Foundations of Social Media Strategy

This unit establishes core skills for launching and managing a brand’s social presence, including platform selection, audience targeting, content marketing systems, scheduling, and basic SEO tactics. Students will also prepare measurement approaches—identifying KPIs, calculating ROI inputs, and using standard analytics—to support integrated organic and paid social campaigns in subsequent units.

Learning Objectives

• Analyze target audiences and online customer behaviors using segmentation and social listening techniques to select the most effective platforms and content placements.
• Apply content marketing and scheduling practices by developing an editorial calendar, building a basic blog/content outline, and mapping platform-specific profile elements for multiple networks.
• Demonstrate preparation for return-on-investment measurement by identifying relevant KPIs, constructing a measurement plan, and extracting performance data from standard analytics and platform reporting tools.
• Evaluate platform features and entry-level paid integration options (e.g., ad placement, paid amplification, live streaming) to recommend an integrated organic-plus-paid social media approach aligned with business goals.