Rob Kwortnik, Associate Professor of Services Marketing, joined Cornell’s faculty after earning his Ph.D. in Business Administration from Temple University in 2003. He also earned a B.A. in Journalism from Temple and an MBA from California State University, Northridge. Professor Kwortnik’s research focuses on consumer behavior in service contexts, with special attention to service experience management. He has published in the Journal of Marketing Research, Journal of Service Research, The International Journal of Research in Marketing, and the Cornell Hospitality Quarterly, among others. He has been honored eight times as a Teacher of the Year by students at the School of Hotel Administration. Prior to his career in academics, Professor Kwortnik held several professional positions in marketing and was a travel industry consultant. He is a recognized expert on the leisure cruise industry.
Social Media MarketingCornell Certificate Program
Overview and Courses
Creating and maintaining a clear, impactful, and authentic social media presence is key to discovering and connecting with potential customers. This begins with understanding when, where, how, and to whom social marketing content should be targeted and continues with brand-driven content that builds customer connection, community, and advocacy.
This certificate program will help you develop a strategic approach to executing today’s most relevant digital marketing tactics using social media platforms. Throughout the program, you will examine social media platform best practices to design a robust social marketing strategy and create brand-centered social content that aligns with your marketing objectives. You will also identify user-generated content opportunities and structure an influencer campaign to motivate and build the brand community. Additionally, you will create a proactive cross-platform social listening and community management system that is consistent with the brand and devise metrics to measure the success of your marketing efforts. By the time you complete this program, you will have developed a fully integrated social campaign that is ready to launch in the market.
For the best experience in this program it is recommended to take these courses in the order that they appear.
This program includes a year of free access to Symposium! These events feature several days of live, highly participatory virtual Zoom sessions with Cornell faculty and experts to explore the marketing industry’s most pressing topics. Symposium events are held several times throughout the year. Once enrolled in your program, you will receive information about upcoming events.
Throughout the year, you may participate in as many sessions as you wish. Attending Symposium sessions is not required to successfully complete the certificate program.
Course list
In order to be successful with your social media marketing, you must first understand how and why to structure a social media strategy to guide campaign execution.
In this course, you will explore social media marketing platforms, publishers, tools, agencies, and the foundational elements of running a successful social media campaign. You will also examine what social media marketing is and how it is part of a brand-driven integrated marketing communications strategy. As the course progresses, you will evaluate the main social platforms used for digital marketing and practice aligning these platforms with your marketing goals and campaign strategy. You will also examine how marketers incorporate effective social media content generated by the brand, influencers, or users. Lastly, you will assess the role of social media agencies to help you decide if and when to outsource your campaigns.
Effective marketing communications inform and inspire consumers. It's messaging that creates product awareness and knowledge, and encourages positive brand attitudes and action. Traditional marketing, especially advertising, uses a “tell and sell” promotional approach that's unidirectional in presentation – from brand to buyer – and designed to persuade; it's hard marketing. Effective social media marketing is different. It's bidirectional conversation – from brand to buyer and buyer to brand – about the brand experience and designed to engage. This is soft marketing, the kind that target audiences seek as opposed to avoid. The key to social media marketing is connecting the customer with the brand through content that's informative, interesting, or entertaining; ideally, a combination of all three.
In this course, you will conduct a brand audit to identify the brand's pillars, tone, imagery, and personality. You will use these to create a clear brand voice for social media. You will then develop a content marketing social media strategy centered around a big idea and produce creative content that meets the business objectives of the organization as well as the needs and wants of the customer. Lastly, you will identify opportunities for user-generated content (UGC) that motivates the brand community and create a detailed content-posting cadence designed to meet the specific marketing goals.
Influencers are social media's celebrity spokespersons. Their followers provide a core audience of avid social media users, while the influencers themselves, through the endorsement of and engagement with brands, provide authenticity and trustworthiness. Teaming up and collaborating with the right influencers can help a company reach and expand target audiences, improve brand engagement, and inspire conversions. However, not all influencers are right for all brands; knowing when and how to use social influencers is an important element of social media strategy.
In this course, you will analyze the types and roles of social media influencers and identify specific influencers that will help drive your marketing efforts. You will apply the consumer purchasing funnel to devise strategies aimed at connecting the right influencer at the right time with the right customers. Additionally, you will evaluate the ethical and regulatory aspects of working with influencers, and examine how to measure influencer campaign success across the funnel. Lastly, you will craft an influencer program to achieve social media campaign objectives by integrating influencers into the content marketing strategy.
Understanding what past, present, and potential customers are saying, hearing, and seeing about your brand is an important part of brand management and social media presence. Monitoring brand mentions and conversations on social platforms can seem like a daunting, even impossible task. Fortunately, there are tools and solutions providers who can facilitate social listening and reputation management. What's important, then, is your understanding of why and how to manage social discourse about the brand to maintain and enhance your brand's credibility and overall reputation.
In this course, you will build a strategic, proactive social listening system that amplifies the efforts of social media marketing and creates close relationships between the brand and members of the brand community. You will also develop a systematic organizational approach to community management that is consistent with the brand and leverages best practices for different social media platforms.
What makes a social media marketing campaign successful? Is it growth in followers? More engagement on social channels? Greater positive sentiment about the brand? What about increases in sales leads or in sales revenue? Social media success might be reflected in all, some, or just one of these outcomes. Ultimately, however, success is a function of how well the campaign performed in meeting its marketing objectives. Measuring this performance used to be elusive for social media, but as the practice has evolved, so has the means to determine what worked and what did not.
In this course, you will identify the right metrics for measuring and benchmarking social media success across the marketing funnel. From measures of impressions to engagement, to conversion, and to advocacy, you'll examine how brands and agencies link campaign objectives — activity — and outcomes to assess, test, and optimize campaign results. Additionally, you'll explore how existing and emerging performance-reporting tools and dashboards help social media managers control dynamic campaigns to best ensure social media success.
Symposium sessions feature two days of live, highly interactive virtual Zoom sessions that will explore today’s most pressing topics. The Marketing Symposium offers you a unique opportunity to engage in real-time conversations with peers and experts from the Cornell community and beyond. Using the context of your own experiences, you will take part in reflections and small-group discussions to build on the skills and knowledge you have gained from your courses.
Join us for the next Symposium, in which we’ll share experiences from across the industry, inspiring real-time conversations about best practices, innovation, and the future of marketing work. You will support your coursework by applying your knowledge and experiences to some of the most pressing topics and trends in the marketing field. By participating in relevant and engaging discussions, you will discover a variety of perspectives and build connections with your fellow participants from across the industry.
Upcoming Symposium: March 11th – 12th, 2025:
- Tuesday, March 11, 2025 11AM – 1PM ET
- Wednesday, March 12, 2025 11AM – 1PM ET
All sessions are held on Zoom.
Future dates are subject to change. You may participate in as many sessions as you wish. Attending Symposium sessions is not required to successfully complete any certificate program. Once enrolled in your courses, you will receive information about upcoming events. Accessibility accommodations will be available upon request.
How It Works
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Faculty Authors
An entrepreneur from a young age, Stephanie Cartin walked away from her corporate career to launch Socialfly, a leading social-first digital and influencer agency based in New York City. Socialfly has blossomed to over 30 full-time employees, helping over 200 brands including the Girl Scouts, Samsung SmartThings, NEST Fragrances, 20th Century Fox, and Univision. Ms. Cartin is the co-author of “Like, Love, Follow: The Entreprenista’s Guide to Using Social Media To Grow Your Business” and the cohost of the Entreprenista Podcast. She has appeared and been featured on Bloomberg, Forbes, Entrepreneur.com, Refinery29, and CheddarTV. Ms. Cartin is also a recent recipient of the SmartCEO Brava Award, which recognizes the top female CEOs in New York, and a Stevie Award for Women-Run Workplace of the Year.
Joanne Reiter is the Chief of Staff at Socialfly and previously built the agency’s Influencer Marketing Division. She holds a B.S. from Cornell University and a J.D. from Brooklyn Law School. Joanne began her career in the legal field prior to pursuing an entrepreneurial venture. She co-founded The Bach, a bachelor and bachelorette party-planning website. While running the website, she worked with numerous influencers and celebrities to build an active community on social media prior to its acquisition. At Socialfly, Joanne has executed numerous influencer marketing campaigns for a wide range of clients including Conair, Dolby, AMC, Vera Bradley, and Ellen Tracy.
Rob Kwortnik, Associate Professor of Services Marketing, joined Cornell’s faculty after earning his Ph.D. in Business Administration from Temple University in 2003. He also earned a B.A. in Journalism from Temple and an MBA from California State University, Northridge. Professor Kwortnik’s research focuses on consumer behavior in service contexts, with special attention to service experience management. He has published in the Journal of Marketing Research, Journal of Service Research, The International Journal of Research in Marketing, and the Cornell Hospitality Quarterly, among others. He has been honored eight times as a Teacher of the Year by students at the School of Hotel Administration. Prior to his career in academics, Professor Kwortnik held several professional positions in marketing and was a travel industry consultant. He is a recognized expert on the leisure cruise industry.
An entrepreneur from a young age, Stephanie Cartin walked away from her corporate career to launch Socialfly, a leading social-first digital and influencer agency based in New York City. Socialfly has blossomed to over 30 full-time employees, helping over 200 brands including the Girl Scouts, Samsung SmartThings, NEST Fragrances, 20th Century Fox, and Univision. Ms. Cartin is the co-author of “Like, Love, Follow: The Entreprenista’s Guide to Using Social Media To Grow Your Business” and the cohost of the Entreprenista Podcast. She has appeared and been featured on Bloomberg, Forbes, Entrepreneur.com, Refinery29, and CheddarTV. Ms. Cartin is also a recent recipient of the SmartCEO Brava Award, which recognizes the top female CEOs in New York, and a Stevie Award for Women-Run Workplace of the Year.
Joanne Reiter is the Chief of Staff at Socialfly and previously built the agency’s Influencer Marketing Division. She holds a B.S. from Cornell University and a J.D. from Brooklyn Law School. Joanne began her career in the legal field prior to pursuing an entrepreneurial venture. She co-founded The Bach, a bachelor and bachelorette party-planning website. While running the website, she worked with numerous influencers and celebrities to build an active community on social media prior to its acquisition. At Socialfly, Joanne has executed numerous influencer marketing campaigns for a wide range of clients including Conair, Dolby, AMC, Vera Bradley, and Ellen Tracy.
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Key Course Takeaways
- Structure a social media strategy to guide campaign execution
- Select the right social media platforms to deliver on specific marketing objectives across the social media marketing funnel
- Create content based on a brand voice and marketing objectives to drive desired results
- Structure an influencer program to boost brand equity as part of your content-marketing strategy
- Plan and launch UGC (user-generated content) campaigns
- Build a proactive social listening system that amplifies the efforts of social media marketing and creates close relationships between the brand and members of the brand community
- Measure the effectiveness of social media marketing campaigns
JOIN A MARKETING SYMPOSIUM!
Download a Brochure
Not ready to enroll but want to learn more? Download the certificate brochure to review program details.What You'll Earn
- Social Media Marketing Certificate from Cornell SC Johnson College of Business
- 84 Professional Development Hours (8.4 CEUs)
Watch the Video
Who Should Enroll
- Content marketers
- Social media managers
- Marketing channel managers
- Product managers
- Entrepreneurs
- Account executives
- Brand marketers
- Marketing communications specialists
- Copywriters
- Marketing consultants
“Celebrating a win! This past July I began a certificate program in Social Media Marketing from eCornell that I finished earlier in October. Earned media and public relations will always be my first passion, but I’ve loved exploring more areas of marketing over the past year and only continuing to grow from here.”
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Social Media Marketing
Select Payment Method | Cost |
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$3,750 | |