Learn Social Media Marketing

Discover the power of social media marketing and how it can skyrocket your career. Learn about various classes, resources, and career opportunities in this booming field.

Key Insights

Social media marketing is a powerful tool for promoting products, brands, and services using platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and others.
There are two types of social media marketing: paid and unpaid, and the strategies are based on setting goals, planning, publishing, listening, engaging, analyzing, and advertising.
Careers in social media marketing include roles in digital marketing, content strategy, data analytics, social media management, and consulting.
The demand for social media marketing professionals is expected to increase by 10% by 2026, with a wide range of salaries from approximately $42,000 to $140,000 per year.
Noble Desktop offers various social media marketing courses, providing skills necessary for a career in the industry. They also offer free introductory video courses and tutorials for those interested in exploring the field.
Learning social media marketing depends on one's level of interest, available time, and motivation. It's beneficial for those interested in content marketing and web optimization/SEO fields.

Social media marketing is one of the most successful ways to promote a product, brand, or idea. Both the number of social media users and the powerful data analytics tools make Social Media Marketer a solid career choice. If you’ve always wanted to learn social media marketing but can’t figure out how to get started, this guide is for you. Here, you’ll learn more about the various ways to learn Social Media Marketing, free resources to take advantage of, and the types of careers that commonly use social media marketing.

What is Social Media Marketing?

Social media marketing uses platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, YouTube, and TikTok to connect with a target audience. According to Hootsuite’s Digital 2021 report, more than 4.48 billion people use these platforms daily, making social media marketing a smart choice to help drive website traffic, build a widely-known brand, and gain revenue.

There are two types of social media marketing: paid and unpaid. Paid marketing means buying ads on different social media sites, while unpaid marketing relies on high-quality content, clicks, likes, and shares. It’s also called “earned marketing.” While earned marketing is valuable because it doesn’t cost any money, it can take a long time to see results, so Social Media Marketers need to be patient and persistent.

A social media marketing campaign is based on these five essential activities:

Strategy–setting goals, choosing the best channels, and deciding what type of content will attract your audience.
Planning and publishing–understanding your audience, knowing what and when to publish, and maintaining consistency.
Listening and engagement–interacting with your audience and tracking changes in the market.
Analytics–collecting, tracking, and analyzing data on social media accounts so you can figure out what is working for you.
Advertising–earned and paid advertising.

Read more about what social media marketing is and why you should learn it.

What Can You Do with Social Media Marketing?

Social media marketing is a powerful way to get the word out about your product or message, and one of the best things is you can do it for free. It doesn’t cost anything to open accounts on the different social media platforms, and many of the digital marketing tools you need are free to use or have a free version.

Data analytics tools allow you to research the market, identify a target audience, and tailor your message directly to them. Engagement tools let you interact with potential customers, get important feedback, see what your competitors are doing, and change your campaign as you need to. Social media marketing creates and maintains a community through regularly posted, high-quality content.

It can take a bit of time to see organic results, but you can use paid advertising to speed things up. Advertising increases engagement and is a good investment. Social media marketing tools allow you to pinpoint your audience and advertise just to them.

Careers that Use Social Media Marketing

Social Media Marketer is an interesting and lucrative career. Social media marketing skills can lead to jobs in digital marketing, content strategy, data analytics, social media management, and consulting. An understanding of social media is also useful for entrepreneurs or small business owners.

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics expects that jobs in the marketing industry should increase by 10% by 2026, which is above the average for all careers. With demand for online presence continuing to climb, social media marketing job prospects are likely on the higher end. According to Glassdoor, social media marketing professionals can earn a yearly salary between about $42,00 and $140,000. This is quite a wide range of salaries and can also vary depending on position, location, company size, skill set, and experience.

Why Learn Social Media Marketing?

As businesses have moved online, social media marketing has become a popular career. In order to become a successful Social Media Marketer, you need to understand how the different social media platforms operate and their focuses. You need to have skills like clear communication, organization, flexibility, writing, creativity, and data analytics. You also need to know how to build a brand and use quality content to increase sales.

How to Learn Social Media Marketing

How you choose to learn social media marketing is up to you. You can watch free video tutorials like Noble Desktop’s Intro to Social Media Marketing to get an overview, but after that, the best plan is to sign up for a class. You can take live in-person classes or choose online instruction. Some people prefer to attend brick-and-mortar sessions when learning new information, but that isn’t always available. Live online classes have a similar set-up to in-person classes with a real-time, remote instructor who can answer questions and take control of your monitor—with permission—to answer questions and demonstrate techniques. You can sign up for part or full-time classes on weekdays, weeknights, or weekends.

Some companies offer asynchronous online classes that you can take according to your own schedule. You can watch the videos from work or home and move at your own pace. Udacity offers a class called Become a Digital Marketer, and Udemy offers VIP Digital Marketing Master.

One advantage to asynchronous video classes is that you can go back and watch the material as many times as you need to if you are having trouble with a concept.

If a full class feels like too much right now, you can attend free online seminars like Noble Desktop’s Intro to Facebook Marketing or free digital marketing seminars on Coursera, Constant Content, or CopyBlogger. These free seminars will give you an idea of what social media marketing is about and whether you want to explore it further.

Read the full guide on how to learn social media marketing.

Free Introductory Social Media Marketing Course Online

Free courses can give you a brief introduction to some aspects of social media marketing. This can help you decide if you want to pursue the field further. If you are not ready to commit to the time and expense involved with a bootcamp or certificate course, you can find free introductory video courses and tutorials. Noble Desktop offers Intro to Social Media Marketing, a seminar that introduces students to social media marketing and how to successfully leverage it to increase the reach of their brand. The tutorial emphasizes the importance of choosing the right social media channels for the right message and cultivating an authentic brand voice. Students learn to research what works and what doesn't for their brand, then discover what makes for good storytelling in a social media context. By the end of the tutorial, students will have a firm understanding of social media marketing and how to create an action plan to generate organic brand engagement.

Some other free online introductory courses and tutorials include What is Social? from Coursera, WordStream Learn’s PPC University, Social Media Quickstarter from Constant Contact, and Google Analytics Academy, a series of free classes about Google’s measurement tools.

There are many options for free social media marketing tutorials on YouTube. Simplilearn offers a six-hour Social Media Marketing Full Course tutorial for beginners. Neil Patel has several free tutorials on learning social media marketing and other digital marketing topics. Other YouTubers offering free online tutorials include Maggie Stara, Jordan Platten, Dan Lok, and Santrel Media.

Level of Difficulty, Prerequisites, & Cost

Whether or not social media marketing is difficult to learn depends upon your level of interest, the time you have to devote to study, and your motivation. Do you love having a passion project? Do you enjoy multitasking and keeping track of data? Is creating content for social media followers your idea of a good time? Then it probably wouldn’t be hard for you to learn social media marketing and change careers, especially if you sign up for a certificate course.

Enrolling in a class doesn’t necessarily need any prerequisites to learn social media marketing, but a few skills can make the experience easier. If you are comfortable with technology and like working with numbers, it will be easier for you to learn to use social media marketing tools. Some familiarity with social media and good communication skills are a plus, too. Beyond that, solid writing ability, creativity, persistence, and the ability to multitask will make learning social media smoother.

Beyond the cost of a class, it isn’t that expensive to learn social media marketing. Some of the most widely used tools like Google Analytics are free, and others like Moz have a free version to get you started. SEMRush is another useful digital marketing tool, and while it can be expensive, you get a seven-day free trial to try it out first.

Read about how difficult it is to learn social media marketing.

How Does Learning Social Media Marketing Compare to Other Fields?

A comparable field to social media marketing might be content marketing. Blog posts, emails, and videos are examples of content created to convince a customer to take action. Content Marketers tell the story of a product or brand and connect with a target audience across a variety of channels, including websites, blogs, apps, and social media platforms. Storytelling ability is crucial in order to build and maintain a community audience.

Content Marketers also need to develop and implement a content schedule. This publishing plan determines the most advantageous timing for publishing content on a weekly, monthly, yearly, or seasonal basis.

Another field similar to social media marketing is web optimization/SEO. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a key factor in digital marketing. SEO improves a website’s performance and ensures it ranks high in organic results without paying for advertising. The ability to choose the right keywords, keep tabs on how the site is performing, and develop strategies for improvement make Web Optimization Specialists an important part of the digital marketing team. To get a job in the field, you will need to learn to use data analysis tools, create marketing strategies, and keep on top of the constantly changing world of SEO.

How to Decide the Best Way to Learn Social Media Marketing

What is the best way to learn social media marketing? That is up to you to decide. You can take an in-person class or study through a live-online program. You can choose courses that meet during the week, on the weekends, or in the evenings. And you can select the level where you feel comfortable starting.

If you are just starting with social media marketing, you might be more interested in a general overview of the key features of social media marketing, such as what it is, how you do it, and what tools you need. Many free introductory seminars, such as Intro to Social Media Marketing from Noble Desktop, offer an overview for beginners in social media marketing.

Once you understand social media marketing fundamentals, you might want to learn more about content creation or analytics tools. You can sign up for a bootcamp course that covers social media marketing in more depth, like one of Noble Desktop’s social media marketing bootcamps. These bootcamps deliver targeted instruction on the different social media platforms, Google Analytics, content marketing strategy, and search engine optimization/SEO.

If you want to master social media marketing for a new career or pivot from another industry, a social media marketing certificate course can help you stand out from other candidates. Noble Desktop’s Social Media Marketing Certificate covers the major social media platforms and their analytics and advertising programs, plus how to manage content and boost business. This full-length course includes 1-on-1 mentoring and assistance with designing and assembling your professional portfolio.

Key Insights

Social media marketing uses social media platforms and tools to promote products and services.
Because it is based on data, social media marketing is highly targeted and measurable.
If you are thinking of changing to a career in social media marketing, it’s a good idea to familiarize yourself with some of the digital tools that marketers use.
Classes are a great way to learn social media marketing. Virtual classes offer students the same training, content, structure, and opportunities for mentorship and feedback as in-person courses. Plus, attendees have added scheduling flexibility and the convenience of taking classes from anywhere.
You can receive comprehensive social media marketing training through an in-person or live online course with Noble Desktop.