Youth Incorporated Magazine

With the increasing career opportunities that are being enabled due to social media, there is also an increased demand for courses for the same, so that people can learn the social media space and become the best. If you’re not quite ready to invest a lot of money into an actual course offered by universities around the world, you can check out these courses available online for free that can help you master social media marketing.

Social Media Specialization by Northwestern University

This course is available on Coursera and it teaches you the social strategies you need to expand your reach and grow your followers. It touches upon social listening and lead nurturing, which most other courses don’t touch upon. This is important because lead nurturing is often associated with email marketing, but it can also be done (and should be done) over social media. Offered by Northwestern University, this course is recommended for non-marketing professionals and early-stage founders who are interested in starting a social media strategy to grow their customer base.

Online Advertising and Social Media by the University of Maryland

Offered on edX, this course from the University of Maryland focuses on online advertising, specifically on social media advertising. Plus, it includes instruction on data analysis so that you can make informed decisions when refining your social strategy over time. This course is highly recommended for social media marketers who’d like to launch an advertising strategy, as well as new social media analysts who need a strong foundation in social data analysis.

Social Media Marketing Course by Acadium

Available on Acadium, this is a free beginner-level course that covers how to set up profiles on your chosen platforms and how to save time as you scale your social media efforts. This course is recommended for true beginners who not only need a foundation of digital marketing in general but also mentorship from Acadium’s group of mentors. Because it offers highly basic knowledge, this course is not recommended for current marketers or social media managers.

Fundamentals of Digital Marketing by Google

Google’s digital marketing certification has over 300,000 students and includes two social media modules to jumpstart your social media marketing knowledge. It also provides digital marketing courses in mobile marketing, SEO, content marketing, and web optimization. The courses explain paid and organic search and teach you how to develop search-engine-optimized web pages. Because this course covers everything related to digital marketing, it’s recommended for true beginners who’ve never been in marketing before and who’d like to learn a bit of everything.

The Strategy of Content Marketing by the University of California, Davis

Social media marketing is a type of content marketing, and this course can help you weave both into a more comprehensive strategy. In this online class offered by the University of California, Davis, you’ll learn how to create a content marketing strategy and develop an understanding of the ecosystem surrounding that strategy. Ample time will also be spent working on strategic writing and framing. The different types of content marketing will be reviewed, along with how they’re integral to social media marketing. There are five weeks worth of material paired with videos, exercises, readings, and quizzes. This course is recommended for social media marketers who’d like to approach social media marketing with a content-centric perspective.