D379 is MKTG 6020 Social Media Marketing, worth 3 competency units, and the catalog describes it as using social media to build brand awareness, generate leads and build customer relationships. Three outcomes, and they need different content, different platforms and different measures. The commonest reason a submission in this course gets returned is that it proposes one social media programme and expects it to deliver all three at once.
Three jobs, and they are not the same job
Awareness is a reach problem. It needs to be seen by people who do not know the brand, which means paid distribution or content designed to travel beyond an existing following, and it is measured by how many new people encountered it.
Lead generation is a conversion problem. It needs an offer worth an email address or a conversation, a place to complete the exchange, and a follow up that does something with the result. Its measure is qualified leads and eventually cost per lead, not reach.
Relationship building is a retention problem. It happens mostly with people who already bought, it runs on responsiveness and consistency rather than campaigns, and its measures are repeat purchase, service resolution and advocacy.
Writing a paper that names which of the three each activity serves, and measures each appropriately, is most of what separates strong work here. Writing one that proposes a posting schedule and reports engagement for everything is the standard returned submission.
WGU records the outcome as Competent or Not Competent, without letter grades and without an ordinary grade point average, and performance assessment work can be revised and resubmitted with no penalty attached to the result. Commit to a platform set and a purpose per platform, and let the evaluation sharpen the reasoning.
Turning scored aspects into a social media plan
If your course is assessed by a performance assessment, the aspects the evaluator scores are the sections, each needing a score of 2 in its own right. Social plans usually carry artefacts, a calendar, sample posts, a platform comparison, so decide which aspect each artefact supports before you build any of them.
Here is the arithmetic with a platform matrix. Suppose the rubric lists eight scored aspects and you are working to about 2,300 words with a platform comparison table and a two week calendar. Give the two artefacts 300 words of explanation between them, 200 for the business and audience, and 100 for a close, leaving 1,700 across eight aspects, or roughly 212 words each.
Then apply a course specific test. Go through your aspect list and mark each one A, L or R for awareness, leads or relationships. If seven of your eight aspects mark A, your plan is going to be an awareness plan and the catalog names three outcomes, so check whether you have read the task instructions correctly. If the aspects genuinely spread across all three, your document has to spread with them, and knowing the split before drafting is what stops the lead generation section from becoming an afterthought.
A structure for a social media marketing deliverable
The usual genre is a social media strategy or campaign plan for a described business. This layout forces purpose to precede platform, which is the order the aspects reward.
| Section | What it settles | Detail that earns the aspect | Weak version |
|---|---|---|---|
| Objective set | Which of awareness, leads or relationships, and in what proportion | An objective per outcome with a number | One vague growth objective |
| Audience | Who, and which platforms they actually use | Platform usage evidenced, not assumed | Assuming a platform because it is popular generally |
| Platform selection | Which platforms, and the job each does | A distinct role per platform | Being present everywhere with the same content |
| Content approach | What gets made, in what formats, at what cadence | Formats matched to platform strengths | One asset reposted across every platform |
| Community management | How the brand responds and how quickly | Response standards and escalation path | Section missing, though relationships are named in the catalog |
| Paid amplification | Where money extends reach and why | Targeting, budget and expected cost per result | Boosting posts with no criteria |
| Influencer or partner work | Whether to use others' audiences and on what terms | Selection criteria plus disclosure requirements | Partnerships proposed with no disclosure handling |
| Measurement | Which metric proves which objective | Metric mapped to objective with a baseline | Engagement reported for everything |
Evidence craft when everyone is an expert
Social media is the subject where students are most likely to write from personal use, and personal use is not evidence about a business audience. Build the sourcing layer deliberately.
Platform documentation and advertising help material are primary sources for what each platform's tools can do and what its policies allow, and citing them is the right way to support a mechanical claim about targeting or formats. Independent research organisations publish demographic data on platform usage by age, income and region, which is the correct support for a platform selection argument. Peer reviewed research supplies evidence on social influence, user generated content and the relationship between social activity and purchase. Industry benchmark reports supply cost and performance ranges from interested parties, so label the publisher and the year.
Two areas need care. Disclosure requirements around paid partnerships and endorsements are governed by consumer protection rules, and a plan that proposes influencer work without addressing disclosure has left out something a regulator considers compulsory, which is a strong aspect to lose. And platform features change frequently, so put the date in the sentence when you describe how something works.
What earns Competent, and what comes back
Passing plans assign each platform a distinct job, evidence the audience's presence there, describe content that fits the platform's native format, define response standards for the relationship work, and measure each objective with a metric that could actually demonstrate it.
Returns cluster in four places. The same content proposed everywhere, which shows no understanding of format differences. Platform selection based on general popularity rather than on this audience. No community management, which leaves the relationship outcome unaddressed. And engagement rate presented as evidence for awareness, leads and relationships alike, which is the single most common measurement failure in this subject.
Community management is worth expanding, because it is the section most often reduced to a sentence and the one that maps most directly onto the relationship outcome named in the catalog. A designed community management approach specifies who answers, within what time, during which hours, in what tone, and what happens when a message needs someone outside marketing. It also plans for the complaint that arrives publicly, since how a brand handles visible dissatisfaction shapes more opinions than any campaign asset. Two paragraphs covering response standards and an escalation path convert a vague commitment to engaging with the audience into something an evaluator can score.
Crisis handling belongs in the same neighbourhood and takes very little space. Say what constitutes an issue serious enough to pause scheduled content, who has authority to make that call, and how quickly a holding response goes out while facts are gathered. Every business that posts publicly will eventually need that sequence, and including it demonstrates the operational realism that separates a plan written by someone thinking about a business from one written by someone thinking about content.
Five mistakes that cost time in D379
Writing from your own social habits. Your feed is not the audience, and evaluators can tell when a platform choice came from familiarity.
One purpose for all activity. Awareness, leads and relationships need different content and different measures.
Skipping disclosure. Paid partnership rules exist, and ignoring them makes a plan unusable.
Cadence with no resourcing. Daily video across four platforms needs a team. Say who makes the work.
Vanity metrics only. Followers and likes are inputs. At least one measure has to connect to the business objective.
How we work here, and what we never do
We work on the written deliverable: mapping the rubric, marking aspects by outcome so the plan lands in proportion, drafting a model strategy with its calendar and platform matrix so you can study the structure and rewrite it in your own voice, and reading a returned evaluation to name the edits that will clear it. We do not post, run accounts, buy advertising or contact influencers on your behalf, and we never ask for social account access. If D379 carries an objective assessment on your plan, that exam is proctored and our role is preparation only. We are never present during an assessment, never take one for a student, and never ask for or handle WGU portal credentials.
Writing the social plan for D379?
Send the brief, the task instructions and the rubric. We come back with the objective split, a platform set with distinct jobs and a straight read on your measurement mapping.
Three questions students ask about D379
How many platforms should the plan cover?
What counts as a good social media metric?
Do I need to create actual posts?
Where D379 sits in WGU's programs
The July 2026 catalog places this code in 1 current WGU program. Open a program page for the complete standard path and term positions. The live Degree Plan remains authoritative after transfer credit, substitutions, and mentor planning.
The assessments, one by one
The public catalog does not publish this course's PA/OA identity or task count. WGU Tutors publishes at most one PA manual per course and only from a WGU-controlled public rubric. Until that source exists, PA help begins from the student's real Course of Study and OA support remains preparation only.