What is Social Media Marketing?
Social media marketing is the use of digital social platforms to promote a business. Studies show that 71% of small to mid-sized businesses use social media as part of their marketing strategy and 97% of Fortune 500 companies are on at least one platform. With more people than ever using social media to connect with brands, it is important for companies to determine how to make sure their content is seen and shared. This has led many businesses to hire social media experts to create, launch, monitor, and report on their social media initiatives.
Some of the most common platforms to use for social media marketing are Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest, and Tumblr. Video marketing is quickly rising in popularity, with more and more businesses establishing accounts on TikTok, YouTube, and other video-based platforms. Each type of social media requires its own strategy to effectively promote a business. Some social media professionals specialize in a single platform, while others master several.
Why Learn Social Media Marketing?
Building skills in digital marketing and social media management can be helpful for people with all kinds of career ambitions. Professionals in marketing, public relations, digital analytics, sales, design, and entrepreneurship can all benefit from some knowledge of social media marketing. At some small businesses, even employees in unrelated roles may pitch in to help run social media.
While many people have experience setting up personal social media accounts, social media marketing is a whole different ball game. It requires an understanding of how to optimize content to ensure that your target audience sees it. Unlike casual social media users, professionals use hashtag strategy, post scheduling, and analytics tracking to ensure their content is effective at winning over customers.
What Careers Use Social Media Marketing?
Professional social media managers and marketers apply their professional skills in social media marketing to highlight their products, engage with customers, share news and updates, drive traffic to their websites, and collect data. Some may handle all of the platforms for a business, while others may specialize in Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, or another one. Social media marketers may have a career in-house with a company or at a marketing agency. They may also work as freelancers.
Some companies hire one or more digital marketers to take on a wide range of duties that include social media management, rather than hire dedicated social media marketers. In addition to knowing how to promote a business on social media apps and websites, they need to know SEO, email marketing, website analytics tracking, and pay-per-click advertising.
Entrepreneurs and small business owners also need to know social media marketing strategy. When you’re starting or running a business, it’s essential that you promote it on social platforms, especially big ones like Facebook. While some business owners may set up accounts and call it a day, optimizing your social media presence is necessary to grow your following to its maximum.
Certificate Programs for Social Media Marketing
Seeking a way to get up and running with professional social media marketing skills? One of the best steps you can take is joining a social media marketing certificate program.
Noble Desktop, our tech and design school, offers a Social Media Marketing Certificate. This 30-hour course includes training in the biggest platforms for social media marketing: Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter, TikTok, and YouTube. In each class, you’ll learn how to set up a profile, create engaging content, and leverage the unique features of the platform to build an audience. You’ll also develop strategies for creating paid ads, using hashtags, and set goals and metrics. By the time you graduate from this program, you’ll be ready to launch sophisticated social media campaigns using up-to-date strategies.
To build a deeper knowledge of how to incorporate social media into your business’s marketing strategy, you can opt for Noble Desktop’s more extensive Digital Marketing Certificate. This course includes all the classes included in the Social Media Marketing Certificate along with instruction in SEO, Google Analytics, Google Ads, and digital strategy. Students in this program will additionally learn about web optimization and email marketing.
What Other Social Media Marketing Classes Are Available?
Along with these certificate courses, Noble Desktop offers shorter classes that go in-depth on a single aspect of social media marketing. If you want to plug a skill gap or get started with a less intense introduction to social media marketing concepts, taking one of these classes can be a great option.
Facebook is far and away the most popular social media platform for businesses. Attend Facebook Marketing to learn strategy for setting up and optimizing paid ads, targeting audiences, tracking conversions, and reporting. In Instagram Marketing, you’ll find out how to incorporate Instagram Stories, influencer marketing, and other platform-specific tactics into your marketing strategy. Another fundamental course is LinkedIn Marketing, which covers business-based social media. In this class, you’ll learn how LinkedIn can be used for networking, promotion, and building a following.
If you’re interested in content-based social media platforms, you may want to consider taking Blogs & Twitter. For video-based marketing, check out YouTube & TikTok. This class will provide guidance for storyboarding and producing trending video content, along with platform-specific training like how to master the TikTok algorithm.
Choosing a Platform
For anyone just getting started in social media marketing, choosing which platforms to focus on is one of the first decisions you’ll have to make. When making the call, you’ll need to consider the audience available to you on each platform, what kind of strategy you’d use, and the kind of work it would take to build and maintain a following.
If you’re not sure where to start, you can’t go wrong with Facebook. With over 1.8 billion active daily users, Facebook provides an enormous pool of potential customers. It’s no wonder that it’s the most popular social media platform for businesses! Instagram is another useful platform for many businesses. Since it is owned by Facebook, it’s easy to share content between the two platforms. You can also easily manage ads for both Instagram and Facebook through the shared Ads Manager.
As a platform that can be used for professional networking, job searching, recruitment, and leads generation, LinkedIn provides a versatile range of functions to businesses that use it. Less versatile but easier to manage is Twitter, which allows your business to broadcast messages to the world in 280-character segments. Making a Twitter account is a good way to start mastering writing-based content.
The explosion of video as a medium has given businesses more reasons to pursue video-based marketing strategies. YouTube is one of the highest-trafficked websites after Facebook, with around 122 million active daily users. It’s a great place for businesses to share tutorials, demos, interviews, product walkthroughs, and other video content. TikTok has become the birthplace of countless trends and memes, making it a good option for social media marketers who dream of going viral.