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Northwestern University · on Coursera

Content, Advertising & Social IMC

Beginner English University CertificateFREE
SkillsContent marketingAdvertisingSocial media marketingIntegrated marketing communicationsCampaign strategy

Is this course right for you?

Our take
A Northwestern course from Randy Hlavac on getting content marketing, paid advertising and social media to work as one coordinated system.

Good for: Coordinating content, advertising and social into one integrated approach.

Skip if: You want deep expertise in one of those areas alone.

Where a broad IMC course stays at the strategy layer, this one is campaign-oriented and specific: it connects those three levers into a single approach you can actually run. That practicality is the draw for marketers who want content, ads and social pulling together — and it means the course isn't the place to go for deep, standalone mastery of any one of them.

Free to audit on Coursera, with the certificate on a subscription (about $49/month) or Coursera Plus and financial aid available. It marks the learning rather than being a professional qualification, but the integrated, run-it-yourself angle is what sets it apart (as of 2026).

Comparison · LBS

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About this course

Content, Advertising & Social IMC looks at how content, paid advertising, and social media come together as integrated communications. From Northwestern University and instructor Randy Hlavac, it's part of a respected social-media specialization and focuses on coordinating channels around campaign goals.

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Instructor

RH
Randy Hlavac
Coursera instructor

Randy Hlavac teaches social-media marketing at Northwestern University and is a practitioner who works with companies on social selling and analytics. His Northwestern specialization is a well-known route into social marketing.

Frequently asked questions

Content marketing, advertising, and social media within an integrated marketing communications (IMC) framework — how these channels work and, crucially, how to coordinate them into a consistent, effective overall strategy. From Northwestern University, it emphasises the 'integrated' idea: making content, ads, and social reinforce each other rather than operating separately, so you learn to plan communications holistically across these key digital channels.

Yes, typically — it sits within Northwestern's Integrated Marketing Communications specialization on Coursera, covering content, advertising, and social as part of a broader IMC program. You can take it standalone for those channels, but it is designed within that sequence, so the wider specialization builds around it if you continue toward a fuller understanding of integrated marketing communications.

Marketers, communications professionals, and business owners who want to plan coordinated content, advertising, and social campaigns, plus students of marketing. It assumes no deep specialist background, so it works as an accessible grounding in these channels and how to integrate them, suiting people responsible for a brand's messaging rather than those seeking one narrow, hands-on tool skill.

Yes, you can audit it on Coursera and watch the lectures at no cost. The graded elements and the certificate require a subscription, with financial aid available if you apply. Since much of the value is the integrated-communications strategy, auditing gives you the substance if you want the concepts rather than the credential.

As a course within a specialization, it typically runs a few weeks at a modest weekly pace. It is strategy- and concept-driven rather than a hands-on build, so the time goes into absorbing the content, advertising, and social frameworks and how to integrate them, with the wider IMC specialization a longer commitment if you continue.
Free
to audit
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