How to Become a Social Media Strategist Without a Degree in 2024

This article introduces what a Social Media Strategist is and does and discusses how it is possible to follow this career path even without a traditional, four-year college degree in marketing, communications, or public relations. 

What is a Social Media Strategist?

A Social Media Strategist is someone in charge of the social media accounts and online presence of a brand or company. This includes managing a brand’s posts to various online platforms like TikTok, YouTube, Instagram, and Twitter/X, developing or implementing social media marketing campaigns, tracking and increasing audience engagement, and working to raise awareness of a brand and its products. Social Media Strategists need to have a firm grasp on what content is appealing on different platforms, how users meaningfully engage with content and brands on these platforms, and what the important trends brands can tap into across platforms are. Not only do Social Media Strategists post and manage content on social media, but they also work with audience analytics, paying attention to how users react to and engage with a brand’s content to determine the success of specific campaigns and future strategies for further engagement.

Can You Really Become a Social Media Strategist Without a Degree?

Yes, you can become a Social Media Strategist even without a college degree. In this case, employers will want to see more of your hands-on experience using social media to raise awareness of a brand, a company, or a person. It will be key for you to develop a portfolio with social media cases proving your successes in helping to build a brand, company, or person’s online presence that you can show potential employers. Your work portfolio should show clear links between your strategies and the outcomes of gaining more followers or achieving better sales. 

Additionally, even without a degree, you can gain the skills you need to become a Social Media Strategist by taking a full certification program or a boot camp. Certification programs and boot camps can allow you to gain the same information and skills as someone with a college degree and you can take these classes around your schedule and much quicker than a traditional four-year degree program. 

It takes a lot of planning, strategy, and rigor to excel and achieve a college degree, so, if you have a traditional degree in something other than marketing or communications, you can still leverage what you have learned and experienced to show that you will be an asset to future employers. Here, you can emphasize the classes and degree requirements that helped you to learn key communication, writing, and analysis skills. Social Media Strategists need to excel at communicating a brand’s vision to different audiences, so, it can be useful to think back on your educational experiences and find specific assignments, essays, and projects where you show your ability to communicate. Additionally, you can highlight your ability to plan, coordinate, and strategize for success on individual and group projects. There are many ways to translate the work you have done in and outside of college so that employers can see that you can do the work required of a Social Media Strategist.

Steps to Become a Social Media Strategist

There are a variety of free and paid resources you can explore to become a Social Media Strategist. To start, you can research more about this career online to learn if it is right for you and to clarify what steps one needs to take to become a Social Media Strategist. One such resource you can explore is Noble Desktop’s free Intro to Social Media Marketing seminar. This free video seminar will provide an introduction to this career and its benefits, the basics about relevant social media platforms, and teach the pillars of success for a Social Media Strategist. 

Once you are clear on the basics of being a Social Media Strategist, you can start by building your own online presence or volunteering your services for a local business or non-profit. As long as you have basic familiarity with how to use, post content to, and engage with audiences across different social media platforms, you can get started building up your portfolio initially even without further education or advanced knowledge of analytics, marketing, and advertising. At this point, you can use graphic design tools like Canva, Adobe Express, or many other free alternatives to create and curate social media posts and consider using subscription services like Buffer or Hootsuite to help manage the scheduling and posting of content across multiple social media platforms. These are paid services, however, you can find cheaper alternatives by searching online. Once you are ready to move into the professional sphere of social media strategy, then you will want to think about using services like Google Analytics to aid your implementation of social media campaigns and make sure you not only engage with but also grow your audience.

Enrolling in individual classes, certificate programs, or short boot camps can help you gain the information and skills necessary to use the tools previously mentioned and follow the Social Media Strategist career path. Noble Desktop offers a full Social Media Marketing Certificate program as well as a Digital Marketing Certificate for those interested in marketing on social media and beyond. Both of these certificate programs will introduce the foundations and theories of online marketing through social media (and other online services, for Digital Marketing), teach familiarity with social media platforms and audience analytics, and introduce you to the tools and programs you will need to utilize as a successful Social Media Strategist along with allowing you to create or keep building your portfolio of work and tackle real marketing projects. If you’re looking for something quicker or more targeted to a specific topic, like Email or Content Marketing, Noble Desktop offers short boot camps that will expedite your ability to learn basic skills from experts in the field and jumpstart your Social Media Strategist career. 

Learn the Skills to Become a Social Media Strategist at Noble Desktop

For those looking to become a Social Media Strategist, Noble Desktop offers a Social Media Marketing Certificate program that can be taken in person in New York City or live online from any location. This program teaches useful marketing strategies, how to tap into popular trends, and how paid advertising works across major social media platforms like Instagram, TikTok, Twitter/X, LinkedIn, and YouTube. In this program, you will learn the strategies to create compelling visual and written content that will raise a profile to the top of a platform and be seen by the right audiences. Additionally, this Noble Desktop certificate program includes one-on-one mentoring from experts in the field and allows students to create a portfolio of work they can show to potential employers. 

Students might also be interested in Noble Desktop’s Digital Marketing Certificate, which can be taken in person in New York City or live online. Not only will one learn the skills necessary to become a Social Media Strategist in this certificate program, but students will also learn a wider array of skills necessary for the digital marketplace. In addition to social media marketing, this program teaches students about search engine optimization (SEO), marketing across email and other forms of content, and how to track and analyze key performance data and analytics. This program also offers expert mentoring as you work on real projects to improve your digital marketing skills. 

Noble Desktop also offers shorter programs of study, such as a six-hour class on Digital Market Strategy & Web Fundamentals. This shorter class allows students to develop a successful digital marketing strategy to reach a desired audience as well as learn about everything that goes into what makes a great website, who makes up the target audience, and how to reach that audience. In addition, Noble Desktop has targeted boot camps for individual social media platforms (TikTok Marketing, Instagram Marketing, Facebook Marketing, LinkedIn Marketing, and Social Media Marketing: Blogs and Twitter) and skills such as Content Marketing, Email Marketing, and Search Engine Optimization that may interest those looking to upskill or quickly learn the basics of a specific form of digital marketing.