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edX

Social Media Marketing Foundations

Aptly via edX

Overview

MIT Sloan: Drive Business Value with AI
6-week cohort with live MIT Faculty sessions. Learn to scale AI beyond the pilot stage.
Build Your AI Strategy

Discover the core principles of social media marketing and learn how to use today’s top platforms to drive meaningful business results. This course begins by breaking down what social media marketing truly is, its role in the digital landscape, the value it brings to brands, the challenges it presents, and how real companies use it to engage audiences and boost growth.

You’ll explore the major social platforms, their unique features, and the audiences they attract. By understanding each platform’s strengths and demographics, you’ll learn how to choose the right channels for different business goals. From there, you’ll dive into the social media marketing funnel, gaining clarity on how users move from awareness to conversion and which key performance indicators (KPIs) reveal whether your strategy is working. You’ll also be introduced to AI tools that help measure, track, and optimize performance.

Goal-setting becomes a central focus as you learn to define clear, actionable objectives that align with broader business strategies. Through the SMART framework, you’ll practice creating goals that are specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound.

Next, you’ll be guided through understanding your target audience, how to identify who you want to reach, what matters to them, and how to analyze their behaviors. You’ll create audience personas that inform your messaging and content choices, supported by AI tools that enhance audience research and persona development.

The course then moves into content strategy, showing you how to plan and create content that speaks to your audience and supports your goals. You’ll learn how to build a practical content calendar and use AI to generate content ideas, streamline scheduling, and maintain consistency across platforms.

By the end, you’ll have a foundation in social media marketing, equipped with the knowledge, tools, and strategic approach needed to plan, execute, and measure campaigns with confidence.

Syllabus

  • Define the role of social media in digital marketing

  • Match platforms to audience behavior and business goals

  • Build detailed audience personas for targeted content

  • Set SMART goals aligned with company objectives

  • Create strategic content calendars that drive engagement

  • Measure performance using KPIs and AI-powered insights

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