- course details
- Dates and time: 6 – 8 p.m., two evenings per week, October 2024 (dates to be announced), registration in September
- Location: Online, instructor-led live sessions
- Number of sessions: 8 sessions over 2 weeks
- Instructional fee: $795 per person; reduced fees available (see Cost section below for details)
- Format: Zoom videoconference
This course was designed for business and non-profit professionals to gain a better understanding of social media marketing, promotions and content development. Lectures take place over a two-week period for two hours in the evenings, with each covering a specific topic.
If you want to learn the fundamentals of social media marketing, how to develop campaigns across the major social media platforms, and how to use ChatGPT to enhance your digital marketing efforts, then this course is for you!
What you will learn
- Contemporary digital marketing practices and techniques for social media management and campaigns
- How to use the tools regularly employed in this field
- How to create audience-centered social media content
- The key performance indicators in social media, how to analyze them, use them for decision making, and deliver return on investment (ROI)
- How to leverage generative AI (such as ChatGPT) to enhance digital marketing efforts
- How to design a digital marketing project to solve business problems ranging from small to large budgets
What are graduates saying?
"As someone who is a visual learner, the examples help when we aren't face-to-face"
"I will enroll if more classes like this were available"
"Instructors connected the content to the real world and simplified everything down well enough for a beginner in social media to get a big picture understanding"
Who should attend
Business managers, leaders, marketing practitioners, entrepreneurs and small businesses owners, non-profits, anyone in a traditional marketing career to gain practical understanding of modern marketing practices.
Course content
A typical course covers the following:
Week 1
- Why Use Social Media?
- Advantages of Social Media
- Identifying key channels, and when they should be used
- Learning how to set key performance indicators
- Activity: Establish Company KPIs
- Now that we are established, what should we do?
- Content modalities (influences, different multimedia content, podcasts)
- What tools are available? (free tools)
- The basic tools you need (microphone, video, cloud support)
- Goal setting
- Listening
- Activity: Social media audit
- Creating effective and authentic content
- Writing for social media
- Branding
- Reputation management
- Finding your tone
- Activity: Brand Tool Kit
- Building and Growing Networks of Support with Social Media
- Identifying your fans
- Influencers
- Cross promoting with other brands
- Contests, sweepstakes, events, and activities
- Activity: Social Media calendar
Week 2
- Analytics
- What is it?
- Metrics
- Platform-specific analytics
- Activity: Set up your Google Analytics dashboard
- Social Search- Organic vs Paid
- SEO/SEM
- Search tools
- UTM codes
- Hashtags
- Social listening, potential tools
- Activity: Exploring keywords and #hashtags
- Leveraging Generative AI for Digital Marketing Success
- Content creation
- Personalized marketing
- Chatbots and customer interaction
- Ad creativity and design
- Social media management
- Data analysis and insights
- Putting it all together
- Capstone presentations
Applied learning model
The combination of the “in class” training and the application of course concepts synthesized with real-world capstone project applications will help accelerate and increase the knowledge depth of students.
Student materials
- Materials will be available through the project management system Basecamp
- All required software is available for download for free
Instructors
Lectures will be offered by guest social media professionals and faculty from The Edward R. Murrow College of Communication and the Department of Digital Technology and Culture at WSU Vancouver.
Dr. Michael Rabby has taught at the university level for nearly thirty years, and at Washington State University Vancouver since 2010. He researches the intersection of technology, people, and relationships, and has published journal articles and book chapters in these subjects. He developed two social media courses and oversees the social media certificate. He earned his BS at the University of Texas at Austin, his MA at Pennsylvania State University and his PhD at Arizona State University.
Dr. Nanu Iyer is a Scholarly Associate Professor at The Edward R. Murrow College of Communication and Director of the Integrated Strategic Communication program at WSU Vancouver. He started his career in advertising as a media planner at Carat before transitioning to academia. His research interests are in health communication and public opinion of civic issues on social media. He teaches courses in strategic communication, including Advertising Principles, Quantitative Research, Consumer Insights, and Multimedia Content Creation. Nanu also teaches a daily yoga and meditation class at WSU Vancouver.
Cost
The instructional fee is $795. There are limited number of seats available for employees of small businesses with fewer than 150 employees ($398), non-profits and educational institutions ($199), and for current WSU employees ($199). All instructional fees are per person and include a nonrefundable administrative fee of $75. See Registration for details.
The registration fee is the same regardless of residence.
Meetings and format
The course is delivered via Zoom videoconference with live instruction. To attend, you need a computer with webcam, microphone and high-speed internet.
Each Zoom session allows for live interactions with the instructor and other students via chat, web conferencing or phone, all in real time. Assignments and other materials will be available online through a web-based learning management system.
Certificate completion
- Attend at least six of eight sessions
- Completion and presentation of Capstone project