MIT Sloan School of Management

Social Media Strategy: Creating Engagement, Insight, and Action

Develop an understanding of the scientific principles behind social media to optimize your social media strategy.

Start date

16 April 2025

Price

$2,950 USD

Installment Plan

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Course duration

6 weeks

Excluding orientation

Language

English

Access resources from start date

Effort

6–8 hours per week

Self-paced learning online

ABOUT THIS COURSE

Course overview

4.33 billion

The total number of people using social media globally.

Hootsuite (Apr, 2021).

490 million

The number of people who started using social media for the first time between January 2020 and January 2021.

We Are Social (Jan, 2021).

As social media evolves, it provides organizations with new and exciting ways to share their message and engage their audiences. However, to drive real action, they need to understand the science behind social media and the key to harnessing it effectively for business success.

The Social Media Strategy: Creating Engagement, Insight, and Action online short course from the MIT Sloan School of Management offers an in-depth look into the forces driving social media and how you can use them strategically to reach your organization’s goals.

Drawing on Sinan Aral’s book, The Hype Machine, you’ll gain an understanding of the technologies and trends impacting the social media landscape, as well as the neurological and economic factors that shape human behavior. Throughout this course, you’ll also learn about several powerful techniques to improve your social media marketing strategy. With guidance from MIT faculty and industry experts, you’ll walk away with the tools to leverage social media’s potential now and in the future.

Is this course for you?

The social media strategy course from MIT Sloan offers valuable functional and strategic skills that are applicable across different types of organizations, whether they operate in the public or private sectors. The program includes several case studies that benefit business leaders and marketing professionals, and provides practical frameworks for navigating the current social media landscape. The course is also relevant to NGOs, governments, policymakers, and influencers who want to engage their audience effectively and ethically.

Course overview

What will set you apart

On completion of this course, you’ll walk away with:

The tools to leverage social media to achieve strategic organizational objectives.

An understanding of the economic and neurological underpinnings of social media.

A playbook of tactics to enhance your marketing efforts in a hypersocialized world.

Valuable insight from renowned social media authority Sinan Aral, as well as a host of influential industry experts.

Course curriculum

Delve into the science of social media to enhance your marketing strategy as you work through the weekly modules of this online short course.

Orientation module

Welcome to your Online Campus

Module 1

The Hype Machine: Social media and the brain

Module 2

The economics of social media: Leveraging the attention economy

Module 3

Under the hood of the Hype Machine: How social media works

Module 4

Personalized mass persuasion

Module 5

Hypersocialization playbook

Module 6

The future of the social media Hype Machine

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Faculty Director

The design of this online short course is guided by MIT Sloan faculty, as well as industry experts, who will share their experience and in-depth knowledge with you throughout the program.

Sinan Aral

David Austin Professor of Management, Marketing, IT and Data Science, MIT; Director, MIT Initiative on the Digital Economy; Founding Partner, Manifest Capital

Earn a certificate of completion from MIT Sloan

Acquire the skills to enhance your social media marketing and management endeavors, and earn an official digital certificate of completion from MIT Sloan.

This program also counts toward an MIT Sloan Executive Certificate, which you can earn upon completion of four programs where at least three of the four come from your chosen certificate track and at least one is completed in person. Find full details here.

Your certificate will be issued in your legal name and sent to you digitally upon successful completion of the program, as per the stipulated requirements.

MIT Sloan Social Media Strategy: Creating Engagement, Insight, and Action online program certificate

YOUR INFORMATION

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FAQ

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