Social Media Brand Strategy Training Course

Duration 5 days 10 modules · 33 contact hours
Level Intermediate Certificate on completion
Who attends Social Media Managers, Brand Managers and others
Fee from USD 1,100 KSh 95,000 for Kenyan organisations
Where 52 cities + online See dates by city
Next start 16 Nov 2026 Course code SD-DM-058

Before you join: Participants should have basic experience using at least one major social platform in a professional setting, such as publishing posts, reviewing account analytics or briefing content creators.

Dates & prices

Two start dates a month in every city, and live online on weekdays or weekends. Fees are per participant; classroom fees include tuition, materials, lunch and refreshments, and the certificate.

Suggest a date or city

Showing the next six months. Later dates, other cities and private deliveries for your team are available on request.

Course overview

A social media presence can generate attention without building a recognisable, trusted brand. Teams often publish frequently but lack a clear audience priority, distinctive point of view, consistent voice, content system or measurement method. The result is fragmented channel activity, weak engagement quality and difficulty showing how social media contributes to reputation, demand generation, customer loyalty or recruitment.

This course teaches participants to build a social media brand strategy that connects positioning, audience insight, channel choices, content pillars, community engagement and performance measurement. Participants use STP, Brand Key, customer journey mapping, social listening, content calendars and KPI frameworks to make practical decisions. They learn how to define a brand voice, select appropriate platform roles, develop content themes, manage comments and complaints, plan creator partnerships, set campaign objectives and report meaningful results to stakeholders.

Instructor-led sessions combine short briefings with analysis of real brand accounts, sector-based cases, group decision work, content planning simulations and structured critique. Participants apply the methods to a current brand, product, service or employer brand challenge. Each participant leaves with a completed social media brand strategy pack containing a positioning statement, audience priorities, channel architecture, content pillars, editorial calendar, engagement approach and measurement plan.

The course is suited to marketing and communications professionals responsible for established social accounts, brand managers coordinating agencies, and customer experience teams using social channels as a service and reputation channel. It is particularly relevant where multiple teams publish content, brand consistency is uneven, or leaders need stronger evidence of social media value.

What you will be able to do

  • Conduct a social media brand audit using Brand Key, competitor review and share-of-voice analysis
  • Define priority social audiences using STP, persona evidence and customer journey mapping
  • Create channel roles and publishing priorities aligned with brand objectives and audience behaviour
  • Develop content pillars, brand voice rules and an editorial calendar for sustained publishing
  • Plan social campaigns using SMART objectives, message architecture and content-format selection
  • Manage community engagement using response matrices, escalation paths and social customer care principles
  • Measure brand and business performance using KPI trees, platform metrics and reporting dashboards
  • Produce a social media brand strategy pack with governance, resource and implementation actions

Benefits of attending

For you

  • Build a portfolio-ready social media brand strategy for a real business challenge
  • Make channel and content decisions using documented audience and brand evidence
  • Brief agencies, designers and creators with clearer strategic direction
  • Explain social media results to senior stakeholders using relevant performance measures
  • Handle brand-risk conversations, complaints and escalation decisions with greater confidence

For your organisation

  • Creates more consistent brand expression across social accounts, teams and markets
  • Reduces low-value posting through defined audience priorities and channel roles
  • Improves campaign planning with clearer objectives, messages, formats and measures
  • Strengthens social customer care through response standards and escalation routes
  • Provides management with structured reporting on brand, community and commercial results

Course modules

10 modules over 5 days

Participants can translate brand strategy into a clear foundation for social media decisions.

  • Brand audit using purpose, values, promise, personality and proof points
  • STP analysis links priority segments to distinctive social-media audience needs
  • Map competitor positioning, share of voice and category conventions
  • Translate brand architecture into account roles, naming and visual hierarchy
  • Brand Key model defines values, discriminator, reason-to-believe and personality
  • Document platform-specific risks where tone or targeting can damage trust

Participants can turn social evidence into usable audience priorities and content insight.

  • Social listening queries identify recurring needs, language, sentiment and triggers
  • Separate observed behaviour, stated preference and inferred audience motivation
  • Analyse comments, reviews and direct messages for customer experience themes
  • Build evidence-based personas without relying on demographic stereotypes alone
  • Jobs-to-be-Done interviews reveal desired outcomes, anxieties and switching triggers
  • Prioritise audience segments by value, accessibility, need and strategic fit

Participants can assign social channels defined roles across priority customer journeys.

  • Customer journey maps connect moments, questions, barriers and social touchpoints
  • Identify awareness, consideration, conversion, retention and advocacy content requirements
  • Channel-role matrix assigns discovery, education, service, community and conversion purposes
  • Compare platform audiences, formats, algorithms and content shelf-life
  • Select owned, earned, paid and creator distribution for each objective
  • Set account architecture for corporate, product, local and executive channels

Participants can define a recognisable social identity that remains consistent across formats.

  • Voice attributes define how the brand sounds in everyday interactions
  • Tone-of-voice matrix adjusts language by audience, context and emotional intensity
  • Create message house themes supported by proof, examples and calls-to-action
  • Distinguish brand personality from campaign concepts, memes and temporary trends
  • Visual identity rules cover colour, typography, imagery, motion and accessibility
  • Accessibility checks include alt text, captions, contrast and plain language

Participants can build a repeatable content system that supports brand and audience priorities.

  • Content pillars connect audience needs with brand authority and business priorities
  • Content matrix balances educate, inspire, reassure, involve and convert objectives
  • Apply the hero, hub and help model to publishing cadence
  • Format selection matches message complexity, audience intent and platform behaviour
  • Editorial calendars sequence themes, dates, owners, approvals and asset requirements
  • Repurpose core ideas across short-form video, carousels, articles and stories
  • Content governance defines approval thresholds, turnaround times and version control

Participants can brief and evaluate social content that expresses a distinctive brand story.

  • Story frameworks use tension, relevance, proof and resolution within short formats
  • Write hooks that earn attention without misleading claims or clickbait
  • Message hierarchy places the primary audience benefit before supporting detail
  • Copywriting techniques use specificity, active voice, rhythm and purposeful calls-to-action
  • Creative briefs define objective, audience, insight, proposition, mandatories and measures
  • Assess user-generated content for rights, fit, quality and brand safety
  • Test creative concepts against distinctiveness, clarity, credibility and accessibility

Participants can plan integrated social campaigns with appropriate creator and paid-media choices.

  • SMART campaign objectives distinguish reach, engagement, leads, sales and retention
  • Campaign architecture aligns audience, proposition, content sequence and conversion path
  • Plan teaser, launch, sustain and follow-up phases around audience decisions
  • Creator selection assesses audience fit, credibility, content quality and disclosure requirements
  • Paid amplification supports testing, reach extension, retargeting and conversion objectives
  • A/B tests isolate variables including hook, visual, offer, audience and call-to-action
  • Media briefs specify budget, flighting, targeting, optimisation and reporting requirements

Participants can manage brand interactions using clear engagement and escalation standards.

  • Community management objectives balance conversation quality, response speed and brand safety
  • Response matrices classify praise, questions, complaints, abuse and misinformation
  • Service-level targets define acknowledgement, resolution, ownership and escalation timing
  • Use empathy statements without accepting liability before facts are verified
  • Escalation protocols route legal, safeguarding, security and media-risk issues
  • Crisis response principles distinguish holding statements, updates and recovery communication
  • Community feedback logs identify recurring product, service and reputation issues

Participants can measure social media performance and recommend evidence-based improvements.

  • KPI trees connect business goals with brand, channel and content metrics
  • Select leading and lagging indicators for awareness, preference and conversion
  • Platform analytics distinguish reach, impressions, engagement rate, clicks and completions
  • UTM conventions connect social traffic with web analytics and campaign reporting
  • Dashboard design presents trends, benchmarks, insights, decisions and next actions
  • Measure share of voice, sentiment and conversation themes with stated limitations
  • Optimisation reviews identify content patterns worth repeating, revising or stopping

Participants can assemble a practical social media brand strategy and implementation plan.

  • Strategy pack consolidates positioning, audiences, channels, content and measurement
  • RACI matrices assign accountable owners for planning, approval, publishing and reporting
  • Resource plans estimate internal time, agency support, production and media costs
  • Risk registers record likely issues, controls, owners and review dates
  • Set quarterly review cycles for audience insight, channel performance and governance
  • Ninety-day action plans sequence priorities, dependencies, milestones and decision points
  • Present strategic recommendations using evidence, trade-offs, resources and expected outcomes

Exercises and examples are adapted to each cohort's sectors and roles.

What you take back to work

  1. Social media brand audit template
  2. Audience insight and persona model
  3. Channel-role and account architecture matrix
  4. Content pillar and editorial calendar template
  5. Community response and escalation matrix
  6. 90-day social media brand strategy plan

Who should attend

  • Social Media Managers — need a defensible strategy beyond daily posting
  • Brand Managers — need consistent brand expression across owned social channels
  • Digital Marketing Managers — need social activity tied to campaign and commercial objectives
  • Communications Managers — need to protect reputation through planned content and response protocols
  • Customer Experience Managers — need stronger social customer care and community feedback processes
  • Agency Account Managers — need clearer strategic frameworks for advising brand clients

Skills and tools covered

Social brand positioningAudience segmentationContent strategyCommunity managementCampaign planningSocial media measurement

Tools and standards

Brand Key, STP, SMART objectives, RACI matrix

How the course runs

Training methodology

The course uses short instructor briefings to introduce strategic models, followed by account reviews, case analysis, group planning and facilitated critique. Participants assess brand examples from consumer, financial services, public sector and business-to-business contexts. Simulations address content prioritisation, community responses and campaign trade-offs. Guided planning periods allow participants to apply each method to a current brand or service challenge, while peer feedback tests whether the proposed strategy is distinctive, feasible and measurable.

Requirements and prerequisites

Participants should have basic experience using at least one major social platform in a professional setting, such as publishing posts, reviewing account analytics or briefing content creators. Familiarity with their organisation's brand guidelines, target customers and current social channels will help them apply the course material quickly. No specialist design, video production, paid media buying or data-analysis qualification is required. Participants do not need advanced knowledge of every platform, but should be comfortable discussing content performance and brand communications.

A typical training day

08:30 – 10:30First session
10:30 – 10:45Refreshment break
10:45 – 12:30Second session
12:30 – 13:30Lunch and networking
13:30 – 15:00Third session
15:00 – 15:15Refreshment break
15:15 – 16:30Workshop and daily review

Live online deliveries follow the same structure in East Africa Time, with shorter screen blocks and longer breaks.

What the fee includes

  • Instruction by a practitioner facilitator
  • Full course workbook and materials
  • Exercise files, templates and case studies
  • Refreshments and lunch on classroom deliveries
  • Certificate of completion
  • Post-course application plan

Frequently asked questions

Participants should have basic professional familiarity with social media publishing, account analytics or content briefing. They do not need advanced paid media, design, video production or data-analysis skills.

Bring access to current brand guidelines, social account information, recent campaign examples and any available performance reports. A laptop is useful for planning work, though participants are not required to have live access to organisation accounts.

It suits social media, marketing, brand, communications, customer experience and agency professionals with responsibility for active social channels. It is designed for people who need to improve strategy, consistency and performance, rather than learn basic posting mechanics.

This course focuses on the strategic system behind effective brand presence: positioning, audiences, channel roles, content pillars, engagement and measurement. Paid distribution, copy and creative are addressed as parts of that system, not as specialist production disciplines.

Participants build components of a social media brand strategy around a live brand, service or campaign challenge. The templates can be used to audit current accounts, brief agencies, set publishing priorities and improve stakeholder reporting.

Each training day runs from 08:30 to 16:30 and provides about 6.5 contact hours. The five days move from brand and audience foundations through content, campaigns, community management, measurement and a 90-day implementation plan.

Questions about this course?

Ask about dates, fees, group bookings or running it for your team. Our training team replies by email.

Ask on WhatsApp info@skillsetdevelopment.com

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