My Takeaway

Social media marketing: the use of social media platforms, such as Facebook and Twitter, to promote a business or product. It is the strategy planning behind a brand and how to make it more appealing to the public eye. We are in a social media revolution, and it is changing how marketers are approaching clients. It has changed the way people communicate and share information, and this can be very useful for businesses to interact with potential and current customers.

It’s easy to see that social media marketing is a key element for success in marketing and many marketers realize the potential for business growth using the platform. 

Blue Fountain Media

Since we are at a time where technology and social media run the majority of advertising for businesses, I thought it would be smart to take a class and learn more about it.

When I first scheduled for this course last spring, I wasn’t sure what it all entailed. I thought it would be a bland and basic marketing class that left me as confused as when I started, but that was not the case. Going back to the first day of class, the content was already past my expectations. Through the readings in the Stukent textbook and the expert sessions, I learned a lot about social media marketing and all the tips and tricks to creating a successful social media presence for a business. The textbook created a great outline to follow in order to learn more about each division of marketing, before you put it all together in a strategy report for a business. It took traditional marketing plans and spiced them up with new ones being used in the industry today. All of these findings really helped once we had to create a social media marketing report for a business.

The final project challenged me to recall what I have learned and can takeaway from this course. It was the first time I had to go on my own and determine what research to consider using for things such as the audit and tactic of our strategy. Just from this one project, out of all of the other assignments we had, I got a sneak peak of what it would be like to have a job working with marketing. I always thought I would like marketing, but I never really knew what it all was about. From this course, I am able to say that I genuinely like social media marketing and it is one of the potential career fields that I would like to pursue in the future.

The skills I picked up from this course vary a lot from what I was used to. The basics of posting on social media platforms caught me off guard, because I did not think there was so much research behind things like “what a few words can do” and “good photo content”. Logos, a company’s page name, and their captions make all the difference of creating either a good post or a bad post. A business wants to have a simple layout with the main focus on their photo or video- don’t distract with wordy captions and emojis. Basic principles like these have helped me look at social media differently. Before this course, I only saw social media as a source of entertainment, but now I notice there is a lot of advertising and tactics being used to increase someone’s business or brand.

In our world today, with such a large percentage of people using social media for entertainment, shopping, and other forms of relief, it is important for businesses to have a strong social media presence and connect with the public. Being more than familiar with social media right now, to me, is one of the biggest takeaways from this course. Before, I never used Facebook or Twitter, but once we had to use them for our report and social media marketing strategy, I can tell why so many people utilize those platforms. I know my way around these platforms, and could help a company build their page in the future, if needed, or even create a website for them. Using the templates and mockup generators for the report really helped be understand how to use different platforms and the do’s and don’ts of posting content on them. In all, from the activities throughout this course, a major idea that hit me was the key having a successful social media marketing strategy is planning. In any line of work, but especially social media marketing, it is extremely important to have your data together and your research in order. Making detailed plans on a daily basis and keeping track of how a business is doing is crucial to being successful on social media.

Thanks to NWTC and the social media marketing course, I am more confident in following a career that entails marketing using social media platforms and websites. This gave me the ability to work on my own and with others for assessments that challenged me. Now I have the ability to utilize several social media platforms and use my knowledge of working on them for a future job. I know in today’s society, it is very relevant to be comfortable using social media on a daily basis to reach out to potential or current customers, and now I have the groundwork of that skill. Lastly, I have improved my communication skills throughout this course, and hold many other skills that would be valuable to an employer in the future.

What were your thoughts on this course overall, and would you pursue a career in social media marketing, now that you have taken this class?