If you’re responsible for promoting your organisation or business, often alongside many other roles, social media and digital marketing can feel overwhelming. With so many platforms, tools and opinions, it’s hard to know what really matters and where to focus your time.

This three-hour, live online session brings together the essentials of social media and digital marketing in one practical course. It’s designed to help help you understand the bigger picture, build confidence, and make informed choices about how you promote your work online. Rather than chasing trends, the course focuses on solid foundations that support visibility, engagement and long-term impact.

Key Learning

• The core components of digital marketing and how they fit together
• How social media supports awareness, engagement and growth
• A clear introduction to search engine optimisation (SEO) and paid advertising
• Key marketing metrics and why they matter
• Tools for tracking performance and setting realistic KPIs
• How to use data to guide and improve marketing decisions
• A practical introduction to Canva for creating simple, effective content

The course is open to individuals working within small and micro-businesses, VCSE organisations, sole traders and diverse-owned organisations. Eligibility criteria apply, with priority given to organisations supporting or operating within Kent (including Medway) and North Wales.

This session is designed for people who need marketing to be effective without becoming a full-time job. Everything is explained in plain English, with practical examples that reflect the realities of small organisations, charities and sole traders working with limited time and resources.

You’ll explore how different digital channels work together, helping you understand where social media fits, what SEO can realistically achieve, and how to measure whether your efforts are actually making a difference. The course focuses on clarity, helping you identify what’s worth your time, what can wait, and how to avoid common pitfalls that drain energy without results.

Previous learners have said that sessions like this helped them feel more confident planning content, clearer about what success looks like, and better equipped to explain marketing decisions to colleagues or trustees. For many, the biggest benefit was understanding how to track simple metrics and use them to make small, meaningful improvements over time.

The course is open to individuals working within small and micro-businesses, VCSE organisations, sole traders and diverse-owned organisations. Eligibility criteria apply, with priority given to organisations supporting or operating within Kent (including Medway) and North Wales.

This course is offered as part of Sodexo’s Social Impact 2030 Pledge, supporting skills development, social mobility and stronger local economies. Through collaboration with not-for-profit partners, funded training places are being made available to help organisations strengthen their digital confidence and reach.

Places are limited and allocated on a first-come basis. If you want a clearer, more manageable approach to digital marketing, apply for a funded place and take practical ideas away that you can start using straight away.

Funded through Sodexo’s Social Impact 2030 Pledge