Influencer Marketing
BUSA-X409.35
Influencer marketing drives customer acquisition, builds brand trust, and generates measurable revenue—and organizations now expect clear return on investment (ROI). As artificial intelligence (AI) reshapes how content is created and discovered—including by AI-generated creators—marketers must plan, execute, and measure influencer marketing with ROI built in from the start.
This 6-week online, asynchronous course provides a practical framework to plan, evaluate, and execute influencer marketing in a business context—from small and mid-sized businesses to Fortune 500 organizations. Whether you are new to influencer marketing or building on existing experience, you will apply concepts directly to real-world scenarios.
You will identify the right creators, assess audience quality and trust signals, and align influencer activity with defined business goals. You will examine how influencer content operates across social and search discovery environments, including major platforms such as Instagram (Meta), TikTok, YouTube, and others, where content influences visibility, discovery, and decision-making.
The course examines how AI shapes influencer marketing across content, content creators (including AI-generated), and how content is consumed, and addresses ethical and regulatory considerations, including disclosure, brand alignment, transparency, audience trust, and parasocial dynamics.
Through applied work, you will build an influencer marketing strategy and complete a portfolio-ready campaign pitch you can use in interviews, client work, or internal presentations.
Recognized as a top-ranked influencer marketing course (#4, The CMO, 2026), this course prepares professionals to apply influencer marketing to real business challenges.
What you'll learn
LEARNING OUTCOMES
Upon successful completion of this course, students will be able to:
- Evaluate the role of influencer marketing within the digital marketing ecosystem and its impact on business objectives.
- Analyze influencers and audiences using engagement metrics, trust signals, and platform data to assess fit, authenticity, and performance potential.
- Develop influencer marketing strategies aligned with customer journeys, business goals, and campaign objectives.
- Apply legal, ethical, and platform-specific requirements to influencer partnerships, content, and disclosures.
- Measure and interpret campaign performance using key metrics—including reach, engagement, conversions, and return on investment (ROI)—to inform strategic decisions.
Course Information
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No textbook is required for this course.
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Instructor:
Jennifer Neeley
Current and former clients include Apigee, Castlight Health, Fiverr, LinkedIn, and Microsoft, as well as high-profile health care and technology executives who are referred to Jennifer for her discreet, strategic counsel. She is known for brining left and right brain ideas together through novel marketing and strategy.
Jennifer brought her skills to Iraq's Green Zone in 2011, where she worked with an international NGO to show them how to use practical tools like Google Analytics to identify where and how to disseminate information about voting rights. Her work coincided with the Arab Spring, which would lead to further opportunities to provide input on how to use social media to positive effect.
Jennifer earned her Master of Science (MS) from Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism and her Bachelor of Arts (BA) degree from the University of California, Berkeley. She has also completed programs at Lund University in Sweden and the American Conservatory Theater, and taught ESL (English as a Second Language) as a Peace Corps volunteer in Turkmenistan.
Jennifer a regular media fixture, routinely providing commentary on digital and social media to TV news outlets. She is also a sought-after speaker, and contributes to a number of online publications including Forbes, Social Media Today, Business2Community, and Medium.
Jennifer is passionate about giving back, and is an active participant on a number on nonprofit boards. She also maintains numerous professional memberships, and is active in the lifestyle and fitness community as a yoga teacher and health coach. She continues her personal development by studying Ayurvedic medicine.
Jennifer is currently working on research that aims to measure the impact of social media on at-risk health communities, as well as the mental health benefits of trauma-informed yoga offered to community groups who do not otherwise have access.