10 Free Marketing and Social Media Classes to Elevate Your Skills Today

10 Free Marketing and Social Media Classes to Elevate Your Skills Today

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When I first started out with digital marketing, I was blown away by the sheer amount of online marketing resources and social media classes. I read hundreds of articles and enrolled in as many marketing courses that I could possibly get my hands on. Even today, millions of resources continue to be published online every month. It’s enough to wonder …Where can you go for the best, most useful marketing information? I’ve had the chance to test out and research a huge amount of resources, and I’m excited to share with you 10 free marketing and social media classes that you can enrol in to upgrade your skills across the board.

Let’s dive in!

Free Online Courses to Learn and Improve Your Social Media Marketing Skills

1. What Is Social?

  • Offered by: Coursera.
  • Created by: Northwestern University
  • Topics: Social trends, defining target audiences and data analysis
  • Skill level: Beginner

 

“What Is Social?” is a massive open online course (MOOC) for business owners, executives, and marketing professionals who want to significantly improve their abilities to grow their social media strategy using effective, proven methodologies. In short, it’s a really awesome, action-based intro to social media.

The exciting part of this hands-on class is that you not only get to hear about ways to grow your professional persona using social media, but you will actually do it! “What Is Social” is the first in a six-course specialisation offered by Northwestern University (a top university in the United States). Once you finish this first course, you can continue on with the next steps of the track: Social Media Marketing: How to Profit in a Digital World. (The first course is free; the full track costs $426.)

 

2. Diploma in Social Media Marketing

  • Offered by: Alison
  • Created by: Advance Learning Academy
  • Topics: Twitter, Facebook pages, blogging and podcasting, social media images, email list growth, and affiliate marketing
  • Skill level: Beginner

 

Alison is similar to Coursera as a site that offers a huge range of classes and certifications, including several in the marketing space. Their free social media class covers the use of email marketing, affiliate marketing, using social media tools such as Twitter, blogging and podcasting, and how to use Facebook to create a business page and get it noticed by current and potential customers. So you’re likely to get a social media foundation plus a handful of other digital marketing skills to boot.

 

3. Social Media Monitoring

  • Offered by: Coursera
  • Created by: Eric Schwartzman
  • Topics: Keyword filtering, Google related searches, using Google Alerts, and its benefits, identifying influencers and content curation possibilities, monitoring strategies for Facebook and Twitter.
  • Skill level: All Levels

 

This free social media class on how to monitor what your audience and customers are saying online is for marketers looking to keep a finger on the pulse of their community. Whether you’re just starting out in social media or are a seasoned veteran, this course has actionable social monitoring takeaways for people of all skills levels.The course provides detailed examples of monitoring in action, allows you to get an overview of the different social media monitoring tools available for use, and strategies for how you can use what you’ve learned and apply it to your own social media program.

 

4. The Business of Social

  • Offered by: Coursera
  • Created by: Northwestern University
  • Topics: Discovering where social media “fits in”, how to tie social media to real business results, managing and measuring a successful social media program.
  • Skill level: Beginner – Intermediate

 

“The Business of Social” is for businesses owners, marketers, and social media managers looking for ways to tie social media directly into real business growth objectives. In other words, those looking to drive real, measurable value from a social media strategy and program.Instead of focusing on how marketers can create great content for social media, this class more focuses on how exactly to measure your social investments in terms of time, cost, and opportunities

 

5. Graphic Design Basics: Core Principles for Graphic Design

  • Offered by: Skillshare
  • Created by: Smithsonian Design Museum
  • Topics: Identifying and defining basic design principles, effectively critiquing your own work for balance, applying what you’ve learned to your own projects. 
  • Skill level: Beginner

 

Have you ever wanted to get started with design so that you can create your own images for social media and marketing? This “Graphic Design Basics” from will set you up with a solid foundation to branch out as a beginner designer. In this 35-minute class designers, Ellen Lupton and Jennifer Cole Phillips walk students through what it takes to create great designs. Including, the 5 important and fundamental aspects of design and how you can apply those to every one of your projects moving forward.

Sign up now on DueDigital.com

6. High-Impact Business Writing

  • Offered by: Coursera
  • Created by: University of California at Irvine
  • Topics: Introduction and basics to business writing, various business document types, and informal and social media communication.
  • Skill level: Beginner

 

Writing great copy that is meant to drive people to take a specific business action is a unique and valuable skill to have for marketers and business owners alike. This “High-Impact Business Writing” course is aimed at helping you get your thoughts on paper in a clear and concise manner. Structured as a 4-week class, you’ll start with the basics of businesses writing, including why it’s important, and move to more advanced topics such as preparing business documents and translating ideas to more informal channels such as social media. In short, helping to become a business copy whiz.

 

7. Digital Analytics for Marketing Professionals

  • Offered by: Coursera
  • Created by: University of Illinois
  • Topics: Data Collection, analysis and visualisation, how data fits into a company’s marketing strategy, making informed marketing decisions based on data. 
  • Skill level: Advanced

 

Taught by Kevin Hartman, Head of Industry at Google, this free marketing course on “Digital Analytics” focuses on the specific data collection, analysis, and visualisation techniques used by the world’s top brands. Unlike some of the other analytics classes offered online, this one focuses specifically on marketing. This 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.

8. Marketing in a Digital World

  • Offered by: Coursera
  • Created by: University of Illinois
  • Topics: How tools such as smartphones, 3D devices are changing the marketing sphere, how power is shifting from companies, brands to consumers, and offering product ideas that stick in a digital world. 
  • Skill level: Beginner

 

“Marketing in a Digital World” is one of the most popular free marketing courses on Coursera – with more than 100,000 students enrolled to this date. Taught by a professor at the University of Illinois, this class focuses on the transformation of marketing strategies and tactics into a digital-first world. Specifically, how technology is putting the power of marketing into the hands of the consumer. This course is perfect for marketers looking to understand where the marketing field is today and how you can leverage new-age strategies to attract customers. And for those who are keen to continue their learning, this course is part of a larger Digital Marketing Specialization for the University of Illinois.

 

9. Diploma in E-Business

  • Offered by: Alison
  • Created by: Google
  • Topics: Introduction to Google Webmaster, using Google AdWords, understanding and using Google Analytics Data Conversion Reports and collecting actionable insights.
  • Skill level: Intermediate

 

This “Diploma in E-Business” course is a comprehensive resource for marketers, business owners, and advertisers who would like to get the most out of their digital marketing efforts. You’ll learn things like the fundamentals of promoting your business online, using various Google-powered tools, and how to track and make sense of the vast amounts of data available to you. Whether you have a deep knowledge of how to market your business online or are just getting started, this course is an awesome way to strengthen your digital marketing skills.

 

10. Google Digital Marketing Course

  • Offered by: Google
  • Created by: Google
  • Topics: Introduction to Google Webmaster, using Google AdWords, understanding and using Google Analytics, data conversion reports and collecting actionable insights.
  • Skill level: Intermediate

 

Learning the ins-and-outs of all of the marketing tools that Google offers is quite the task. But marketers and business owners have seen the direct benefits of mastering the various Google advertising platforms in terms of business ROI. This course offers a direct line to always-updated resources for everything Google.This course is also a part of an Online Marketing Challenge from Google. Students that plan to take the Online Marketing Challenge are encouraged to complete the Digital Marketing Course first. Marketers looking to learn everything there is to know about Google (and advertising), this is a great place to start!

Adapted from original article published by BufferApp.

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