Almost everyone has and uses some sort of social media in their personal lives. We’re all familiar with it. That means social media is valuable for marketing. It does not mean, however, that everyone who uses social media knows how to use it for marketing.
Ten years ago, so many brands were having their interns put together posts, and we’ve come a long way since then. Social media marketing is an exceptionally popular and in-demand career, and it requires an advanced skill set to match.
While some people can develop that skill set by in-office training, the reality is that almost everyone (even those with some experience) could better experience the benefits of social media marketing training through a more formal education course. In this post, we’re going to discuss 8 invaluable benefits of social media marketing training, whether you’re considering investing in the education for yourself or someone on your team.
(And if you need help convincing your boss, we’ve got you covered with our post about getting your employer to pay for social media education!)
What Is Social Media Marketing Training?
True social media training isn’t just reading a few blog posts online (though that is a great way to stay up to date on latest trends and best practices).
It’s further education that goes beyond discussing theory and talks about actionable steps you can take, strategies you can use to get results on social media, and how to translate results into profit.
Want to learn which platforms benefit different audiences and why?
Need to get help improving your social copywriting game, or to step up the images that you’re sharing for your clients or employers?
Good social media training may also go over tools and software that you can use to get better results.
Great social media training will give you the specific knowledge you need to develop, execute, and evaluate your campaigns. A side order of confidence comes with the skills, too.
Now that we’ve talked about what additional social media education can teach you, let’s take a closer look at those 8 incredible benefits of social media marketing training.
1. It Gives You Advanced Strategies To Meet Specific Goals
Social media marketing isn’t just about uploading posts and waiting for new followers to find you. That’s not going to work, even if you’re working for a big-name brand.
You absolutely need to have carefully-planned strategies in place that were created to generate specific results.
If, for example, you want to build brand awareness as a local brand, you may do any of the following:
- Partner up with another local business to on a contest, event, or product collaboration
- Work with an influencer
- Use distinctive branding and even “colour-themed” Instagram galleries
And if you want to drive sales, you’d want to:
- Set up shopping features on applicable platforms
- Use new, emerging Shopping Live features that are being tested as they come out
- Sharing resources that feature the product in use to show value
Without knowing how to set up a detailed strategy, even the largest of brands are unlikely to see results. Proper social media training, however, will give you the tools you need to get the job done right.
2. Discover How To Optimise Content For Each Platform
Plenty of small businesses, in our experience, have had no idea that YouTube could be an effective marketing platform for them… until one of our graduating students recommends it and then it works.
Just as important as knowing that YouTube could be a great fit for your brand, however, is understanding how exactly you should be optimizing content for each individual platform so that it’s successful.
You may take a simple concept and break it down into a four-minute video on YouTube, complete with a search-optimized title and description, clickable in-video CTAs, and a strategy to fit it into a playlist.
That same concept may be better off as a minute and thirty-second video on Facebook that’s shared in a Group for discussion, with a click-worthy title and a link to take more actions or learn more in the video’s description.
Instagram, Twitter, and TikTok use hashtags, but they don’t do much good (and can sometimes end up looking spammy) on Facebook Pages.
Even the images that you upload need different-sized graphics in some cases in order to ensure they don’t end up with awkward cropping.
One of the most significant benefits of social media marketing training is a firm understanding of current best practices for how you can take a single idea and make it relevant and optimized for each individual platform. This is how you get results.
3. Learn About High-Tech, Sales-First Options
In addition to learning about strategies on social media that can help you get results, a benefit of social media marketing training is also knowing how to really leverage so many worth-their-weight-in-gold features that you may not know about otherwise.
Without formal training, would you know how to set up chat features on your Facebook Page’s Messenger account to automatically book appointments with new leads without needing a customer service rep to be on the other end of that message?
Do you know how to drive sales in-app on Instagram and how to set up native social shopping?
What about Pinteest’s dynamic rich pins that constantly update information like product descriptions or pricing so that your content is always relevant no matter when users are seeing it?
With dedicated social media training, you’re going to learn about semi-hidden, specialized, and easy-to-miss features that can benefit your employers or your clients directly. And in many cases, these features are sales-focused and significant for potential ROI.
4. Skip Some Of The “Trial and Error” Stage
All social media campaigns— like all marketing campaigns, frankly— are going to require testing. There will always be some trial and error while you discover what works for an individual organization’s specific audience and their individual goals. There’s no getting around that.
That being said, once you’ve had hands-on, detailed social media training from qualified experts and courses, you’re not starting completely from scratch. There’s no taking a few stabs in the dark and seeing what works; you’re going in with a strong, educated guess.
It’s the difference between getting a headache and searching for answers on WebMD and going to a doctor who can assess known risk factors and specific symptoms.
It’s easier to form a plan that will get results quickly and help get you on track faster once you have this knowledge.
5. Learn About Paid Advertising Options
Plenty of brands are considering running paid social media ads (like Facebook Ads, Instagram Ads, or Twitter Ads). But many of those same brands are timid about investing funds into pay-to-play platforms that can quickly chew up their budget with team members who don’t aren’t PPC specialists.
Social media ads are an entirely different beast than organic content, and with paid ad spend involved, there’s a lot at steak.
Social media marketing training courses that focus on paid advertising can give you the tools that you need to confidently create new campaigns that are more likely to be profitable right from the beginning.
You’ll learn about bidding strategies, copywriting tips, split testing tactics, and so much more. There’s ways you can lower your cost-per-action (CPA) or utilizing the platforms’ machine learning to your benefit.
Our Facebook Marketing Course, for example, will teach students how to navigate the platform, target different types of audience segments, and generate sales.
Specialised education for social media advertising should absolutely be a priority for many marketers, even if they already have solid experience with organic social marketing.
6. Get Up-to-Date Information
Social media is constantly changing. And that’s not an exaggeration or some sort of hyperbole.
Every few days it seems like there are some sort of changes either rolling out or being announced on at least one platform.
Facebook and Instagram alone typically have around four or five changes every single month. They may be minor like a new addition to the CTA button option, or it could be major, like an algorithm update that will completely change how your followers see your content.
There are also new platforms emerging left and right. TikTok wasn’t even a “thing” five years ago and now it’s one of the most-downloaded apps all over the world and one of the most popular social media marketing tools.
One of the benefits of social media marketing training is that you’ll get up-to-date information that accounts for all the platforms exactly as they are right now. This will give you your best chance at driving results for every individual platform.
7. Learn How To Measure Results
We’ve talked a lot so far about how to get more results and get better results. That’s a significant focus for most brands and their social media practitioners, and for good reason.
But generating results alone isn’t enough. You also need to know how to track, monitor, and analyse them.
You may, for example, want to create a strategy that’s designed to help your new client establish brand awareness. That’s excellent, and even once you’ve come up with the strategy and created a content calendar… do you know how exactly you’ll measure that?
Which metrics can you show your boss to reflect that you’re gaining traction, and how will you know if the campaigns aren’t working and you need to pivot to something else?
Brand awareness, for example, may be measured by assessing factors like reach, impressions, growing follower counts, social shares, and (significantly) mentions. You can also use Google Analytics to see how many clicks are coming from your social networks.
Even outside of specific goals, it’s important to know which metrics you should be watching and which you shouldn’t. Likes, for example, are great to have, but they don’t matter nearly as much as comments, shares or clicks. If you don’t know this, however, it’s easy to think that lots of likes mean that you’re getting success.
It’s also crucial to remember that engagement rate matters more than the number of engagement. You can read more here.
And remember that without the correct interpretation of your results, you won’t know how to optimise and move forward, and you won’t be able to give your client or boss valuable reports, either.
8. You’ll See A Return On Your Investment
This is, of course, easily the best benefit of social media marketing training: You’ll often see a solid return on your investment, and sometimes quickly.
Whether you’re a social media practitioner who wants to invest in their career or you are a company considering getting advanced training for a team member, the reality is that you’ll make more money with that investment, and you’ll make more money faster.
That’s a hard perk to ignore.
Final Thoughts: Why You Should Consider Social Media College For Social Media Training
It’s incredibly easy to see why social media marketing training is so worth the initial investment, whether you’re looking at training for yourself or one of your team members.
The next question then becomes which social media training should you invest in?
There are plenty of great options out there, and here at Social Media College, we’re proud of the education we offer our students. We work with the world’s top social media experts and an expansive network of partners to deliver a variety of different courses that are up-to-date and relevant right now.
Whether you want to take our 12-month Social Media Diploma program, sign up for team training, get an overview with our Essentials course, or even just opt for a single specialised course like our Instagram course, we’ve got you covered. Ready to invest in your social media marketing education (and your future!)? Check out our list of social media marketing courses to see which is right for you.
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