This course focuses on social media best practices for content, frequency, visuals and the mechanics behind each practice. Students learn how social media influences public relations, marketing, customer services and other aspects of business communications. The course explores the differences between the major social media channels, their evolution and the current and future status of social media for business.

This course is designed to provide students new skills in digital storytelling ideas, production, and analysis. Students will produce creative online stories that reverberate with the widest audience possible. Creating impactful stories will require a new understanding and thought process of how digital stories differ from those in traditional media. To do this, we will look at the changing roles of storytellers in news and marketing while discussing and analyzing media consumption habits that encourage a seamless transition from active audience member to creator.

In this course, students collect and analyze authentic social media campaign data and describe the proper measurement mechanisms to utilize. Students learn how to identify data points that help clarify campaign effectiveness, master the proper approach for analyzing data, and determine how the outcomes from data analysis should modify an overall strategy.

In this course, students develop a strategic social media plan focusing on branding and analyze the impact of social media on branding efforts. Using the fundamental principles learned in this course as a foundation, students map the landscape of social media, create brand strategies for social media marketing, audit the competitive scope of social media activities for a brand, assess the effectiveness of social media engagement strategies, and use the most influential tools in social media engagement and branding. Using current case studies and step-by-step processes, students learn to maximize online efforts while maintaining brand continuity and consistency.

For the fifth core course, students choose one of the three following courses.

Social Media and Emerging Technology

In this course, students research, identify, and analyze new social media platforms and emerging technologies related to social media. The examination of the platforms and technologies will include artificial intelligence, virtual reality, augmented reality, gamification, eSports, and more. Recognizing how innovations are adopted, students create a process for the critical evaluation of new technologies as well as the implications of the social and ethical impact of the technologies. Finally, students complete a comprehensive research report on a new technology of their choice and investigate how that technology will impact, or be impacted by, social media.

Social Media Community Management

This course provides students the necessary skills to build and grow communities, lead and moderate constructive and meaningful conversations for organizations, and succeed on social media platforms. Students learn how to seize opportunities to open public discussions and apply best practices to create highly interactive social media aimed at specific communities of people.

Social Media Management

In this course, students learn to establish social media key performance indicators based on an organization’s goals. Students apply strategic collaboration, tactical execution and measurement of social media efforts to reinforce online marketing goals. Students create social media strategies and tactics, content planning and creation, paid social management and measurement tools, and crisis management for an organization.

Mass Communication Capstone: Social Media

The graduate capstone course is the final course in the UF CJC online Master’s program in which students demonstrate the application of the knowledge and skills gained throughout their learning in the program. The students will work individually to integrate, synthesize, and apply their knowledge to solve a real-world challenge in their specialization. This course was designed for the student to complete a professional deliverable intended to display enhanced problem solving, analytical and critical thinking, and masterful communication skills by applying theory to practice and linking theory to the professional world. This professional deliverable will serve as evidence of the various skills and abilities the student has gained during the program and can bring to a potential employer.

You must also earn 12 credit hours by taking courses from a list of general electives.

• Personal Branding and Digital
• Reputation Management
• Presentation Power
• Messaging Strategy and the Centrality of the Value Proposition
• Non-Profit and Government Communication
• Professional Internship
• Seminar in Mass Communication Teaching
• The Art of Podcasting
• The Science of Going Viral
• Corporate Reputation and Communication