Learn to make money using social media

Social media is something millions of people use casually every day. For others, navigating it is their career.

With a certificate in Digital and Social Media Marketing from College of Lake County (CLC), you can begin a career in the high-demand and rapidly growing field.

Social media marketing is part of nearly all businesses and industries, yet until recently there hasn't been a lot of formal education or training for these jobs. CLC is preparing students to fill these roles.

The Digital Media and Design (DMD) program at CLC has, over the years, continued to add new pathways as the field evolves and changes. The growing demand for workers in social media prompted the creation of this new certificate.

"A lot of students in the DMD program were getting hired and asked to run social media accounts," Dean of Communication Arts, Humanities, and Fine Arts Sheldon Walcher said. "Our advisory committee is made up of working professionals in the industry, and they pointed out how important social media skills are in most careers. We wanted to provide better training and support for the kinds of jobs our students were getting."

The DMD program already has great internship relationships in the community, and many interns were already being asked to do social media work. The new certificate will build on this by having a workplace learning component built into it.

Existing courses like social media marketing in the business program will be combined with new ones, like a survey of all social media platforms, to provide students with both hands-on experience as well as a broader understanding of the media landscape.

"Social media has been around for a while now, but few classes teach about its history or its role in the industry," Walcher said. "We are going to give a scholarly look at what social media is and the experts behind it."

There will be two levels for the certificate. Level 1 will be a year-long certificate about the tools needed to make content, and level 2 adds theories and strategy. Ideally, as level 2 stacks on top of level 1, students would do both.

"You can tell when a program is going to be successful by the reactions from people when you tell them about it," Walcher said. "Whenever we talk to employers or people on our advisory committee, people get excited because it solves a problem and addresses a need many people didn't realize needed to be solved."

Enroll in classes this fall.