32 social media training resources and courses every marketer needs

Between algorithm shifts and the rise of new platforms, the only constant in the world of social media is change. Keeping up with the shifting digital tides is crucial. And continuing your social media training is the best way for you, and your team, to achieve a quick knowledge and credentials boost.

As social media has become more advanced and more important, so too has the demand on marketing and social media teams. According to The 2022 Sprout Social Index™, in the next two years 88% of marketers expect to hire a new team member. The more team members you onboard, the more important it becomes to keep up with the best training resources out there.

We’ve gathered 32 of the best social media training resources and courses to help keep your growing team up-to-speed and yourself up-to-date.

Org-wide social media marketing training

It’s all too easy for social media to become siloed from the rest of your business, or even the rest of your marketing team. And yet, social media’s impact reaches every corner of your business.

Brushing up on ways to prove the impact of your work across the entire organization benefits every marketer—from directors to social media managers. Here are a few social media marketing training resources that will improve your skills and show your impact.

Free social media marketing training and resources

1. How to Conduct Social Media Market Research in 90 Min or Less (Sprout Social)

Level: Beginner – intermediate
Type: Worksheet

Keeping an eye on your competition helps you evaluate your own social channels and brand. In fact, 40% of brands use social data for competitive insight. Use our market research worksheet to quickly assess your competition, how you stack up and uncover data-driven insights with org-wide impact.

Additional resource:

• Webinar: Supercharge your marketing strategy with social

2. Social Media Marketing Foundations (LinkedIn Learning)

Level: Beginner
Type: Course

Never be afraid to go back to the basics. This social media training course covers every corner of social strategy—from choosing channels to managing communities. It provides a digestible overview that seasoned social professionals and directors who want a deeper understanding of social can benefit from.

3. Social Listening Deck (Sprout Social)

Level: Expert
Type: Deck template

According to the 2023 Sprout Social Index™, 76% of marketers agree their team’s social insights inform other departments. Tapping into social listening is an effective way to uncover insights for the entire business. Whether you’re a seasoned social listener who needs to streamline your findings or you’re new to it, this template will give you a leg up.

Additional resources:

• Video: What is social listening? (And 5 questions you can answer with it)
• Sprout Learning Portal (accessible to Sprout customers): Sprout Social Master Class: Listening and Analytics

4. Leveraging Social Media and Your Leadership Team During a Crisis (Sprout Social-sponsored webinar)

Level: Intermediate
Type: Webinar

Hopefully, you never have to address a crisis on social media. But if you do, it’s best to be prepared—especially considering only 23% of US organizations reported having a crisis response team in place pre-pandemic. This webinar walks you through the importance of leveraging executive social channels during a crisis, identifying stakeholders and more.

Additional resources:

• Article: Social media crisis plan
• Guide: How to build a social media crisis management strategy
• Worksheet: Social media brand crisis retrospective worksheet

Paid social media marketing training and resources

5. Introduction to Social Media Strategy (LinkedIn Learning)

Level: Beginner
Type: Course + certification
Price (at the time of writing): $24.99

This course provides a 360-degree overview of creating a social media strategy. With topics from creating business profiles to models you can use for your content plan, it covers topics that span a variety of sophistication levels.

6. Business of Social (Coursera via Northwestern)

Level: Intermediate
Type: Course + certification
Price (at the time of writing): Free with trial, then $49/month

One section of a larger specialization, this course provides a more sophisticated look at the role of social in business and higher-level topics, like legal considerations. Including quizzes and a pilot program project, level up your skills and social strategy with hands-on experience in this course.

7. Diversity and Inclusion in Marketing (LinkedIn Learning)

Level: Beginner
Type: Course
Price (at the time of writing): You need a LinkedIn Learning subscription—free for one month, then $26.99/month

According to The Sprout Social Index™, 26% of marketers say they have to push their company to raise awareness on social issues. Creating a more diverse and inclusive business, internally and externally, takes time and the effort of an entire organization. And using inclusive marketing best practices is a piece of the puzzle. Taught by a career expert at LinkedIn, learn how to assess your inclusivity efforts and set new standards for your business.

8. Influencer Marketing 101 (Influencer Marketing Hub)

Level: Beginner – intermediate
Type: Course
Price (at the time of writing): $97

Influencer marketing is a powerful engagement tool for marketing and PR teams alike. But 36% of marketers say not having enough resources to manage creator relationships is their main challenge when tapping into the creator economy. This course walks you through setting and measuring program goals, understanding where influencers fit into your marketing plan and more.

Social media manager training for a growing team

While you’re focusing on growing your team, it’s easy to forget that you need to grow too. Certifications can boost your resume. And learning how to train social media professionals can help you grow, while preparing you to assist your direct reports. Here are social media manager training resources to bolster your skills and confidence.

Free social media marketing training and resources

9. HubSpot’s Social Media Marketing Certification and Digital Marketing Certification courses

Level: Beginner – intermediate
Type: Certifications, courses

Two of the best free courses out there, HubSpot’s Social Media and Digital Marketing Certifications will boost your skills and credentials in just under four hours. These courses provide an introduction and light framework for high-level strategies like social advertising, measuring ROI and more.

10. Essentials of Team Collaboration (LinkedIn Learning)

Level: Beginner
Type: Course (plus certification if you’re signed up for LinkedIn Learning)

Learn how to communicate and work more effectively with your team as a manager—new or seasoned—and contributor. This course gives you a solid foundation as you build your team and manage how members work together.

11. Google Digital Garage free webinars, workshops and live trainings

Level: Beginner – intermediate
Type: Webinars (London time zone) + certifications

Want to learn something new? Google it…literally. Google’s Digital Garage free webinars offer intros to a variety of subjects as high-level as digital marketing and as niche as writing for social media.

12. Excel Essential Training (LinkedIn Learning)

Level: Beginner
Type: Course + certification

When you use a tool like Sprout Social, reports are presentation-ready. But if you don’t, you need to know how to collect and present data in a time-efficient and digestible way. This course gets you comfortable with Excel and shows you how to create high-level data visualizations to make storytelling with data easy.

13. Social Media Team Expansion (Sprout Social + Upwork)

Level: Intermediate
Type: Webinar

Every social media team is different. Adding freelancers into the mix can help with workload, project delegation and provide a great alternative if your team can’t hire more full-time staff. Watch this webinar for tips on how to work with freelancers on your team.

Additional resources:

• Article: Onboarding a social media team

14. Google Analytics Academy

Level: Beginner – intermediate
Type: Courses + certifications

On the surface, a Google Analytics certification just looks good. Understanding how to use this tool is an important skill if you want to grow as a marketer. But on a deeper level, using Google Analytics can help you prove the business impact and ROI of social media and understand which of your social channels drive the most traffic, conversions and more.

Google Analytics is going through a transition—you can prepare for the next phase with Google’s Skillshop courses.

15. Creating a Social Media Report (Sprout Social)

Level: Beginner – intermediate
Type: Toolkit

Data means nothing without context. Use our social media report toolkit to learn how to tell a story with your data, and how to present it in a way that makes sense—to your team, manager and senior leaders.

Additional resources:

• Resource: Social metrics map

16. Accessible Social

Level: Beginner – intermediate
Type: Guidebook

There’s more to optimizing your social media accessibility than adding captions to videos. The Accessible Social website and guidebook walks you through all of the accessibility best practices you need to know.

17. Social Media Audit Template (Sprout Social)

Level: Beginner – intermediate
Type: Template

Conducting a social media audit is a key way to assess your current strategy, or to start a fresh one. Creating a template to gather all of your findings is half the time-consuming battle—use our free template to do an in-depth social media audit in less time.

Paid social media marketing training and resources

18. Marketing Tools: Social Media (LinkedIn Learning)

Level: Beginner
Type: Course + certification
Price (at the time of writing): $34.99

Part of being a great manager is finding tools that make you and your team more efficient. This course walks you through stand-out social media tools—including Sprout—to add to your toolbox.

19. Social Media Marketing: Content Batching and Repurposing (LinkedIn Learning)

Level: Beginner
Type: Course + certificate
Price (at the time of writing): Requires a LinkedIn Learning subscription, which is free for one month then $26.99/month

Whether you’re a team of one or you manage a group, protecting your time is key. Learn how to create content pillars, prioritize content that requires more time and speed up your process. Then train other team members how to prioritize their time, too.

20. Meta Blueprint Certifications

Level: Beginner
Type: Course + certificate
Price (at the time of writing): From $99-$150

With 65% and 59% of marketers planning to use Facebook and Instagram, respectively, the most this year, Meta’s platforms deserve attention. With certifications in community management, creative strategy and more, the knowledge you gain from Meta’s certifications can be used to influence your entire strategy.

21. Social Media Marketing Strategy: TikTok and Instagram Reels (LinkedIn Learning)

Level: Beginner
Type: Course + certificate
Price (at the time of writing): $29.99

Short-form video has rocked just about every social media manager’s content plans. Algorithms love it. And with 66% of consumers citing it as the most engaging type of content, short-form video is a must. If you’re struggling to fit Reels or TikTok for marketing into your strategy, use this course to better understand where these platforms fit in and how to use them.

22. Social Media Marketing: ROI (LinkedIn Learning)

Level: Intermediate
Type: Course + certification
Price (at the time of writing): $29.99

Proving the impact social media has on larger business goals is one of the biggest challenges social media managers face. This course provides a few unique strategies to provide a high-level look at how channels like Facebook, TikTok, Instagram and more benefit the entire company.

Social media management employee training for new and seasoned employees

Using online courses and resources can help you onboard new team members and empower seasoned ones. You can also use them to educate employees outside of marketing on the importance of social and maybe even empower them to help out—think, monitoring backup when you go on vacation.

Here are a few resources to use in your onboarding and training process.

Free social media marketing training and resources

23. Use Canva to Create Social Media Visuals for Business (Coursera)

Level: Beginner
Type: Hands-on tutorial

Whether you’re making cover images for your social channels or you need a template for a regular employee spotlight series, Canva is the go-to tool. Train your team—or yourself—to use Canva in this interactive Coursera project course.

24. Shine with Natasha

Level: All levels
Type: Creator to follow

Social media is constantly shifting, and it’s all too easy for the well of ideas to run dry. The Shine with Natasha Instagram account is a great place to keep up with changing Instagram trends, new features and for content creation tips. She also has a paid Reels storytelling course that goes more in depth.

25. Paid + Organic Social Media Analytics Template (Sprout Social)

Level: Beginner – intermediate
Type: Spreadsheet

Less of a training resource and more of a streamlining resource, our customizable analytics spreadsheet makes gathering data from your paid and organic campaigns quick and easy. Use this for yourself, or as a tool for new team members to use as they adjust to pulling the numbers.

26. Social Media Copywriting Masterclass (Skillshare)

Level: Beginner
Type: Course

Every social media platform will have different copy needs. A quick crash course on writing copy for each of your channels is a great way to prepare new team members to create a variety of posts.

27. Social media platforms themselves

Level: All
Type: Blogs and websites

Sometimes, it’s best to go straight to the source. Each social platform provides helpful blogs, resources and more that can coach new team members who may not be acquainted with advertising or business use cases on each platform. Here are a few:

• Twitter Flight School
• Pinterest for Business
• Advertising on Facebook
• Instagram for business
• TikTok for business (you’ll need to sign up for an advertiser account)

28. Sprout Social Learning Portal

Level: All Sprout users
Type: Courses + certification

If you’re a Sprout user, the learning portal can provide platform training to new team members for you. The portal is also an easy way to train coworkers outside of your team, which can help you delegate monitoring duties, empower other teams to uncover data-driven insights and more.

Start your free Sprout trial

29. Social Media Quickstarter (Constant Contact)

Level: Beginner
Type: Resource hub

Social media platforms are constantly in flux. Use Constant Contact’s Quickstarter resource as a hub for new team members for a 101-level overview of top social platforms.

Paid social media marketing training and resources

30. Social Media Monitoring Strategies and Skills (LinkedIn Learning)

Level: Beginner
Type: Course + certification
Price (at the time of writing): $29.99

Customer service is a core part of social media monitoring—60% of brands say direct messaging plays a role in their strategy. But from identifying influencers to identifying crises, monitoring goes further than just responding to comments. Use this course to prep new team members on how to use monitoring for customer care, gathering insights and more.

31. Social Media Marketing Mastery: Learn Ads on 10+ Platforms (Udemy and Course Envy)

Level: Beginner – intermediate
Type: Course + certificate
Price (at the time of writing): On sale for $18.99. Typically $149.99

Recently updated, this course goes well beyond providing an in-depth look at advertising on top social media platforms. From account security best practices to using Google Business for SEO, use this course to educate team members on social advertising skills and beyond.

32. Optimize Your Social Media Profiles (LinkedIn Learning)

Level: Intermediate
Type: Course + certification
Price (at the time of writing): $29.99

It’s all too easy to “set and forget” your social profiles. But from the SEO of your content to your page branding, you should update your profiles regularly. This course walks you through optimizing the platform profiles with the biggest opportunity for adjustments: Instagram, YouTube and Facebook.

Grow your team, and yourself, with social media training

Social media is fast-paced, in every way. The best way to keep up is to keep your knowledge and skills up-to-date.

Whether you’re just getting your career started or you’re a seasoned social extraordinaire, regular social media training can make you a stronger, more confident professional. And that extends to everything from your work to your team.

Use these resources to continue your education and gain new credentials. And check out our deep dive into social media management to stay one step ahead of managing social, and teams, in a quickly-changing digital world.