Social media marketing uses social media channels, like X (formerly known as Twitter), Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, YouTube, and TikTok to connect with a target audience. Nearly 5 billion people—over half the world's population—use these platforms every day, making social media marketing a valuable tool to help drive website traffic, increase brand awareness, and create profits. Using modern techniques and 21st-century tools, like high-quality content, publishing strategy, listening and engagement, and analytics, Social Media Marketers can generate more engagement, gain more followers, and ultimately increase financial gain. As the internet and online commerce continue to dominate advertising, social media marketing is an important way to increase global visibility and quickly reach a large number of people to propel your business or build support.
What Can You Do with Social Media Marketing Training?
Learning social media marketing can help you start a new career in social media management, digital marketing, content strategy, or data analytics. You could work for an agency, company, or as a freelance consultant. Social media marketing training is also important for small business owners and entrepreneurs. Promoting your product or service on TikTok or Instagram provides a personal touch that print advertising doesn't have.
What Will I Learn in a Social Media Marketing Class?
When you sign up for a social media marketing class, you will learn many new skills that you can use to plan and run a social media marketing campaign for your own business or as a Social Media Manager for another company. Some common skills covered include campaign strategy, content planning and publishing, listening and engagement, data analytics, and advertising.
Strategy
Planning a campaign is one of the first steps in social media marketing. When you take a social media marketing class, you will learn how to define your goals and choose the right platform to connect with your target audience.
Planning and Publishing
Sharing the right content is key in social media marketing. A class will show you how to create content your audience wants and determine the best time and how often to publish it. You will learn to use scheduling tools to help you maintain consistent posting to keep your content in front of your audience.
Listening and Engagement
Once you have launched a social media marketing campaign, you will need to keep up with the likes, shares, and comments from your audience. Classes will show you how to use listening and engagement tools to stay on top of the conversation, identify opportunities to grow, and keep an eye on your competition.
Analytics
Data analytics is the heart of digital marketing. These tools let you collect and analyze data on many aspects of your audience's behavior to let you make plans for future campaigns. Each social media platform has its own version of analytics and classes cover the various social media analytics tools available.
Earned and Paid Advertising
You will also learn the difference between earned and paid advertising on social media. Earned or organic advertising means building an audience and engaging with followers to drive traffic to a website to sell products or services. Earned advertising is free but it can take several months to see results. Paid ads on social media cost money but you see the effects very quickly. A class will teach you how to decide which strategy is right for your situation and how to use paid ads on different platforms.
How Hard is It to Learn Social Media Marketing?
Social media marketing is not difficult to learn, but it does take patience, motivation, and effort. If you have already spent time on social media and are familiar with some platforms, learning how to choose the right place for your campaign will be easier, but identifying a target audience, choosing content, and monitoring your campaign can take some time. Another challenge of learning social media marketing is the fast-paced changes that happen on the platforms. You need to stay informed and keep up with blogs and podcasts, and YouTube channels to learn about the latest developments.
What Are the Most Challenging Parts of Learning Social Media Marketing?
Depending on your background, the most challenging part of learning social media marketing is learning to use the tools. Google Analytics, Moz, SEMRush, and platform analytics tools can provide valuable insights once you know how to use them, but if you aren't used to learning tech tools, this can feel overwhelming. This is where taking a social media marketing course can help you. An experienced instructor knows the tools and keeps up with the latest versions and can show you how to get the information you need.
How Long Does It Take to Learn Social Media Marketing?
Certificate courses in social media marketing usually take two to four months to complete, and some programs allow you to repeat classes during the first year if you need to. This time frame depends on your level of prior experience with social media and how much time you are able to spend studying and practicing. One way to speed up your learning time is to create some social media accounts and figure out how they work. If you have a website, you can experiment with the different analytics tools to get extra practice. While it is possible to teach yourself social media marketing, many people find that taking classes speeds up the process considerably.
Should I Learn Social Media Marketing in Person or Online?
When you decide to take a social media marketing class, you will need to choose between in-person and online classes. Which learning environment you choose depends on where you feel most comfortable. Most people are more familiar with in-person instruction. This model has an instructor in a classroom or lab setting with students at desks around the room. In an in-person class, you can ask the instructor questions, get help when you need it, and talk to other students. In-person classes are held according to a set schedule and you have to commute to the class location. While this type of class can often be found in large cities, if you live in the suburbs, it can be difficult to get to class.
The other option is to sign up for an online class. These come in two types: live online or on-demand, also known as synchronous and asynchronous. Live online classes run at the same time as an in-person class. There is a live remote instructor in a classroom with some students, while others attend over a video conferencing platform like Zoom. You can interact with the instructor and other students to ask questions, get help, or network together. You can attend class from anywhere with a stable internet connection, like your home, office, or favorite quiet cafe.
Asynchronous or on-demand classes are recorded sessions that you can watch on your own at your convenience. They are usually accessed through a subscription platform that sometimes offers a free trial. An advantage to on-demand classes is that you can go back and rewatch the videos as often as you like, but there is no live instructor to talk to and recorded classes can become out of date quickly.
Can I Learn Social Media Marketing Free Online?
You can definitely get started learning social media marketing for free online. It doesn't cost anything to start a website and open accounts on a couple of platforms. There are many free tutorials and seminars on YouTube like Noble Desktop's Intro to Social Media Marketing and Intro to Social Media Marketing with Video, as well as podcasts and blogs to check out. Free resources are a great way to find out if social media marketing is right for you, but most people find that taking classes helps them learn the more challenging aspects.
What Should I Learn Alongside Social Media Marketing?
Once you begin learning social media marketing, you may find other skills you want to explore, including digital marketing, website optimization, content management, or brand marketing.
Digital Marketing
Social media marketing is often part of digital marketing strategy. In addition to choosing the best platforms and content for a campaign, Digital Marketers plan strategies for long-term growth. Some tasks for Digital Marketers include SEO, website audits, and email marketing.
Website Optimization/SEO
website optimization and SEO are other important skills for Social Media Marketers. This involves performing audits to ensure that websites are performing efficiently and attracting the target audience, and choosing the best keywords to attract customers who will buy the product.
Content Management
Learning how to choose or create content for a target audience is another important skill. Beyond quality content, Social Media Marketers need to develop a successful publishing schedule and then track the content's performance using analytics tools.
Brand Marketing
Brand Marketers help clarify the brand message for individuals and companies. This is a public relations position supporting a company’s or individual’s public image. Brand Marketers work closely with other teams like marketing, advertising, and sales to research industry trends and public perception and create marketing and advertising campaigns to strengthen brand identity.
Industries That Use Social Media Marketing
With nearly 5 million people using social media worldwide, many industries have embraced the platforms. Some of the most common industries that use social media marketing include retail, entertainment, hospitality and tourism, and healthcare.
Retail
Retail brands use images and videos of products on social media to attract customers. Relationships with social media influencers can also boost a brand. Some retail companies based in Miami include Chewy, Gopuff, AIR Communities, Brilliant Earth, Instawork, and Intradeco Apparel.
Media and Entertainment
The media and entertainment industry connects with audiences and promotes content on social media. Platforms like YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, and X provide an ideal space for media and entertainment companies to share trailers, behind-the-scenes content, and sneak peeks of upcoming releases. Some Miami area media and entertainment companies include Warner Bros. Discovery, MultiMedia, Sony Pictures, Disney, Silhouette, and Univision Communications.
Hospitality and Tourism
Miami is a center of hospitality and tourism and many businesses promote their hotels, restaurants, tour companies, and theme parks on social media. Some hospitality companies in the area include Royal Caribbean International, Luxury Link, Carnival Cruise Line, AD1 Global, and EVB.
Healthcare
Social media platforms allow healthcare providers and organizations with a powerful tool to reach a wider audience and connect with patience in new and innovative ways. Social media can promote healthcare services, share health-related information, and educate patience about various health conditions and treatments. Some healthcare companies in Miami are Kaiser Permanente, DaVita, Labcorp, UnitedHealth Group, HCA Healthcare, and Elevance Health.
Social Media Marketing Job Titles and Salaries
People with social media marketing skills can find jobs with large companies and small companies to promote products, services, or brands. The Bureau of Labor Statistics doesn't break out Social Media Marketers from the marketing and advertising category, but jobs in the field in general are expected to grow by at least 6% over the coming decade. Below are some common job titles in social media marketing.
Social Media Marketing Specialist
A Social Media Marketing Specialist designs and plans campaigns to promote products and services on social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, or TikTok. They can work in-house or freelance, full or part-time, and many people work remotely. Social Media Strategists in the U.S. earn around $65,000 a year and $57,000 in Miami.
Content Manager
Content Managers oversee the blog posts and videos that are shared on a company's social media accounts. They determine the most effective time to publish and create a schedule After publication, the Content Manager follows the post through analytics tools and responds to audience comments. A Content Manager in Miami makes around $56,000 annually.
Brand Manager
Brand Managers are in charge of promoting a company's brand instead of a product. They often work with social media influencers to get the word out about a brand and push a positive message. A Brand Manager in Miami earns an average yearly salary around $80,000.
Social Media Data Analyst
A Social Media Data Analyst uses data analytics tools to assess how a campaign is doing and make recommendations for changes according to the data collected. The average salary for a Social Media Data Analyst in Miami is about $73,000 a year.
Social Media Marketing Classes Near Me
General Assembly offers an in-person Social Media Bootcamp in Miami for people who want to build a brand using social media. The course begins with an overview of social media platforms and how they benefit brands.
Noble Desktop's Social Media Marketing Certificate is a comprehensive program covering how to attract a following, create successful content, and create advertisements on various popular platforms. The course also includes a portfolio class to help you put together quality examples of your work to use in job searches.
Noble also offers individual classes on the different social media platforms, including Instagram Marketing Bootcamp, LinkedIn Marketing Bootcamp, Social Media Video Marketing: YouTube & TikTok, and Social Media Content Marketing: Blogs & X.
Instagram for Business is a course from Certstaffix Training designed for entrepreneurs and marketers who want to use Instagram to promote their businesses. The course covers Instagram branding, direct response marketing, building a following, driving sales, and identifying a target audience. Certstaffix also offers courses on X for Business, YouTube for Business, LinkedIn for Business, and Facebook Advertising.
Ledet Training's Social Media Marketing with Facebook and X introduces students to techniques for driving traffic to a page, promoting a brand, and engaging customers on these two popular platforms.
Social Media Marketing Corporate Training
If you are looking to retrain or upskill your employees in social media marketing, Noble Desktop can meet your corporate training needs. You can schedule classes at your offices in a conference room with a live or remote instructor for the classes of your choice. Noble's catalog includes introductory and bootcamp courses in different platforms, data analytics techniques, content marketing, and streaming for social media. Noble can also design courses to meet your company's specific needs.
Noble offers group class vouchers at a bulk discount. Employees can schedule individual classes according to their own schedules. Instructors are experienced industry professionals and attendees receive handouts, exam guides, and access to training videos to help them reinforce new skills. Find out how you can help your staff build their skills at corporate@nobledesktop.com.