There’s no shortage of social media courses on the internet, many of them promise content both rich in quality and quantity, backed by social media ‘gurus’ and ‘success’ stories.
It’s no surprise that, when faced with an overwhelming amount of potential choices, you’re not sure which one to choose. Let us narrow down your choices, sift out the dirt, and present you with what we consider to be the golden nuggets.
In this article, we offer you five fantastic social media courses that we believe will help you tremendously.
For those of you who need a little extra encouragement, we also explain why you should be taking a social media course, keep reading.
Should You Take a Social Media Course
While it’s possible to be self-taught when it comes to social media marketing, there is nothing wrong with upskilling and self-improvement. Let’s face it; nobody knows everything, and this is especially true when it comes to digital marketing.
By taking social media courses, you’re likely to come across gems of information, whether they’re tips, strategies, or nuances that you didn’t know before.
Secondly, given the ever-changing and expanding world of digital marketing, it’s essential to keep up-to-date with the latest trends and social media features.
Thirdly, and perhaps most importantly, social media training can help you minimize errors so that you can get the most out of your social media marketing attempts.
Here’s a List of Five Fantastic Courses
For your convenience, we’ve researched and painstakingly shortlisted what we consider to be 5 of the best social media courses currently available.
These courses are comprehensive, up to date, good value for your money, and come from highly credible sources.
No matter which path you end up picking from the list, you can be sure that you’ll benefit from the invaluable knowledge that they provide.
1# Social Media Marketing Certification by the University of Illinois
This course is designed primarily for professionals who want to launch a career in the field of digital marketing.
As such, this course comprehensively covers digital marketing as a whole. This course is undoubtedly amongst the elite when it comes to digital marketing courses – having a certification from this institution, although pricey, will do wonders for your resume and will equip you with the advanced knowledge you need to do digital marketing as a professional.
What you’ll learn
You learn how to create effectively, targeted promotional campaigns, and understand the in’s and out’s of how and why they work.
You’ll dive into the psychology of consumer behavior and responses to learn what drives their choices. You’ll learn how to use marketing data and visualization techniques to guide strategic decision making.
The course also includes the best ways of communicating and interacting with customers through social media platforms and many more aspects.
2# Hootsuite Academy of Social Media Training
Hootsuite Academy is another excellent online course provider with many similarities to Udemy.
One of the best things about Hootsuite Academy is that their certifications are industry-recognized, which means you’ll be able to sport them on your resumes.
To add the icing to the cake, many of their courses are free of charge. And it just so happens that one of their free classes is a comprehensive and highly rated course on social media marketing.
What you’ll learn
From the free beginner’s course, you’ll be able to learn foundational social media marketing skills, aimed towards increasing your follower count, boosting engagement levels, and achieving your business objectives.
In the advanced course, you learn the in-depth and advanced aspects of running social media campaigns, the in’s and out’s of targeted social advertising and best practices for utilizing social media.
3# Udemy’s Complete and Comprehensive Social Media Marketing Course
Listed as the most complete and best selling social media course on Udemy, with over 43000 enrollments and an impressive 4.2 / 5-star rating, this course covers it all.
Whether you’re a beginner or professional, this course includes content targeted towards all experience levels.
While regularly priced at $30, Udemy is known for its frequent and generous specials, which means more often than not, you’ll be able to get this course for a significantly lower price.
What you’ll learn
During this course, the foundations of social media for A to Z are explained for all contemporary platforms. You’ll learn how to use social media for improving customer services and Public Relations.
Thirdly, social media marketing strategies are extensively discussed, and you’ll learn to audit, design, and implement those.
The risks of social media usage and the fundamentals of content marketing include one of the last subjects of this course.
After completion, you will be as up-to-date as possible and ready to take your results through the roof.
4# Social Media Certification by Northwestern University
Northwestern University has brilliant options for online marketing courses, mainly social media marketing and content marketing.
The classes are extensive and complete, with a duration of around five months, depending on your time availability, and you can enroll for free.
Northwestern’s social media marketing specialization is highly rated and reviewed by over 6500 enthusiastic students with an average score of 4.7 / 5.
This highly popular course will be sure to improve your knowledge of social media marketing significantly.
What you’ll learn
When applying for this course, you will start with the foundations of social media marketing in-depth, emphasizing the best strategies for specific businesses and how you could aim them.
Designing, operating, and improving social media campaigns to spur business growth and competitiveness, is another highly rated subject of this course.
This hands-on course will also provide you with many opportunities to practice what you learn in the form of practical assignments, such as developing targeted ads and managing social media projects.
5# Social Media Marketing Classes by Skillshare
This course is slightly different than the ones mentioned above. Skillshare offers classes instead of courses and emphasizes the flexibility of learning.
As opposed to choosing a course and abiding by its predefined curriculum, Skillshare enables you to pick and choose the classes you wish to take. Thereby selecting what specific aspects of social media marketing you want to learn.
One of the best things about Skillshare is that many of the available classes are free. If you wish to opt for their premium service, you may do so with a trial version for 14 days before you fully commit.
What you’ll learn
Anything you want. The best part about Skillshare is that you can pick and choose from the many classes available on a wide variety of subjects.
If there are gaps in your social media marketing knowledge, you can fill them in with a specific class on that piece of subject-matter.
With Skillshare, you can easily tailor your learning experience to your needs, strengths, and shortcomings.
Keeping Up With The Time
No matter if it’s online or offline, and you’re a rookie or expert, we always risk being ensnared by one of the most corrosive and enfeebling traps there is to our level of competency.
This career killer pulls a blanket of smug satisfaction over our eyes and comforts us with the fallacy that we know it all and don’t need to improve.
However, our skillset and mind must be maintained and updated to keep our workflow efficient, and the results of our efforts fruitful.
It is, therefore, essential for people who work in social media marketing (or digital marketing in general) to upskill and keep up with the time.
Visit Online Academy Scam before you buy any of the social media marketing courses. They spend their own money and test out the programs to make sure that they’re not a scam and write a review about it. So make sure you check them out before spending your own hard earned money.
The digital landscape, mainly social media, is in a constant state of flux, a dynamic and ever-changing system that requires its users to observe its rules and continuously keep up with its trends and features.
Conclusion – Which Social Media course should you select?
Taking a course in social media marketing is something to consider, especially if you’re an aspiring or already established entrepreneur, or if your job involves digital marketing.
When deciding which course to choose, your decision should be defined by several things: your budget, how much you already know, and the aspects of the social media marketing that you wish to learn.
Furthermore, we recommend the consideration of more than one class, especially if they are budget-friendly.
It is always a good idea to sharpen your skill set and be up-to-date in an ever-changing and dynamic environment such as digital marketing.
Author: Dayana Hernandez
