If you’re looking to survive in this digital age, a social media marketing course could do wonders for your skillset.
If you’ve landed here, chances are wondering how you can learn (quickly), which courses are better than others and if online courses are the right choice for you… so, let’s reveal what you should know!
Why you should take a social media marketing course online
Today’s online learning landscape is more efficient, and faster, and recognizable than ever. A few of the sites mentioned here today even hand out verified certificates from Ivy League schools!
By picking the right e-learning course, you’ll get recognizable certificates for you to use and show on your online portfolios, LinkedIn, and on your resume.
In addition to the above, it’s also easier to add it to your schedule. No more worrying about rushing after working hours to a class or struggling to fit something else in your day.
Today, it’s all about getting the most out of your free time and learning in your pajamas.
Not only is E-learning becoming more and more efficient than ever, but it has become the top choice among millennials, businesses, entrepreneurs.
Take a look for yourself!
Employees’ lack of time to dedicate towards learning is the #1 challenge facing talent development today, this is why e-learning makes it easier for anyone who wants to just schedule a class in their free time and learn while sipping on a nice cup of coffee or tea!
In fact, by 2022, the global e-learning industry is projected to surpass $243 billion! Can you believe that? Digital learning is today, the quickest growing market in the education industry, with a whopping 900% growth since 2000.
Even Google and Facebook are giving others the opportunity to learn for free!
The best thing about online courses is that some are free and others are not, giving you the chance to choose the best one that fits your needs and which industry-recognized certificates you prefer having.
Best social media marketing courses
So, if you’re ready to give your social media marketing knowledge a boost, let’s check out the best paid and free courses online for you to discover:
GOAL: Social media marketing strategies for managing Facebook’s business platform and Facebook’s apps and services. Topics include how to physical and/or online sales, distribute and monetize content, build awareness, and generate leads.
If your goal is to earn strategies or best practices about Facebook and Facebook’s family of apps and services, including Instagram and WhatsApp for your business, you can do it right now by enrolling directly with Facebook itself!
These courses are the “Must Know Basics” of Facebook’s Business platform!
Not only will help you uncover all the tips and hints you wished you knew, but they’ll follow you step-by-step earning that confidence in creating and mastering ads, managing your pages, distributing and monetizing content, building awareness and so much more.
PRICE: Free online lessons and face-to-face workshops
GOAL: Google displays 136 online courses for you to learn, improve, and master any of the skills you want to achieve with recognizable certificates. Topics include social media, mobile marketing, SEO, and web optimization.
All you need is to create an account or log in with your Google Account and you can enjoy full access to any e-learning online course.
All Google’s courses will go in-depth into any category you select. The social media course will give you full knowledge about paid and organic search, how to develop the fully optimized web pages, and give you tips on how you can reach your goals.
Learning from Google’s search engine (for free) is a win-win! They also support the ability for you to add these certificates to your LinkedIn profile and resume.
Google Digital Garage also promotes courses from other reliable platforms like this one from Coursera:
And, as you click on Coursera, you can notice that you can enroll for free…
…and be tutored by a top instructor professor from Wesleyan University!
Speaking of Coursera, they’re our next social media marketing course pick. Let’s discover which social media marketing courses they can offer you!
PRICE: Free for students / €43 monthly fee to continue learning after trial ends
GOAL: Coursera features classes on everything you could think of – language and humanities, business, computer science, marketing, – you name it!
Coursera is a world-wide online learning platform by Stanford University’s professors Andrew Ng and Daphne Koller, offering massive open online courses, specializations, degrees and master track courses.
They partner with over 150+ universities, to give valuable online certifications and have over 55 million active users.
For students it’s completely free! Just insert your college email and you’ll be set to learn and improve on any topic you need.
If you’re not a student, you can try out their 7-day free trial to see what their platform can offer you before you commit to a subscription.
Coursera is always updated on social media marketing, digital marketing, and much more, allowing you to always get the updates you need to scale in your career.
If you see a course that has started the same day you’ve discovered it, don’t worry and wait for the next one. These courses are always replicated for those who’ve missed it or for new subscribers, but you’d have to wait for the next session.
This advanced social media marketing course is offered by Northwestern University, providing you skills in how to track your social media performance and link it to sales and other business functions!
You can find many courses that follow a more practical approach to learning, rather than being just theoretical and, in many courses like this one, you would be tutored by different instructors who are experts in the field.
Each Coursera course can be completed in hours, weeks, or days, depending on the topic or course you choose.
This course would take you 7 months to complete, but only attending 2 hours a week online. If long courses seem demanding due to the time required to achieve your goal, you can also search and enroll for shorter courses that can be completed in hours!
It’s all about the time you can dedicate yourself to earn the skills you need and the goals you want to achieve.
There are so many valuable social media marketing courses on Coursera’s platform, allowing you to enroll straight away and learn how to manage your social strategies by expanding your online audience, establishing your social brand and so much more.
PRICE: $199+
GOAL: Their Social Media Marketing course is a real all-in-one mind-blowing course that will make you an expert in no time! They also feature content on social advertising, too.
In this course you will learn how to take your Social Marketing skills to the next level, from optimizing your presence on the major social networks to creating a sophisticated social marketing strategy.
And, did you know you can achieve all this within only six hours? That’s right! This course is only 6 hours long and you can easily fit it into your busy schedule at your own pace.
Not only you’ll learn how to publish and engage at scale while tracking your results with analytics, but you will be able to do it with the help of professionals and senior marketing managers of Hootsuite.
Something great about Hootsuite’s course, is that it will also dive you into growing an online community by developing content to engage audiences.
In fact, they have a full 6 Social Marketing series:
Would you like to discover more about Hootsuite’s full social media marketing course? Give it a try and you’ll be amazed at how brilliant this course is by making you an expert in no time!
GOAL: Topics include PPC marketing strategies for every business vertical and niche.
Wordstream has a great deal with their PPC 101 course!
Wordstream has been able to improve higher results for many marketing companies – including better quality scores, higher conversions, and more. Who wouldn’t want to learn tips and hints from experts?
Not only this course is completely free, but it also offers step-by-step modules to teach you the entire world of digital advertising.
The course offers an entire marketing section, allowing you to learn how to integrate social media and digital ads and defining the meanings of the terms used and provides a walkthrough of Google AdWords from setting up an account to reviewing campaign performance.
GOAL: Learn all facets of inbound marketing fundamentals from the company that coined the term. Topics including inbound marketing strategy, SEO, copywriting, and social media marketing.
There is a whole world behind HubSpot! You will find single lessons as well as full certification courses, mastering your skills becoming a professional.
Let’s check out a couple!
HubSpot Academy – Social Media Training with an introduction to social media advertising
This social media advertising lesson will show you how to fit digital ads into inbound strategy, and how those ads can be stunning on social media!
And, it’s only a 19-minute course with 3 videos included! You can start and complete this course in no time.
Social Media Marketing course: Get certified in social media strategy!
HubSpot’s social media marketing course is a tough program, designed to help you attract customers and partners and build brand loyalty. Since social media is the key to inbound marketing, this course ties in the two concepts seamlessly.
Not only does it cover essential topics such as measuring ROI and extending reach, but it also covers social media content creation as well as social listening.
HubSpot’s social media marketing course can be completed in less than five hours, it’s flexible and easy to plan into a busy schedule, but it is complete of notions you don’t want to miss.
Their course consists of 9 lessons, 39 videos, 29 quizzes, and, as we already said, all in less than 5 hours!
Let’s not forget that having a certification from HubSpot would really make it impossible for you to not be noticed among marketing companies!
GOAL: Social media marketing knowledge through videos and articles earning a complete certificate course
This social media marketing course will show you:
Every individual part is explained with examples and, after completing each section, you’d be given a quiz, testing the skills you’ve learned.
This course is for a better understanding of social media marketing skills to have a clearer view, but it wouldn’t be the platform and certification you would be looking for if you need to aim higher in becoming a master in social media marketing.
PRICE: Prices vary by each course: you can find courses from $197 to $997, based on the goal you are aiming to achieve.
GOAL: You will be a master in social media marketing in no time with a recognizable certification, allowing you to open all doors to a new career opportunity!
BootCamp Digital’s online social media marketing courses are many and each course will give you full knowledge into the social media marketing field with tutoring, videos, real-world examples, tools to put into practice what you’ve learned, step-by-step.
You will have an experienced instructor ready to answer and give advice any time, just like having a consultant on demand to support you!
Their online training gives you access to the latest digital and social media marketing training when and where you need it, adding new content every month!
You can learn everything you need to know about digital and social media marketing and get the downloads, templates, checklists, and tools to put your training into action practicing to accelerate your results.
Best part?
BootCamp Digital makes it so easy for you to diligently work through material even if you only have 30 minutes a day to spare.
They guarantee:
They’re committed to your success and focus on driving the implementation of what you’ve learned by also offering individualized beginner and advanced courses specific to each major social media network, as well as internet marketing and strategy.
GOAL: Topics include the use of email marketing, affiliate marketing, using social media tools such as Twitter, podcasting, and blogging, and how to use Facebook to create a business page.
Alison’s Diploma in e-Business is a Google-approved SEO course!
This is a 6-10 hour course that will reveal the concepts and application not only about social media marketing, but also the skills to plan and implement a successful social media marketing strategy.
It’s definitely a good starter: earn a great certificate acquiring the necessary skills on how to design, create and monitor a website, making sure it reaches the local and international customers searching your product or service online!
TRIAL: With a premium plan you get a 2-month trial
PRICE: They have 2 plans: Starter $99 billed annually, no monthly option. The Enterprise plan price you request with their sales department.
GOAL: If you’re looking to up-skill, engage and develop creative skills or if you are a large organization with teams who are looking to integrate Skillshare into their greater learning strategy with robust reporting, integrations, and more, this is the right place for you!
Skillshare is completely dedicated to experts providing classes on over 15,000 courses, from knitting, creating a perfect viral video to social media marketing courses.
They offer specific classes, holding numerous social media and digital marketing classes, as well as email marketing classes. Having a 2 month trial takes the pressure off in rushing as much knowledge as possible in one go, and you can cancel your membership at any time.
Here below, their 2 plans offered:
As we just overviewed, there are great online e-learning platforms for you to pick!
Since there is an annual growth rate of 29% projected for the global MOOC market from 2020 to 2025, it’s making it the fastest growing market in education. Even universities are adapting more than ever by applying e-learning courses which could be a bit more expensive, but worth taking!
So, let’s discover Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania’s social media marketing course!
GOAL: In this course, you would learn the essential principles and practices of marketing in the digital economy online.
Who wouldn’t like a social media marketing certificate from a University?
You’ll learn how to leverage new models in business and e-commerce to increase profitability, successful social media and digital marketing techniques, real-world application of digital marketing and e-commerce methods and how to market yourself and your products more effectively and efficiently nowadays.
The themes are:
Check more about their program and attend the new dates that still need to be announced!
GOAL: Topics include social media marketing, how to identify and define your target audience, how to engage your target audience, sharing content on social media, social media strategy.
No videos, no lessons, just sign up and you’ll receive by email their 165-page ebook of social media marketing for beginners including all major aspects of social media marketing.
No due date or pressure! As you complete, take the test and achieve your online certificate to add in your resume!
Sign up now to get your free eBook Now!
Now that you are aware of the top e-learning platforms and online courses through Universities, all you need to do is pick the right fit and sign up or enroll with just a click!
It has never been so easy to earn and understand the fundamentals of marketing concepts like PPC, SEO, Web Analytics, Strategy and so much more through videos, projects, tutors, tools, and all the given material!
And, all this by sitting comfortably on your couch, in your own home, while achieving the goals you’ve set!
No struggling, no missed classes, no loss of money by having the chance in planning your own schedule based on your free time, or rescheduling if something comes up without missing a note!
So, what are you waiting for to accelerate your career and obtain that well-deserved certificate?
