Social Media Manager Course

Lesson 1 • Business Goals and Social Media Alignment

Explains how social media supports broader business objectives such as awareness, lead generation, and retention. Grounds all later strategy work in measurable outcomes.

Lesson 2 • The Social Media Manager Role

Defines daily responsibilities, required skill sets, and career paths. Connects role clarity to effective workload planning throughout the course.

Lesson 3 • The Social Media Ecosystem Today

Surveys major platforms, their user demographics, and content formats. Establishes the baseline knowledge needed to make informed platform selection decisions.

Lesson 1 • Primary and Secondary Audience Research

Teaches qualitative and quantitative research methods for gathering audience insights. Students apply these methods to real or simulated brand scenarios.

Lesson 2 • Understanding Your Target Audience

Introduces demographic, psychographic, and behavioural audience dimensions. Provides the analytical lens used in every research activity in this chapter.

Lesson 3 • Building Audience Personas

Guides students through structuring research findings into actionable persona documents. Personas become the reference point for content decisions in later chapters.

Lesson 1 • Building a Social Media Strategy Document

Synthesises goals, audience data, platform choices, and pillars into a single strategy document. Students practice presenting the strategy to a simulated stakeholder.

Lesson 2 • Platform Selection and Channel Mix

Teaches criteria-based platform selection using audience data and resource constraints. Students justify channel choices with evidence rather than assumption.

Lesson 3 • Content Pillars and Brand Voice

Defines recurring content themes and a consistent brand voice framework. These pillars structure all content creation work in subsequent chapters.

Lesson 4 • Competitive Analysis and Positioning

Analyses competitor social presence to identify gaps and differentiation opportunities. Positions the brand uniquely within its competitive landscape.

Lesson 1 • Visual Content Fundamentals

Introduces design principles, image selection, and basic graphic creation for social media. Ensures non-designers can produce on-brand visuals independently.

Lesson 2 • Content Repurposing and Batching

Teaches efficient workflows for repurposing one asset across multiple formats and platforms. Reduces production time while maintaining content quality and consistency.

Lesson 3 • Video and Short-Form Content Production

Teaches scripting, filming, and editing short-form videos optimised for social feeds. Addresses the growing dominance of video across all major platforms.

Lesson 4 • Principles of Social Media Copywriting

Covers attention-grabbing hooks, concise messaging, and platform-specific tone. Applies brand voice guidelines established in the strategy chapter.

Lesson 1 • Scheduling Tools and Automation

Introduces leading scheduling platforms and their core features for queue management. Students configure and publish a scheduled content queue using a chosen tool.

Lesson 2 • Managing Campaigns Within the Calendar

Integrates product launches, promotions, and awareness campaigns into the ongoing calendar. Teaches prioritisation when campaign content competes with evergreen posts.

Lesson 3 • Optimal Posting Frequency and Timing

Analyses platform-specific data on posting frequency and peak audience activity windows. Students set evidence-based schedules rather than relying on generic advice.

Lesson 1 • Engagement Strategy and Response Frameworks

Establishes principles for proactive and reactive engagement that builds audience loyalty. Provides response templates adaptable to various brand voices and situations.

Lesson 2 • Handling Negative Feedback and Crises

Prepares students to respond to complaints, viral criticism, and full social media crises. Applies a structured decision framework to minimise reputational damage.

Lesson 3 • Building and Nurturing Brand Advocates

Identifies high-value community members and converts them into active brand advocates. Connects advocacy programmes to organic reach and word-of-mouth growth.

Lesson 4 • Moderation Policies and Guidelines

Teaches how to create and enforce community guidelines that protect brand reputation. Covers escalation paths for sensitive or harmful content.

Lesson 1 • Building and Presenting Performance Reports

Guides students through creating clear, visually compelling reports for stakeholders. Emphasises storytelling with data to secure buy-in for strategic changes.

Lesson 2 • Third-Party Analytics and Reporting Tools

Introduces cross-platform analytics tools that consolidate data into unified dashboards. Compares tool capabilities to help students select the right fit for their context.

Lesson 3 • Platform Native Analytics Deep Dive

Navigates the built-in analytics dashboards of major platforms to extract actionable data. Students practice pulling and interpreting reports from at least two platforms.

Lesson 4 • Interpreting Data and Finding Insights

Teaches analytical thinking to move from raw numbers to strategic recommendations. Students practice identifying trends, anomalies, and content performance patterns.

Lesson 1 • Campaign Optimisation and Budget Management

Monitors live campaign performance and applies optimisation tactics to improve results. Students practice bid strategy adjustments and budget reallocation decisions.

Lesson 2 • Ad Creative Best Practices

Teaches principles for designing high-converting ad visuals and copy across formats. Connects creative decisions to campaign objectives and audience psychology.

Lesson 3 • Paid vs. Organic Social Strategy

Clarifies when paid amplification is necessary and how it complements organic efforts. Sets the strategic context for all advertising decisions in this chapter.

Lesson 4 • Audience Targeting and Custom Audiences

Covers interest, behavioural, lookalike, and retargeting audience types for paid campaigns. Applies audience persona work to precise ad targeting configurations.