So you signed up for Social Media Theory & Practice. You have to take a capstone course for your Comm degree anyway, right? You thought to yourself, ” I have a Facebook account, I’m on Snapchat, this will be easy.” But unfortunately for you, the days of using social media to let your friends know you just ate a sandwich are over. Learning how to puke rainbows with Snapchat filters is not the goal of this class. (But let’s be honest, it’s still fun)

Brands have discovered they can use social media as a marketing and outreach tool. A team of researchers, analysts, marketers, PR practitioners, writers and designers are hard at work developing strategies to make you fall in love with things like Swiffer Wet Jets, pumpkin spice lattes and a mission to Mars.  The Nordstrom sweater you saw on your favorite blog was really planted there because Nordstrom  researched bloggers with a large following in their target audience who the brand thought could give a good endorsement. This makes it a fascinating time for a PR major like me to be studying social media.  It also makes the Social Media Theory & Practice a lot harder.

Comm 4264 covers a lot of material throughout the semester. We moved from theory and research to planning strategies for our own client in no time.  It hasn’t been a cake walk, but I think it has been worth it. Here are some topics we covered and my advice for completing your semester with ease.

1.Theory. In most of my college courses, we start with theory.

Luckily for this one, I learned most of the theories in Comm 1014 so it was just a refresher. Keep the theories you discuss in the back of your mind (especially social networking theory) throughout the course to justify and support content and strategy decisions.

2.Research. Dr. Watkins lovveeesssssss research. Support everything you do with research.

This is because research will help you to avoid mistakes, target the right audience, justify your plan and save your client time & money. You can use quantitative research, like a content analysis, or qualitative research, like a a focus group, to do this.

3. Online Writing.

Besides the satisfaction of knowing you have perfect grammar, there are many benefits to being able to write well – and write well for different media. Online writing skills are different from print because social media is non-linear and dynamic. A general tip is to be clear, concise, complete and correct.

4.Branding. Enhancing a brand is what drives social media marketing. An organization may want to increase awareness, change a perception or create a loyal audience. The personality they create and point of view they have is expressed on social media as their brand message.

For example, Coca cola has a strong brand personality as an All-American brand. Keep these features in mind because they will help determine your goals and objectives later.

5. Storytelling. Storytelling is the mechanism for expressing information about a brand. Some tips for good storytelling include:

• Have a consistent theme
• Relate authentically
• Use mascots or founders
• Show don’t tell

6. Visuals.  Have fun with them! Learning about visual content has been a fun part of my college career. I’m not a particularly good artist on paper, but I can figure my way around Photoshop and Indesign. I like the creativity you can use in planning strategy. Below is a logo I designed for a project in another class.  Creating visuals helps me relieve stress from other homework, hopefully it can do the same for you. Brands use all types of visual content — from infographics to styled photo shoots — so the sky is the limit!

7. *Bonus* Stock up on blog topics for those free choice weeks. Decisions are hard!

At this point I’ve either scared you away from Comm 4264 or got your hyped as heck. Hopefully this insider information will get you ahead of the game (FYI Dr. Watkins also loves sports 🏀🏈⚾️) At the very least, you can use this list to prove your Comm courses are just as hard as any any engineering class.