Social Media Video Strategy: Creating Content for Short-Form Video Platforms

Social Media Video Strategy is an 11-week course focused on creating structured short-form vertical video for platforms such as TikTok, Instagram Reels and YouTube Shorts. Students examine how media has evolved from print and broadcast to algorithm-driven distribution systems, and how one- to three-minute videos are delivered to individuals through interest-based systems rather than follower-based feeds. The course combines media theory with practical execution. Students study foundational concepts including the medium as environment, marketplace versus postal-style distribution and interest-based algorithms as interface systems. They analyze how platforms test each video independently and expand its distribution based on how viewers respond. Through guided workshops, students develop a content persona, design a repeatable series and produce an original one- to three-minute vertical video. The course covers script development, in-class production, editing, posting strategy, community management and interpreting analytics. By the end of the term, each student presents their published video, reviews its performance data and leaves with the skills to continue building and publishing structured short-form videos beyond the classroom.