Social Media Basics

Social Media Basics is a free, self-paced introduction to social media for online shops. In eight hours, you work through four modules on platform logic, useful content, community management, and meaningful measurement.

Social Media Basics at a glance

• Format: Self-paced, 4 modules
• Level: Basics
• Participants: unlimited
• Language: English
• Certificate: AEI certificate of attendance
• Investment: free of charge

What you take away

This course gives you a working overview of social media as part of shop operations. You examine why a post is shown, ignored, saved, shared, or discussed; how different platforms shape expectations; and how a small shop can choose a manageable place to communicate instead of trying to maintain every channel. The examples focus on ordinary decisions: introducing a new product, answering a delivery question, showing how an item is used, or deciding what to do when a post receives little response.

You also learn to connect publishing with the work that follows it. A useful content format needs a clear job, a community needs a reliable way to receive answers, and a report needs more than a large reach figure. By the end, you can outline a practical editorial routine, set basic rules for moderation, identify metrics that relate to shop goals, and define a reasonable next month of activity. The course does not promise a formula for constant growth; it helps you make deliberate choices and review them calmly.

Your learning objectives

• You can describe how the main social platforms work and explain why the same post may perform differently from one platform to another.
• You can choose a platform by matching its users, formats, and demands with your shop, products, resources, and communication goals.
• You can select suitable images, short videos, and other formats for a specific information, service, or sales-related task.
• You can create a simple editorial plan that leaves room for recurring topics, timely questions, and content made between planned posts.
• You can set basic responsibilities for replies and moderation, including a clear response to criticism and difficult public conversations.
• You can read reach alongside useful measures such as meaningful reactions, visits, questions, actions, and progress against a defined objective.

The levers at a glance

Platform choice: Start with the place where your customers can realistically find and use your content. A shop selling home accessories may benefit from a visual platform for room ideas, while a shop with technical products may need a channel that supports detailed explanations and questions. The choice also has to fit your available time. One maintained platform is more useful than several accounts that receive irregular posts and unanswered comments.

Reaction: Platforms use signals from people’s behavior to decide what to show and to whom. A quick view, a longer watch, a save, a share, a reply, or a visit to the shop can all mean something different. The lesson is not to chase every signal, but to understand the connection between a piece of content and the response it invites. A post that answers a recurring product question may receive fewer visible reactions than an entertaining clip and still reduce uncertainty for a potential buyer.

Content job: Every item published should have a reason for being there. A short video can demonstrate how a product works, an image can make a detail easy to inspect, and a reply can remove an obstacle before purchase. When the job is clear, it becomes easier to choose a format, write a useful caption, and judge the result. The course separates content that informs, helps, shows the shop’s point of view, and supports a specific action, without treating all posts as direct sales messages.

Editorial rhythm: A plan should support regular work rather than turn social media into a second full-time newsroom. You look at recurring questions, product moments, seasonal tasks, customer situations, and available material, then place them into a simple sequence. Space for unplanned content matters because a useful answer, a new delivery detail, or a real shop moment may be more relevant than a post prepared weeks earlier.

Measurement: Review numbers in relation to the purpose of the content and the stage of the customer relationship. Reach can show how widely a message was distributed, but it cannot by itself show whether the right people understood it or whether the shop became easier to buy from. Comparing a small set of consistent measures over time helps you keep a useful format, change a weak one, and stop spending effort on activity that has no clear role.

Who is this course for?

This course is for people who work in or with an online shop and need a sound starting point for social media. It is suitable for shop owners, employees who publish posts alongside other duties, customer service staff who answer public questions, and people taking responsibility for a shop’s first editorial routine. It also helps teams that already post occasionally but have not yet agreed on platform choice, content responsibilities, moderation rules, or a useful way to review results.

It is not for experienced social media professionals looking for advanced advertising setup, detailed platform analytics, influencer campaigns, automated publishing systems, or specialist creative production. It is also not a substitute for a complete communications strategy, legal advice, or an emergency plan for a serious public incident. Participants should not expect a ready-made posting calendar for a particular shop; the exercises and principles are intended to be applied to their own situation.

Cost and access

The course is free of charge. Sign-up takes place through the shop, and access is available immediately after registration. You can begin with the module that fits your current question or follow the programme in order, depending on how you prefer to learn.

The course is self-paced, so you decide when to study and how much time to spend on each lesson. There is no fixed date, live attendance requirement, or shared timetable. The stated scope is eight hours across four modules, but you can pause, return to an example, and use the material in stages while considering your own shop.

After the course

A sensible next step is to turn the overview into a small test for your shop. Choose one platform, one clear content job, and a short review period that fits your working routine. Prepare a few pieces of content, agree who answers comments and messages, and note what you want to learn from the activity. The aim is not to publish as much as possible, but to create enough consistent practice to make a fair comparison.

At the review point, keep what helped customers or supported the shop’s stated goal, adjust what was unclear, and remove tasks that produced no useful learning. You can then plan the next month with a smaller or stronger focus. If a question remains specific to your products, audience, or internal responsibilities, it may require a separate discussion and a more tailored process.

Programme: 4 modules

• Platforms and their logic: Every platform has a rule; Reach comes from reaction; Choosing the right platform
• Content that carries: Formats and their jobs; Images and short videos; An editorial plan for in-between
• Community and moderation: Answering is part of it; Criticism and shitstorms; Who speaks for the shop
• Measure and improve: What reach does not say; Metrics that mean something; The next month

Our approach

We work from concrete shop situations and connect basic concepts with decisions that can be made during normal working weeks. Lessons explain the logic behind a practice, then ask you to consider how it would work with your products, customers, available time, and existing responsibilities. We distinguish observation from assumption, visible activity from useful progress, and a general principle from a choice that depends on the shop. This keeps the course practical without presenting social media as a set of guaranteed outcomes.