Develop your social media skills alongside specialists in the industry

Social media is changing quickly, with channels, advertisers and content all vying for attention.

This two-week course will help you understand how to make social media work for your organisation, by putting your users at the heart of everything you do.

Gain skills to understand your digital audience

Throughout the course, you’ll develop your knowledge to clearly understand your target audience and their journey online. You’ll gain the skills to design and build user-centric social media plans that align audience objectives and business goals.

You’ll discover top tips to help you create highly effective content on the right channels, at the right time, for your target audience.

Furthermore, you’ll be able to use your new skills to constantly improve your social activity to maximise the impact of your work.

It’s essential to understand how to set objectives that help you achieve your social media goals, and importantly, how to measure your success. This course will reveal the common pitfalls of social measurement, including vanity metrics such as likes and followers, and how to avoid them.

Designed by digital marketing experts, Target Internet with The Open University

You’ll gain expertise from Lead Educator, Daniel Rowles, CEO - Target Internet, who is the voice behind the popular Digital Marketing Podcast. He’s worked with brands such as Tesco, L’Oreal, Mercedes and Warner Bros.

Whether you’re new to social media for business, or you have some understanding, this course will give you the expertise to support your organisation and the confidence you need to progress your career in social media marketing.

What topics will you cover?

Understand the role of social media in the user journey
How to align social media with your target audience
User journey mapping and social media
Define objectives at each stage of the journey
Fake accounts, vanity metrics and misleading data
How to keep iteration at the core of social activity

Prove you're job ready

Highlight the new, job-relevant skills you’ve gained and supplement existing qualifications with a hard-earned, industry-specific digital certificate – plus one for every course within your ExpertTrack.

Learn the latest in your chosen industry or subject.
Complete each course and pass assessments.
Receive certificates validated by the educating organisation.
Impress employers with learning outcomes you can add to your CV.
Make your career dreams a reality.

Download a PDF

Learning on this course

On every step of the course you can meet other learners, share your ideas and join in with active discussions in the comments.

What will you achieve?

By the end of the course, you‘ll be able to...

Reflect on how social media should be used differently at each stage of the user journey
Explore the role of social media in achieving your digital objectives
Demonstrate how to take a user centric approach to social media that will align your audience and organisational objectives
Explore what should be avoided when planning social activity
Demonstrate how to keep improving social activity

Who is the course for?

This course is designed for anyone who would like to increase their awareness and understanding of social media marketing. You don’t need any prior knowledge, although any work experience will help contextualise and enhance your learning.

Who will you learn with?

Daniel Rowles

MD TargetInternet.com - helping upskill the world's leading organisations in Digital Marketing & Digital Transformation.

Host of the Digital Marketing Podcast, a global top 20 business podcast.

Who developed the course?

The Open University

As the UK’s largest university, The Open University (OU) supports thousands of students to achieve their goals and ambitions via supported distance learning, helping to fit learning around professional and personal life commitments.

Established
1969
Location
Milton Keynes, UK
World ranking
Top 510Source: Times Higher Education World University Rankings 2020

Target Internet

Target Internet delivers digital training to some of the world’s leading organisations, as well as building online learning that is used in over 100 countries worldwide. As publishers of the global Digital Marketing Skills Benchmark and the Digital Marketing Podcast, they have unrivalled access to market insights and expertise.

About this ExpertTrack

Accelerate your social media marketing skills across a range of channels, measure your success, and optimise your approach

Find out more

Start learning today - free 2-day trial

After your free trial you can:

Pay $39 per month to keep learning online
Have complete control over your subscription; you can cancel any time
Work at your own pace and set your own deadlines at every stage
Only pay while you’re learning; the subscription will cancel automatically when you finish
Complete online assessments to test your knowledge and prove your skills
Earn digital course certificates and a final award that you can share online, with potential employers, and your professional network
Keep access to the content of courses you complete even after your subscription ends

Start your free 2-day trial

Learning on FutureLearn

Your learning, your rules

Courses are split into weeks, activities, and steps to help you keep track of your learning
Learn through a mix of bite-sized videos, long- and short-form articles, audio, and practical activities
Stay motivated by using the Progress page to keep track of your step completion and assessment scores

Join a global classroom

Experience the power of social learning, and get inspired by an international network of learners
Share ideas with your peers and course educators on every step of the course
Join the conversation by reading, @ing, liking, bookmarking, and replying to comments from others

Map your progress

As you work through the course, use notifications and the Progress page to guide your learning
Whenever you’re ready, mark each step as complete, you’re in control
Complete 90% of course steps and all of the assessments to earn your certificate

Want to know more about learning on FutureLearn? Using FutureLearn