Building a Social Media Career? How a Communications Degree Can Help

Learn how a Communications degree can provide essential skills and knowledge to boost your career in social media and digital marketing.

If you have a strong interest in social media, a communications degree can help you build a career in this field. Social media is crucial for companies and organizations to establish their brand, attract new customers, and provide updated information on products and services. Earning a communications degree is essential for learning core concepts and developing the necessary skills for this type of work. It can prepare you for a career focused on sharing information through various media, including social networks.

 

What will you learn in a communications degree program?
This type of program often combines communication, technology, and media studies to prepare students for careers in social media, community engagement, journalism and media writing, corporate training, corporate communications, and more. The degree program typically covers key areas such as creating media messages, developing media strategy plans, understanding media and communication theories, and developing collaboration strategies.

 

Students in a communications degree program can experience a range of classes that focus on the necessary skills and concepts for a communications career, such as the principles of communication and media, interpersonal communication, content creation, media research techniques, and communication theory. Some schools offer concentrations that allow communication students to choose a path to explore in more detail, such as social media. Students can study social media management, multimedia storytelling, and virtual reality with an emerging media concentration. 

 

For example, Post University’s Bachelor of Arts in Communication and Media Studies offers concentrations in General Communication, Emerging Media, or Strategic Communication

 

Skills Needed to Work in Social Media

 

-Unleashing the Creative Power of Visual Storytelling in Social Media

-Embracing the Art of Trendspotting in the World of Social Media

-Crafting Compelling Narratives: The Key to Social Media Success

-Mastering the Art of Engagement: Building Authentic Connections Online

-Navigating the Digital Landscape: The Impact of Emerging Social Media Platforms

 

Skills Needed for a Social Media Career

 

Creativity

Being creative is essential for a successful social media career. With creativity, you can create social media campaigns that stand out from the competition and generate buzz. Creative skills are also necessary to create content that attracts a large audience online. Students in communication degree programs work on developing creative skills through projects and other assignments.

 

Writing Skills

Strong writing skills are necessary for social media careers. Social media relies on the written word to make an impression, build brands, grab attention, and more. Students have plenty of opportunities to practise writing skills through writing classes, assignments, and projects. Good copywriting and writing skills are essential to thrive in a social media career.

 

Analytical Skills

Working in social media involves analysing data to better understand your audience. For example, you might need analytical skills to analyse metrics or data that help you learn more about consumer behaviour to develop an effective social media campaign. You can develop analytical skills in your communication and media studies degree program and apply them to your career.

 

Identifying and Understanding Trends

A keen eye for trends is crucial to a social media career. To succeed in this kind of work, you will need to identify trends and understand why they emerge and how they are effective. This information can help you develop a media strategy, plan content, or handle other tasks in your social media career.

 

Customer Service Skills

Working in social media often involves interacting with customers, responding to brand questions on social media accounts, handling an issue with a company’s product or service, providing customer support for products or services, or gathering feedback. Good customer service and communication skills are vital to social media careers.

 

Jobs in Social Media

What kinds of careers are available in social media? With a communications degree, you can explore a wide range of jobs that involve working with social media. The social media career path that works best for you will depend on the kind of work you are interested in. With this type of career, you can work for private companies, non-profit organisations, governmental departments, and other organisations. The following are some examples of the career paths to consider.

 

Engagement Coordinator

An engagement coordinator or community engagement coordinator helps execute outreach programs and events for organisations or government agencies. This job often involves identifying community issues, interacting with community members to develop initiatives, holding meetings, and writing reports. As an engagement coordinator, you might spend time interacting with community members on social media or posting information on outreach events and programs.

 

Blogger

Bloggers research, write, and publish blog posts on a website. Their content might be in a particular niche or a wider area of interest, depending on their background and experience. Bloggers use social media to promote the content they publish and bring more traffic to their blogs. Being a blogger involves having excellent writing, communication, technical, and research skills.

 

Social Media Specialist

Social media specialists develop and publish posts and other content on an organisation’s social media platforms. The content they produce and publish raises awareness of a brand, increases sales, and draws a broader audience. Social media specialists also analyse metrics and other data, interact with those who post replies, questions, or comments, and devise a media strategy.

 

Marketing Research Analyst

Market research analysts are responsible for analysing consumer behaviour, monitoring sales trends, determining the effectiveness of marketing campaigns, and designing data collection methods. These analysts also write reports and collect consumer and market data to help companies boost sales and improve marketing methods. Data collection often involves gathering information from social media, making it essential for these analysts to understand social networks and platforms.

 

Content Strategist

Content strategists develop strategies that help businesses or organisations achieve their goals and meet the needs of customers, community members, or other audiences. These strategists plan, design, and oversee content strategies, including conducting research, curating content, publishing content, and engaging with audiences. A focus of this job involves creating content for social media as part of a content strategy approach and interacting with audiences on social media platforms.

 

Community Manager

Community managers act as an ambassador of a brand and interact with customers to understand how a company or organisation can meet their needs. These managers find new customers, gather feedback from existing customers, participate in online discussions with customers, and develop different approaches to improve the audience’s online engagement. Some of this involves being active on social media, such as replying to comments or questions and creating content to engage the audience."

 

If you are looking for an online communications degree, please contact Post University. We offer a Bachelor of Arts in Communication and Media Studies with available concentrations in Emerging Media, General Communication, and Strategic Communication. Our academic advisors can help you choose the right path for your education if you are planning a career in social media.