Connecting Social Media with Purpose

Content updated 06-03-2025

Make Social Media Meaningful

Social media isn’t just noise; it’s a tool for impact. This minor is your launchpad to growth, purpose, and connection. Choose your track, explore your passions, and define your role in the world. Connect with like-minded people and turn your purpose into action.

Choose your track: grow as a world-traveling digital nomad or from our campus. Same goal: deep insights, real connections. With expert guidance from social media experts, a digital nomad, and expert coaches, you’ll define what matters, build your voice, and engage with a like-minded community using social media.

What drives you? What matters? Find out through expert coaching, real-world projects, and hands-on learning. You won’t do this alone—whether traveling or staying local, you’ll be part of a tight-knit group that supports, challenges, and inspires you. Use social media to connect, share, and build a community that aligns with your goals.

Curious, driven, and ready to grow? This program is for explorers – of the world and of themselves. No fixed paths, just your journey. Share what matters, listen, learn, and create something real. It’s up to you to take the lead.

Choose Your Track:

Track 1: Real growth has no borders – pack your bags for purposeful travel (fully online).
Learning happens where you push your limits. Travel isn’t an escape, it’s a lab for real-world growth. Immerse yourself in a different culture and use it as a lens for reflection. Shape your insights and perspectives. Use social media to reflect and connect. No tourists here, just action, insight, and impact. Fully online.

Track 2: Build Your Tribe Through Social Media (50% online, 50% face-to-face)

Focus on self-discovery from where you are right now.  Use social media to connect with people who share your values, amplify ideas that matter, and shape your vision for the future. Through online coaching and a mix of in-person and virtual workshops, you’ll engage with issues and opportunities that inspire you. Build a community, experiment with purpose-driven ideas, and take meaningful steps toward a goal that truly matters to you – on your terms on social media, in English or another language of your choice.

Please find the differences and similarities between the two tracks below:

After registration, please inform the minor coordinator of your chosen track: Inge.rozendal@hu.nl.

What Did Others Before You Do?

Forget the traditional classroom; this is learning without limits. Whether you’re immersing yourself in new cultures or exploring your purpose from home, this minor is about pushing boundaries, making meaningful connections, and creating real impact.

This isn’t about following a set path, it’s about designing your own. Get inspired by past students who used this minor to explore their passions, create impact, and shape their future:

• Finding Direction: Gained clarity on how to combine their passions and skills, discovering what brings them joy in their career, studies, and life.
• Mindful Living: Shared the best free experiences in an expensive city, from hidden green spaces to community events, proving that mindful living doesn’t have to come with a price tag.
• Sustainable Marketing: Established a personal brand as a Gen Z digital marketer specializing in sustainable businesses, using Instagram and TikTok to amplify their message and help ethical brands grow.
• Ethical Fashion: Explored sustainable clothing options in Indonesia, highlighting local artisans and shedding light on the impact of fast fashion.
• Gaming & Toxicity: Used TikTok and gaming platforms to fight online toxicity, promote inclusive spaces, and advocate for positive gaming communities.
• Tech for Change – Brought technology education to conflict-affected Arab regions, sharing knowledge to bridge gaps in innovation, accessibility, and opportunity.
• Learning from Indigenous Wisdom – Highlighted Indigenous knowledge on sustainability, well-being, and community.

Admission 

You have a curious, open-minded mindset and a willingness to reflect on your thoughts, values, and growth. You take initiative, work independently, and actively shape your learning journey.

This minor does not require an internship or a formal workplace, but you have the flexibility to include one if it aligns with your learning goals.

You need sufficient oral and reading skills to follow classes in English. However, your social media content can be in your native language.

Track-Specific Requirements

Track 1: Growth Without Borders – Purposeful Travel (fully online)

• Minimum 10 Weeks of Travel – You must spend at least 10 weeks in a country different from your own, primarily during Block B. The minor coordinator (inge.rozendal@hu.nl) will review your travel plans to ensure they meet this requirement. If they do not, you may not be able to participate in this track. The minor coordinator makes the final decision. Additionally, you are required to use the Polarsteps app to document your travels throughout the period.
• Adaptability & Cultural Awareness – Willingness to immerse yourself in a new culture and use it as a lens for reflection.
• Logistical Preparedness – Ability to arrange travel, accommodation, and digital access for online learning.
• Personal Responsibility – You are responsible for organizing your trip and acknowledge that any risks associated with travel are your own responsibility.

Track 2: Build Your Tribe Through Social Media (50% online, 50% face-to-face)

• Self-Discipline & Structure – Ability to manage your learning independently without the structure of travel.
• Social Media Engagement – Comfort with using social media as a tool for connection and impact.

The Examination Board determines which minors do not have a higher professional education level and/or have an unacceptable overlap with the compulsory curriculum of your own study programme. Check at the page Not allowed minor courses under your institute which minors are not allowed. This page will be updated from 21 February for the 2025-2026 minor offer. 

Content 

In this minor, you hold all the power! You will have the opportunity to design most of your learning, with support from your lecturers as you need it. You are in the driver’s seat: it is all about what you stand for, what you find important, and finding like-minded people.

We will get super clear on your vision, mission, and values, so you can speak from an authentic place. And we’ll give you the tools that the best marketing strategists use to find your community online – a community that shares your values and gives you the voice you need to advocate for the change you want to see in the world.

You will learn what the impact you want to make is, and how to actually create it.

In the space of one semester, you won’t only set a goal, you will be well on your way to achieving it.

You will work on the following skills:

• Vision on who you wish to become: You will formulate a vision on ways to have an impact and how you can and want to play a meaningful role in it.
• Innovation skills: You will look at issues and solutions in an open creative way and show guts and dare to experiment.
• Empathy and global sensitivity: You will relate your values to the wicked problems in service of life on Earth, and with responsibility for the wellbeing of our planet and future generations.
• Learning how to cultivate authentic relationships: You will learn how to engage, motivate, and communicate with your community.
• Personal leadership: It starts with you. Leadership is not only about the ability to adapt to changing circumstances, but also about the ability to shape and realize changes oneself.  You will define your own learning goals through the lens of self-management.

Although the courses will be in English, your social media content can be done in whichever language you choose.

You will leave this minor with an expanded network, you will know yourself better and get to know others better, and you will feel less of a ‘victim’, and more connected and seen. You will be able to experience the power of a group, and the power of ‘small acts, huge impact’.

Learning Objectives

This minor gives you a lot of flexibility to carve out your own path. You will be the director of your own learning journey and learning objectives, supported by industry experts and lecturers with solid didactic experience.

You will:

• Understand your values and mission, and align them to the positive change you want to create in the world.
• Formulate a goal that will lead you to create this impact.
• Create a digital marketing strategy to help you reach this goal.
• Find your community and build your network.
• See the impact you are starting to create in the world.

Courses

You will work within two themes, both worth 15 EC. You will finish each theme with a portfolio and interview. 

Block A: Find your purpose (15 EC)

Futures lab

“When we put our hearts and minds into transforming a reality, the biggest transformation is ourselves.”

Via a Futures Literacy Laboratory, we will co-create the meaning of a better planet for all living things. You will become aware of where your interest lies. Team-based projects will challenge you to identify a problem or job to be done, and create ways to address the issue.

Find your Purpose

You will reflect on your personal mission, and brainstorm new ways to connect that mission to our global ones. You will take inventory of the things you love doing and what you are good at.

Create your social media strategy

While going through the journey of using your impact, you will write a social media strategy. You will work on your message that is connected to your purpose, define your target audience, and choose a social media platform. The goal of the strategy is to find your community to test and build ideas.

Block B: Build your Tribe (15 EC)

Building and executing ideas

You will learn by doing. You will execute your social media strategy. You will discover how to engage with others towards a shared goal, as well as find your community to test and build ideas. As you build your network and ideas, you will discover how to set meaningful goals that will help you achieve success as an individual and leader.

You will learn about who you are in connection with the common good, and how to build a community around this in seven steps:

1. Understand the ecosystem that you are part of.
2. Get clear on your vision, and values and connect these to your purpose.
3. Based on point 2, formulate a goal.
4. Formulate a strategy to achieve the goal.
5. Implement your strategy to find their community.
6. Develop and test ideas.
7. Evaluate your progress towards the goal, iterate and continue to improve.

Assessment 

Personalized learning

The minor will be open and personalized: you will choose your own path.

Based on your individual interests, you will propose a personal learning path: you will do research on what learning routes you can take (do a MOOC, listen to a podcast, shadow a role model, meditate, etc.) and you will choose a path that fits your journey best. You will set your own learning objectives for this minor, which are connected to the overall learning outcomes.

Literature

We will use a wide array of readings, MOOCs, and podcasts, connected to your personal interest: from specific topics to more general books on personal development.

Schedule

The schedule and the days are not yet known. We try to facilitate personal learning journeys as much as we can. If you are a part-time or flex student, please contact the minor coordinator beforehand (inge.rozendal@hu.nl).

There are no fixed teaching and internship days.

With the exception of the first teaching period of the academic year (starting September), the lesson and test schedules are always posted on Mijn Rooster four weeks before the start of each teaching period. The schedule for the first teaching period of the academic year can be found on the site three weeks before the start. The most up-to-date schedule is always visible on Mijn Rooster. 

At HU, full-time education may be scheduled between 08:30 and 19:00.

Additional costs

All reading material will be provided for.

When you will do the purposeful travel track, you will carry all travel-related costs yourself.

This minor course is marked by the Green Office as a sustainable minor. This means that by participating in this minor course, you can contribute to one or more of the Sustainable Development Goals from the UN.