Social media marketing is a discipline, which means that it can be taught. Finding good courses that give you what you need can be difficult.
Don’t worry, because we’ve put together a list of some of the best courses you can find online for this crazy business we call social media marketing.
Boot Camp Digital
If you want a course that’s used by the best brands around, you could start by looking at Boot Camp Digital. It’s comprehensive to say the least, with tons of courses that are competitively priced. But putting that aside for a moment, Bootcamp has worked with Google, Capital One, and the United States Senate. That’s some pedigree.
Digital Storytelling and Social media
This is an interesting one. It’s totally free and is a university level course, from the University of Mary Washington. The reason it’s made our list is because it hones in on one crucial aspect of social media marketing: storytelling. It’s packed full of great video content, blogs and a ton of interactive materials.
Social Media Marketing: How to profit in a digital world
This is another academic institution (we like the fact you can pick up college courses like this) and it’s run by Northwestern University.
Six courses run in total, with full certification. And the courses are more than just interesting, they’re pretty useful too. Perfect for anyone who is considering a career in digital marketing, or helping an agency provide real value.
Search and social media marketing for international business
This is from Salford University in Manchester, England. It’s A huge institution, and this course came about due to the university deciding to run courses online through the Massive Open Online Courses (MOOC) process.
As a MOOC, it is comprehensive, and has tons of materials for you to sink your teeth into. Even better, and if you’re so inclined, you can take the course further and work towards a higher accreditation.
Viral marketing and how to craft contagious content
Now, here is something special. This course is not free, but it is provided via a Wharton School umbrella project. This means that you get a course delivered by the University of Pennsylvania, and it’s backed by Wharton. We’re super excited by that, because Wharton has an established pedigree for online courses and accreditation.
This course has an amazing tutor too, in the from of Jonah Berger. You couldn’t ask for a more experienced person when it comes to marketing. It’s a fun course, and very compact, so it won’t take a year to finish. Best of all, it’s extremely well-written.
What is Social?
This is officially classed as a ‘beginner’ level course, but we think it is so perfectly presented it should be in every marketer’s toolbox. It’s also pitched as a prequel of sorts, to Social Media Marketing: How to profit in a digital world, so it is part of a bigger learning journey.
It’s a great refresher, and one of the key features of the course is the practicality of it all. It allows you to get your hands dirty while learning. And it’s designed to run over just four weeks.
Social Media Monitoring
Here at Locowise we are always talking about the importance of listening to an audience, and the industry you’re part of. This course has enough content in it to make you a true master of the discipline. And it’s completely free too, so it just requires you to sit back and take it all in.
It is particularly useful because all of the strategies in the course are perfect for quick implementation. Use the ideas in the course, and you should be able to find results almost immediately.
Email marketing for e-commerce
Email marketing is still a very successful method you can implement to ensure you get a marketing message to your audience, without wasting time. But if you have a contact list, it’s essential that you ensure you’re doing it right. This is even more important in e-commerce, where you have details of thousands of satisfied customers, who certainly don’t want you to get it wrong.
Mailchimp is an established brand, and it keeps expanding its product list. But this course is one of their best offerings. It is aimed at the more intermediate to advanced marketer, so it is perfect for an agency and its staff. It gives you everything you need to up your game with email marketing, and it’s so lean and focused, not one minute is wasted.
Google Online Marketing Challenge
Here is a whole suite of courses that form part of a challenge. Essentially, these courses lead towards certification, and any marketer will tell you that accreditation from Google is enough to differentiate your agency from others. Having the accreditation from one of the biggest brands on the planet will reassure clients that you know what youre talking about.
This is a great set of courses, but it does require a huge amount of work to pass it, and to meet the challenge. But any serious digital marketing professional will want to have this one under their belt. The Adwords content alone is worth your time, and at the end of it all you receive a certificate from Google itself.
An introduction to consumer neuroscience and neuromarketing
We can’t recommend this one enough. It has an incredible amount of insight into why people buy from brands, and their thought processes when they’re close to making a buying decision.
Created by the Copenhagen Business School, it is meant to be a beginner course, but is so comprehensive that it will provide value to anyone who wants to know what prospects are really thinking when they’re online and looking at your client’s content and platforms.
So there you have it, a list of some of the best online social media marketing courses. They’re all useful, and some of them are even free. We like the fact they provide valuable help for various parts of a marketer’s career path. Try them out.