As I started my own journey of developing websites and managing social media accounts for various companies, I found that there wasn’t much information out there.
It is kind of a lucrative market and unless you start off with this as your career choice the options to break into this field aren’t widely written about. For someone like me who had an entire career prior to transitioning into social media content management and website design, I had no intention on going back to school. So as my clients got larger and my salary grew I wanted something that would set me apart from others.
Continuing education is sort of an addiction to me and I am constantly reading, listening to podcasts, audio books and taking various online courses from top Universities and Institutions. For those of you who may already have a degree and want to transition or want to hone in on your marketing degree with the most update information, I have made a list of all the programs I have taken or found that may be useful to your journey in Social Media Management.
Coursera
Coursera partners with more than 200 leading universities and companies to bring flexible, affordable, job-relevant online learning to individuals and organizations worldwide. We offer a range of learning opportunities—from hands-on projects and courses to job-ready certificates and degree programs.
Here are a few of the courses included with your Coursera Plus Membership
Click here to get 50% off a course or the first month of a Specialization subscription. Coursera is loaded with so much information that you really just need to join and take a look around. Below are some of my favorites, listed in no particular order.
This course is a partnership between the leading content marketing authority, Copyblogger, and UC Davis Continuing and Professional Education. In this course, you will learn the core strategies content marketers use to acquire and retain customers profitably. Specifically, you will learn how to develop, organize and implement a content marketing strategy, analyze and measure the effectiveness of content marketing, write compelling copy, use a strategic framework when writing, and build your professional brand and authority through content marketing. You will also learn how to put the ideas presented to you into action and build your own personal brand through content marketing.
Offered by UC Davis, University of California
Manage Your Social Strategies. Expand your online audience and establish your social brand in five courses.
Offered by Northwestern University
- Create and analyze an effective advertising campaign for your target audience
- Create a creative brief that includes the assets for your paid ad
- Create, edit, and troubleshoot ads in Facebook Ads Manager
- Establish and manage a social media presence
Offered by Facebook
Taught by Kevin Hartman, Head of Industry at Google, this free marketing course on “Digital Analytics” focuses on the specific data collection, analysis, and visualization techniques used by the world’s top brands. Unlike some of the other analytics classes offered online, this one focuses specifically on marketing.
This marketing course will set you up with a full understanding of how to properly approach data analytics in marketing and how to make informed decisions based on your finding. In short, you’ll be a data wizard!
Offered by University of Illinois
Strong Brand Social – by KW Content
After a decade in the field at some of the world’s most beloved brands…
That’s 140,000 hours and ~3650 days of testing, learning, and simplifying the art of successful content and social media for product-based businesses in the outdoor retail, beauty, and grocery brand spaces…
I know exactly how to jack up your:
- Growth rate
- Engagement rate
- Quality of traffic hitting your site
- Average customer value
by a whole helluva lot. Even right now. This course is only $37
Facebook Blueprint Certifications
Facebook Blueprint certification exams help you stand out in your field. Facebook awards credentials to individuals who demonstrate advanced-level proficiency in various aspects of digital marketing with Facebook products.
There is a vast array of specialty certifications that Facebook Blueprint offers. Each one is an exam plus the exam cost, which varies country to country.
So no matter what niche in the social media management you are trying to hone, you will find something useful.
Whether you are wanting to be proficient at paid ad management or advertising api director, having a Blueprint certifications verifies your knowledge to prospective clients or employers.
Investing the small cost for the exam and cert is small to what you gain in trust from your clients/employers.
Skillshare
Email Marketing for E-Commerce: Tips and Tools to Increase Sales | Learn with Mailchimp
Eager to take your email marketing to the next level, and start increasing sales? This tactical 25-minute class with Mailchimp’s Director of VIP Services, Ariana Hargrave, shares tools and tips you can put into action today to send better emails and achieve your business goals.
Introduction to Social Media Strategy | Learn with Buffer
Create a social media strategy that works with digital marketing strategist Brian Peters and Buffer in this 45-minute, straightforward class.
Introduction to Social Media Advertising | Learn with Buffer
This introductory class is perfect for marketers, brands, small business, freelancers, and everyone looking to harness the potential of paid social advertising. By the end, you’ll be ready to run your first social media ad campaign — and connect with customers, convert views into action, and drive impact for long-term business success!
EdX
Begin your journey in a new career in marketing analytics. Learn about powerful strategies and methodology, starting with identifying market trends and metrics used to measure marketing success.
In this marketing course, you will learn how to execute market sizing, identify market trends, and predict future conditions.
This course is taught by Stephan Sorger who has held leadership roles in marketing and product development at companies such as Oracle, 3Com and NASA. He has also taught for over a decade at UC Berkeley Extension and is the author of two widely adopted marketing textbooks. This course will equip you with the knowledge and skills necessary to immediately see practical benefits in the workplace.
Analytics-based marketing is increasingly important in determining a company’s spending and ROI. Many entry-level positions in marketing now require some basic level of knowledge in this rapidly growing field.
Quick Sprout University
Below is a summary of what Quick Sprout has to offer, pasted directly from their website.
Quick Sprout has everything you need to become a world-class digital marketer. We’ve included it all below.
Treat this page as a syllabus, start at the top and work your way down.
When you get to the end, you’ll know more about digital marketing than most CMOs that we’ve worked with.
Digital Marketing 101
Before you start getting into the tactical stuff, get a strong foundation. The principles from these guides will improve every marketing project you pursue. Considering how fast channels and tactics change in digital marketing, the best way to stay ahead is to have a firm grounding in all the core principles. That’ll help you take advantage of tactics and new channels as they develop.
Starting a Website
Every digital marketing strategy starts with a website. These guides break down exactly how the pros build websites.
Starting a Blog
Blogging is a huge component of digital marketing. We’ve used blogging to drive millions of visitors be month, build email lists of 700,000 people, and get 8,000 leads/month for a B2B SaaS business. Nothing scales and has the profitably like blogging.
Content Creation and Content Marketing
Blog posts aren’t the only way to build traffic and audiences, there’s so many types of content it’s hard to keep track. While it sems overwhelming at first, that also means there’s tons of options. And where there’s options, there’s opportunity.
Advanced Digital Marketing
After you spend some time wrapping your head around everything outlined above, it’s time to start digging into more advanced digital marketing topics.
Growth Hacking
Growth hacking might be our favorite discipline within digital marketing, it generates growth using points of high leverage. So you end up getting an enormous impact with relatively little effort.
SEO
SEO is definitely not dead. It’s as big as ever and can drive an endless stream of traffic. But it has gotten a lot more competitive than it used to be.
Social Media
To build a brand, social media needs to a core part of your marketing strategy. The audiences are just massive.
Email Marketing
No channel has the immediate impact like email marketing. Whenever I’m trying to come up with a way to get a ton of people to act right away, we go straight to our email list. Once you’ve built one, it’s an absolute goldmine.
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