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This is a four-year version of our popular BA (Hons) Social Media Management course, with an integrated foundation year. Create great content from video to graphics. Understand analytics and develop tactics, social campaigns, and strategies to reach and engage audiences and build brand reputation. Get the skills and experience for your social media career.
Almost every employer, from Nike to Netflix, has a social media presence. Develop the skills and experience you need to meet the growing demand for social media managers across a wide range of industries and learn how to grow and engage your audiences as a content creator.
You'll experiment with your own social media channels and grow and engage your own digital communities. Learn to create engaging content and use analytics and attribution to prove impact and understand your audience. Develop social media strategies and organic and paid campaigns, combining integrated communications approaches across public relations and digital marketing. Delve into ideas about how to communicate, influence, and persuade, and explore what makes content shareable and engaging.
Throughout the course, you'll get hands-on experience, including managing social media channels and planning social media and PR campaigns and strategies for real clients. You'll also undertake a week-long placement, building contacts and connections in the industry.
You'll study a degree with multiple accreditations: the course is accredited by the Digital Marketing Institute (DMI); our public relations modules are accredited by the CIPR, the industry’s leading body; and the Media Law module is accredited by the National Council for the Training of Journalists (NCTJ). You can graduate with an extra qualification from the NCTJ, proving you are legally and ethically safe to publish content.
By the end of this course, you'll have the skills, knowledge, and experience you need to pursue a career in social media, content, and communications, whether that's as an employee, a content creator, freelancer or digital nomad, or business owner and entrepreneur.
In the first year – the foundation year – you'll study five modules. After completion of this foundation year, you'll then move onto the Social Media Management honours degree course.
You'll develop the skills, knowledge, and personal attributes that employers are looking for, as you work both individually and as part of a community to develop your experience and confidence. You’ll take part in lectures, workshops, practical projects, client-briefs, and presentations, and you’ll also write essays, case studies, and critical reflections.
In your first year, you'll realign your understanding of social media as a professional business tool. You’ll learn introductory content creation and analytics skills and use them to create content and analyse performance across a wide range of social and community platforms. You'll also learn introductory public relations skills, study media law to ensure you're safe to publish, take a module in journalism to understand essential written communication skills, and take a module in media theory to understand the current debates around digital media.
In your second year, you'll continue to build on your existing skills, creating social media strategies and campaigns for real clients, taking your public relations skills to the next level, learning about data analysis and visualisation for both content creation and social media reporting, and taking a module in short-form video production. You’ll also go on a work placement and take an optional module of your choice.
In the final year, you’ll draw on all of your theoretical and practical social media knowledge and skills to create a social media management project of your choice, which you’ll complete over the course of the academic year. You’ll also consolidate your existing PR skills, complete your training in online community engagement, and take a module in e-commerce video production to complete your degree. By the end of your degree, you’ll have a wide range of skills across social media, content creation, and public relations, and will have a body of existing work and work experience to support your transition into your social media career.
Assessments include practical projects, critical reflections, case studies, essays, and presentations. There's also a media law exam as part of the NCTJ certificate.
If you study this course on a part-time basis, you'll typically complete 40-80 credits in a year, rather than the 120 credits of full-time students. All modules are taught during the daytime and you'll be studying alongside full-time students.
There are many key skills that journalism students need to learn, from interviewing, writing, shooting video, shorthand and digital story telling on social media. But did you know that another essential skill for any accomplished reporter is learning the law? Senior lecturer and National Council for the Training of Journalists (NCTJ) Media Law board member Carole Watson explains why.
Learn why learning the law is so essential for any accomplished reporter
A few years ago, the idea of being a ‘Social Media Manager’ would have been almost laughable – how hard can it be to ‘manage’ your notifications!? Social media is so much more than taking selfies, instagramming your breakfast or sharing memes on Facebook though, it’s a powerful business tool that has resulted in an explosion of exciting jobs and careers.
Find out where a degree in social media can take you
We don’t currently display entry requirements for United States. Please contact the Student Admin team on studentadmin@sunderland.ac.uk or 0191 515 3154.
Entry requirements are provided for guidance only and we may offer you an entrance interview which will help us determine your eligibility for your chosen degree. This enables us to consider making you an offer if you're perhaps a mature student who's been out of education for a period of time, or you've gained significant knowledge and skills through employment rather than traditional education.
Eligible entry qualifications:
If you're unsure of whether you think you might be suitable for the course, please contact us.
**If you've studied for a GCSE which has a numerical grade, you'll need to achieve a grade 4 or above. Equivalent alternative qualifications are also accepted, such as Level 2 Key Skills in Communication and Application of Number.
If English isn't your first language, please see our English language requirements.
The annual fee for this course is £9,535 if you're from the UK/Ireland/EU settled/pre-settled.
If you're a full-time UK/Irish/EU settled/EU pre-settled student, you may be eligible to receive financial support to cover your fees for the full four years. UK and EU settled students may also be eligible to receive a maintenance loan.
Please note, this course isn't available to international students.
Learn more about settled status, pre-settled status, special discounts, visa requirements, and Common Travel Area (CTA) agreements for the Republic of Ireland applicants in our Help and Advice article.
Take a look at the scholarships and bursaries that may be available to you.
This information was correct at the time of publication.
This degree will equip you with the skills you need to be a social media manager across a wide range of businesses and organisations – working in social media means you can work in almost any sector that you’re interested in, or you can choose to work for yourself.
You’ll also have the skills and qualities to pursue a career in other social media, content creation, community management, and public relations roles, and you’ll have work experience and a media law qualification to help set you apart.
Our graduates working in social media and PR have been employed by companies including Ubisoft, Tombola, Sunderland City Council, SAFC, Rangers TV, What Culture, Stylist, MTV, Elle, and more.
During the course, you’ll be working on live briefs for real clients, developing social media campaigns and strategies, PR campaigns, and branded video marketing campaigns.
In our mediaHUB, you can create social content and develop strategies for our public-facing fashion, sport, news, and culture websites and award-winning community radio station, Spark.
You also have the opportunity to get involved in the Marketing Hub which matches students with marketing clients. You can get support from The Enterprise Place to develop your own social media business ideas with office space and funding.
The academics teaching you on this course are RTS and CIPR award-winning content creators, media law experts, public relations practitioners, tv producers, journalists, and industry researchers, and have excellent relationships across a broad range of social media, fashion, sport, PR, and media industries.
We have links with Rich Keith from Yogscast who also runs influencer marketing company, Fourth Floor. Our faculty’s visiting professors include video and e-commerce entrepreneur, Dr Alex Connock, and Good Morning Britain news editor, Neil Thompson.
You'll complete a week-long placement in your second year, but you can get support from the Employability and Enterprise Hub to set up work experience, get an industry mentor, and even find relevant paid work at any time during your degree.
We regularly get offers for our students to take on placements and internships and work on CV-boosting projects. We’ve had opportunities to work with travel bloggers, create social media campaigns for stately homes, create videos for food companies, and much more.
During the degree, you'll work on creating content and strategies for your own social media channels and communities, as well as projects for real clients. Have a look at Twitch stream ImpliedLies, and online community What the Flix, which helps viewers find the best shows on Netflix – both created by our current students as part of their studies.