Disclaimer: Before you dive deep into the article let me warn you this “100% free and paid social Media Marketing courses” is deliberately made detailed and long, it is designed in such a way to discuss the advantages and importance of social media marketing courses in 2kxx.
Here we are not going to discuss digital marketing in general but social media marketing courses in specific.
Before revealing the list of free social media marketing courses lets discuss why do we need to learn? How it’s going to impact the way businesses generate leads in future.
Hope you are aware of the two different options available for the business to generate leads for their product or services.
1. Outbound and 2.Inbound marketing.
Outbound marketing is not targeted and it is mainly used for creating brand awareness whereas in Inbound marketing helps marketers to target the specific audience and take sales.
Always big businesses go with outbound marketing to create brand impact in the industry and also try inbound digital marketing to generate leads and sales.
For example: In real estate, you might have seen some big brands advertising their projects on the first page of the print media every week. The same brand advertises their properties in online portals like Magicbricks for sale.
But bootstrapped small business in any industry never look for the brand impact they look for sales to survive and thrive, believe me, the digital marketing is the boon to small business owners to take the brand to a targeted audience.
Again in the same real estate example, you might have noticed ten to twenty builders advertising their properties in different ad formats on the daily newspaper but at the same time if you open Magicbricks and search for a locality you will end up in hundreds of properties. This clearly shows how digital media snatches revenue from the traditional outbound medium.
It’s not only targeted but cheaper compared to print medium, the result is traceable and measurable.
Take a look at the number of active users on different social networking sites as per Statista to understand how these platforms are becoming a game changer.
Facebook is leading the social media with 2,234 million as of April 2018 and Youtube is the second largest search engine next to Google.
When you look at the number of Facebook users from different countries India leads the list followed by USA and Indonesia.
But when you look at the active Instagram users it is just 10.1 million active users in India, so it’s now very clear that brands from India cannot miss out their presence on Facebook.
The upward trend in smartphone users and the cheaper data increases the number of social media users which urges smart marketers to spend more on the digital venue and it ultimately creates job opportunities for millions in and across.
Almost all the social networking sites have the provision for businesses to advertise their product or services to their network users.
They have built-in technology to target respective audience but the procedure and analytics vary from platform to platform.
Though setting up the business page and publishing contents on the page look simple it needs the expertise to optimize and reach out to the right audience.
Each and every platform requires a different type of contents and different time of publishing.
For example, the best time to publish your content on LinkedIn is on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday since it is a professional network the best time is to post after office hours. Know the best hours to post on social networking sites here.
The high influx of advertisements on social networking sites paved the way for the creation of online and classroom social media marketing courses with certification where individuals can learn the hooks and nooks of the social media to become a social media marketing professional.
List of Free Social Media marketing courses online
In free courses, you get only the basic understandings of the social media marketing strategies but to move from beginner to intermediate and advanced level we need to invest some thousands.
1. LinkedIn Learning
LinkedIn Learning is not free for regular users but if you are a premium member of LinkedIn, you can learn multiple courses in details from experts across the world.
The best part of LinkedIn Learning is once you completed the course you can add the course completion to your LinkedIn profile. Since LinkedIn is for professionals this will be a valuable addition.
For six months I am learning on LinkedIn, it’s clear and detailed. I am simply enjoying it.
Are you an active Linkedin user let me connect with you.
Facebook blueprint educates professionals to be strong on facebook and Instagram advertising.
Fb Blueprint is an in-house built online and in-person training session under different topics.
Once you are done with the online course you can take a certification test and earn the badge as a Facebook certified marketer.
Blueprint-live is an in-person one-day workshop session happens across the world where you get an opportunity to learn with a diverse team and on hand experience learning.
3.Social media marketing strategy by Coursera
Specially crafted social media marketing course by Northwestern University to match markets to the social strategies to profitably grow the business.
A bundle of six courses with sample projects absolutely free to learn but paid subscribers to get additional materials.
4.Social Media Strategy for small businesses by Allison
A course designed to learn about the key techniques required to integrate social media platforms into your e-commerce website.
This course is completely free to learn to get Alison certification you need to pass the exam with 80% score.
5. Your Long-term social media plan by Google Digital unlocked
This short online course by Google teaches you how to start engaging with social media and invest wisely to get the maximum returns.
It explains how to measure the social media campaign and avoiding pitfalls.
Once you are done with the course, complete the course and get certified.
6.Social media marketing course and certification by marketing Institute
This course is designed for professionals to find the right platform for the right business.
All the platforms are not equally important for your business you can avoid few. This course also narrates the importance of social bookmarking sites.
There are 50 questions you need to answer to download the course completion certificate.
7.Social Media monitoring by Udemy
This specific course on social media monitoring helps professionals to monitor the activities of their customers online.
Learn social media monitoring for facebook, twitter, Linkedin, Youtube using free social media monitoring tools.
3.5 hours online video course with course completion certificate.
Here you can learn the basics of social media marketing in both free and paid advertising, they covered almost all the platforms right from Facebook to LinkedIn with short videos.
9.Social Media Analytics Course by Quintly
This course covers the basic principles of social media analytics for both beginners and professionals to refresh their knowledge on analytics.
You can write to support@quintly.com to get your course completion certificate once completed the course successfully.
10.Social Ads 101 by Wordstream
Social Ads 101 is a collection of micro courses where you can learn about Paid social media hacks, Social ads for small business, Ad targeting options, Facebook and Twitter ads for lead generation.
11.Free Social Media Marketing Certification course by Hubspot Academy
To stay up-to-date with social media marketing HubSpot Academy is the right place. Eight lessons covering social media strategy, social listening, Social content and extending your reach.
After course completion, you have the option to attach your certificate with the LinkedIn profile.
You can also join the social media marketing manager’s community to get input for your future social media marketing campaigns.
12.Social Media Marketing Mooc by Salford University Manchester
Twelve video courses created by students, staffs and digital marketing experts as part of the search and social media marketing for the International business module.
An opportunity to learn theoretical background from Academic staffs and industry insights from professionals.
13.Educate your audience and sell your expertise using Social media by socialCreators
This four-part video training courses explain how to develop, validate and market yourself to monetize your expertise and build the right social audience.
14. Social Media by GCF Learn Free
Goodwill Community Foundation has helped millions around the world to learn the essentials skills to live in the 21st century.
They host beginner courses on Facebook, Linkedin, Whatsapp, meetup, Pinterest, skype, snapchat, Twitter and Instagram.
15.Digital and Social Media Marketing – class central
Digital and social media marketing by a class central emphasis on the importance of digital and social media marketing with European companies case studies.
16.Social Media Marketing fundamentals by the left bank
This course teaches you how to leverage and which network has to be leveraged for your business. Ideally suitable for anyone who wants a greater understanding of social media as well for those tasked with implementing and managing a comprehensive online marketing strategy.
These are the few free social media marketing courses online. If you know please comment down will add it.
Technology is dynamic and not a constant one, we need to keep updating ourselves to be in line with the world.
Learn the basics or advanced level courses from the above discussed free social media marketing courses but to keep you in line with the trend you need to follow some authentic websites or blogs.
Here I have curated some list of blogs and websites.
1.Facebook for Media and Facebook newsroom
“Nobody can say correctly who you are other than you”.
Facebook for Media and Facebook newsroom are the two authentic sources from Facebook where they keep posting the latest updates and best practices for individuals and marketers.
This will greatly help you to upgrade your Facebook knowledge.
This is an official Twitter blog where the latest updates are posted for the sake of users and social media marketers.
Here LinkedIn shares articles under many categories right from product to security.
You can go through “LinkedIn Developers Network” topic to learn the Linkedin’s updates.
Other than Pinterest’s official newsroom page, you cannot update your knowledge correctly anywhere else faster.
If you are looking to explore Pinterest you can get started with this digiBook “Pin on Pinterest”.
The best method to follow the latest happenings in the industry.
Here you need to choose a specific topic and create an alert, Google will inbox you if any news or articles found online.
6.Neil Patel
Neil is the renowned digital marketer, his blog Neilpatel.com is one of the few authentic, detailed helpful resources available online.
He publishes more on digital marketing and social media marketing, subscribing to his blog will definitely help you.