What Classes to Take to Become a Social Media Strategist

There are a variety of courses one can take on the road to becoming a Social Media Strategist. Longer programs of study break down the intricacies of individual social media platforms, how search optimization works with their specific algorithms, and what successful social media marketing looks like on each platform. Longer courses often allow for more hands-on experience in creating real projects and receiving feedback from expert instructors. For those looking for more flexible options, you should consider classes targeted toward specific areas--such as marketing on LinkedIn only, how Google Ads works, or what email marketing entails--or that run for a shorter length of time so that they can fit better into your schedule. 

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.

What Skills Will I Need to Learn to Become a Social Media Strategist?

To become a Social Media Strategist, you will need strong communication, creativity, planning, and analysis skills as well as familiarity with major social media platforms, marketing strategies, and audience analytics. Successful Social Media Strategists know what works to raise the profile of the brands and businesses that are their clients and can help these clients implement their creative vision, grow their audience, and increase their sales. 

While you might have a basic knowledge of a social media platform just from using it frequently, Social Media Strategists need to move beyond the basics of posting memorable content and facilitating user engagement with a brand’s social media posts. A Social Media Strategist must also learn to market effectively to a target audience, track that audience’s engagement across different social media platforms, and run successful social media campaigns for their clients. Thus, to become a Social Media Strategist you need to learn what goes into marketing and advertising on each social media platform you plan to offer services for and you need to learn the basics of audience engagement tracking and monitoring using data analytics. 

Some of what you need to learn can be intuitive. You might already have an eye for the type of content that gains traction on Instagram or a feel for how to engage professionally with users on Facebook. Taking a class, either a multi-week comprehensive program or a shorter, more targeted boot camp, can help you to learn about the intricacies of how each social media platform functions, how to market differently across each platform, and how to use specific tools to raise awareness of a brand or business or better engage with and grow an audience on a specific platform. Unlike a more traditional four-year college degree program of study, many in-person and online classes offered by various educational providers can be tailored to your needs and taken at a time that works best for your schedule. 

What Courses Should I Enroll in to Become a Social Media Strategist?

Social Media Strategist or Digital Marketing Bootcamp

For those looking for an all-inclusive, comprehensive class that will cover all of the skills and tools necessary to become a Social Media Strategist, look for a Social Media Strategist class like a boot camp or certificate program. These classes can come in a variety of options, from short, week-long in-person intensive programs of study to part-time and full-time options one can pursue in as few as eight weeks to as long as three to six months in length. You should look for a program that is long enough to cover all necessary topics and that works for your particular schedule, depending on how you plan to attend the course or how many hours per week you can devote to it. Comprehensive classes are offered both live and in-person or remotely and online. Online classes can be those that you can take at the same time as other students (synchronously), classes where you move through content modules at your own pace (asynchronously), or a mix of the two (hybrid). You should consider whether you prefer to learn content in person or whether you want a more flexible online option when you are determining which class is right for you. 

What is offered by different educational providers varies, but you should expect that these comprehensive classes will teach you the basic tenets of marketing on major social media platforms, such as TikTok, Instagram, Twitter/X, Facebook, LinkedIn, and others. These classes will often introduce each platform separately so that you have a better understanding of how to advertise on that platform, what trends one finds in that platform’s specific advertising campaigns, and what other tools or services could benefit your work as a Social Media Strategist on that particular platform. These classes will not only provide you with quality examples of successful advertising campaigns but they often guide you in undertaking real projects of your own during the class. Working on real projects will provide you with a place to implement and try out what you have been learning throughout the class and receive feedback from experts and peers so that you can continue to improve upon your skills. 

During these classes, you should also expect to learn how to create strategic plans, utilize search engine optimization, and employ audience analytics as well as start or build upon your work portfolio to show to potential employers. These classes might cover more specific tools and services you might use, such as how to use Adobe or Canva for social media content creation or even how to use Google Analytics or Google Ads to track website performance and get your brand or business seen by more people, respectively. Many classes provide one-on-one guidance or mentoring from experts and some offer networking opportunities and job placement services, similar to those you might find at a traditional four-year college or university. 

Additionally, a Digital Marketing certificate or boot camp will also teach the skills necessary to become a successful Social Media Strategist. You should expect Digital Marketing classes to cover most, if not all, of the same content. The main difference between a Social Media Strategist class and a Digital Marketing class is that Digital Marketing covers how to advertise online outside of social media. Often these classes also incorporate how to do email marketing (something you might consider doing as a Social Media Strategist) and how to use paid advertising more comprehensively and for more and different online outlets. A Digital Marketing class will help you to become even more knowledgeable about online advertising and the skills you learn in this class or program of study should be easily transferable to social media platforms. 

TikTok Marketing Bootcamp

There are many shorter classes you take to jumpstart your Social Media Strategist career and gain proficiency in marketing on just one social media platform. Something like a six-hour TikTok Marketing boot camp will allow you to learn how to create video-based marketing on one of the world’s most popular social media platforms in just one day. A class like this will cover the uniqueness of TikTok’s search algorithm, dominant trends in marketing and competitive advertising on TikTok, and how to implement paid advertising and use Shopify on the platform. 

These types of classes exist for any major social media platform and you should consider which social media platforms you intend to use as a Social Media Strategist or which platforms your clients need help developing their audience and web presence on. While some Social Media Strategists specialize in marketing on one platform, most have the knowledge and ability to use the relevant social media platforms that businesses advertise on currently. If you start with gaining expertise on the platforms with which you are already familiar, you can always take a quick class to add familiarity with another platform to your repertoire of skills in the future. 

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Bootcamp

Another short class you could consider is one on Search Engine Optimization or SEO. These classes are often four-to-six hours in length, depending on the kind of content they offer. As a Social Media Strategist, it is important that audiences can find your clients and that they maintain a high search rank to remain seen and central to the conversation within their industry. Many clients will want you to be able to optimize how they appear in searches and where their content shows up across different social media platforms, making knowledge of SEO incredibly useful. 

In these classes, you can expect to learn what SEO is and how to optimize your brand or business’s content and search ranking across different platforms. Some classes will also teach how SEO works differently across desktop and mobile web experiences and, if that is something you need as part of what you will offer to clients, you should consider this when looking for one of these classes. These classes often cover free or subscription tools you can use to aid search optimization across different platforms and some even provide access or limited trials of these tools as part of the cost of the class.

Google Analytics Bootcamp

Google Analytics is a free service offered by Google to track and enhance a brand’s website or application performance. While the service is free, some find they need training in how to best use and understand Google Analytics, which is where taking a class can be useful. Classes on Google Analytics are ones you can often take in one day or a few hours and will walk you through creating an account, navigating the interface, learning which metrics will be useful for you to track, and understanding the reports. 

As a side note, if you only want to learn the basics of how to use Google Analytics, you should steer away from online classes offering certificates in Google Analytics. These certificate programs are for data analysts who want to learn how to code or program for this service. You do not need to know how to code websites to become a Social Media Strategist, though, if you do, that can certainly add to the range of skills you can offer prospective clients. 

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.