and analytics skills. It’s a great way to learn more about Search Engine Marketing after taking the Digital Marketing course, but it is still accessible to those who want to get started learning Search Engine Marketing.
View Course
Digital Marketing
In this hands-on course, learn cutting-edge skills in a broad range of essential digital marketing skills, including marketing strategy, SEO, SEM, social media and email marketing. This course touches on a broader range of Digital Marketing topics that complement the detailed Social Media Markeing topics of this course.
View Course
Digital Marketing Bootcamp
The Digital Marketing Bootcamp is BrainStation’s flagship Digital Marketing program to prepare you for a new Digital Marketing career. In 400+ hours of learning, go deep on digital marketing strategy, search engine optimization, search engine marketing, content development and management, social media, and more.
View Course
Get Started
Join a network of over 250,000 professionals who are transforming and accelerating their careers through cutting edge tech skills.
View the Course Package to access:
- Tuition details and scholarships
- Financing options
- Employer sponsorship
