The fall semester at Louisiana State University Continuing Education (LSU CE) is here and the first class in the Social Media Specialist Certificate Program starts on September 20th. Social Media continues to evolve as a revolutionary set of tools which can advance your career or help your company grow. We conducted the Social Media Specialist Certificate Program for the first time in the Spring of 2011 with great success, producing five certificate holders. We expect this semester to build on the previous success of the program.
For the Fall program we’ll invite back some of last semester’s certificate holders for their insights and have new ongoing class exercises which will serve to reinforce skills. There are many updates to the courses in the program since a lot has happened in the social media world since last semester.
New in this semester, we’ll spend time on Google+ strategies and learn about specific real-world implementation models. We’ll also study successful strategies for business to business (B2B), commercial, and industrial companies and also methods for employee engagement. Mobile devices are an important part of any social media professional’s work, so we’ll discuss and train on available apps. Blogging, video and quick response (QR) codes continue to be important trends so we’ll include those strategies as well.
Social Media continues to grow in importance at companies large and small. Having a Social Media Specialist Certificate is a great way to show that you’ve been exposed to and practiced in-depth Social Media skills.
Four courses, plus one elective: Here are the details and registration information.
If you want to be the social media hero at your office, start by listening for those first few weeks. “Listening”? What the heck do I mean by “listening”? I mean just look up people in your area, in your industry, in your company and competitor companies and see what they’re saying. Do some searches about your product or service, the communities where you have offices or stores, the vendors that visit your locations. Find some blogs that interest you and some that are good business resources for you. Listen to the tone people use when talking to each other; get a feel for the culture of social networking.