Building a successful social media marketing strategy for your business requires careful planning and lots of trial and error. Get help developing your social media strategy and skills by signing up for free online courses offered by educators and practitioners.
Here is a list of free courses to perfect your social media marketing strategy. Some of these courses are events at a single conference. Others are several weeks courses in major specializations.
Free Social Media Courses
What is the Social? Created by Northwestern University, this course is the first of six specialization courses, "Social Media Marketing: How to Enjoy in a Digital World", for Business Owners, Executives, and Marketing Professionals. Discover the goals, structure and deliverables of the social marketing specialization. Use the audit option to see conferences and some free missions without registering or starting a free trial. You can upgrade to a subscription later if you decide to complete the series.
Northwestern University – Social Media Marketing.
Introduction to marketing. This course from the University of British Columbia will teach you the fundamentals of marketing, including strategies and tools used in all industries. The course covers social media strategy and other key marketing topics, including market research, branding, pricing, integrated marketing communication, and more. Learn through award-winning educational approaches from the Sauder School of Business's Faculty of Marketing.
Analysis of social media. This class covers the basic principles of social media analysis for beginners and for marketers who want to refresh their knowledge. For all newcomers to social media analysis, this free course offers an introduction to its fundamentals. It aims to help anyone involved in social media analysis no matter if they work for a brand, an agency or in the media.
HubSpot Academy incoming certification. The HubSpot Academy Free Entrance Certification Course includes twelve lectures covering the four stages of the entry methodology. In "Boost your content with social media," find out why social media is an essential part of any inbound strategy. Implement best practices to create an effective social media strategy, including monitoring, publishing and reporting on social media. Additional courses cover search engine optimization, blogging, email marketing, and more.
HubSpot Academy.
Social Media Monitoring. Learn how to use social monitoring tools to find hot spots and meet your customers on their own land. Learn how to use social media tools to perform content retention and find influencers online. Learn social media monitoring on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, Craigslist, blogs and forums using free social media monitoring tools and services and master the art and science of social media monitoring .
The company of the social. In "The Business of Social," learn how to transform your organization's social marketing from an unheard investment to an integral part of your company's marketing strategy. Learn the legal considerations involved as well as proven performance metrics and management tactics for success. This is another course in the Northwestern University Social Media Marketing Specialization.
Viral marketing and how to create contagious content. Created by The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, this course explains how things get activated and helps you apply those ideas to be more effective in marketing your ideas, brands or products. Inspired by the principles of his bestseller, "Contagious: Why Things Catch On," Professor Jonah Berger illustrates successful strategies for using buzz to create virality so that your campaigns become more shareable on the media social and elsewhere. By the end of this course, you will better understand how to create infectious content, create more relevant messages, and ensure that any product, idea, or behavior is perceived.
The Wharton School Online.
Sprout Fast University. Neil Patel's Quick Sprout University offers a wide variety of short social media classes, as well as content marketing, email marketing, paid advertising, SEO, link building, and more. Social media courses include "How to improve your presence on social media" and "How to improve your social media marketing with social media settings." Learn the right way (and the bad way) to set up your social media profiles. buttons on your blog, how to optimize your social media profiles for search engines, and engage your followers to turn them into paying customers.
Digital Analytics for Marketing Professionals. This course builds on the theory and fundamentals of marketing analysis and focuses on practical application in demystifying the use of data in marketing and helping you achieve the power to visualize data with the clever use of numbers found in the digital space. This course is part of the "iMBA" program offered by the Master of Business Administration program of the University of Illinois.
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign iMBA Program.
Content, advertising and social media. In this course you will learn how marketers are successfully navigating the media landscape of today. Find out why developing engaging content for your audience is an essential part of effective social marketing. A panel of experts unlocks the paid media conundrum and replaces it with an integrated approach to who-what-who uses platform-specific messaging to increase your market share. This course also includes an overview of the integrated marketing communication strategy for social networks and how it is deployed around the world, as well as gamification tips to keep your audience coming back for more. In addition, you will learn the secrets of advertising on Facebook and other social sites.
Email marketing for e-commerce. This fast class with Ariana Hargrave, Director of MailChimp VIP Services, shares tools and tips that you can implement today to send better emails and reach your business goals. Explore three key concepts to boost your business through email, automation, optimization and customization, with helpful tactics and visual examples for everyone.
Advanced social media marketing for customer collection. In "Advanced Social Media Marketing for Customer Collection," learn how to implement simple rules and attract motivated, quality customers via social media. Learn how to use Facebook groups, niche forums, message boards, and YouTube for your own business purposes.
Facebook map. Learn Facebook's best marketing practices through a series of free online courses and webinars at your own pace. Or follow a personalized learning path consisting of organized courses for your role. Earn an edge from your subscribers by exploring topics such as content targeting, audience information, brand awareness, and brand best practices.
Facebook map.