Can you measure the effort you invested in the course you developed? It’s a lot. It took a lot of time for you to design the concept for this course and plan out all classes. Then it took coursework development, filming videos, endless editing, and more technicalities than you could count.
Now what?
It’s time for sharing; that’s what!
Each class needs a classroom. For an online class, you need to develop a so-called social media classroom. That’s a community of people interested to take your course. Social media platforms are perfect for reaching out, finding people who want to learn for you, and keeping them engaged.
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But social media marketing is not as simple as taking a link to your online class and sharing it. Many course developers take online marketing courses to learn how to properly promote their work. If you don’t have time for an SM promotion course and you want quick tips that set you up on a simple start, keep reading!
1 – Build a Community of Followers Before You Launch the Class
Course development takes time. So does social media promotion. It’s best to start building the hype around your course while you’re still developing it. In other words, you want to become an influencer.
Instagrammer Aggie Lal already had a massive following when she invited people to take her $500 Master Class. This backfired, since she failed to deliver what she promised. But you won’t do that and that’s not the lesson we’ll learn from this example. Aggie was very successful in promoting her course to Instagram followers. She had a community of over 800K followers. They watched her stories, liked her photos, and commented. She answered questions and made the course look believable enough for people to spend money on it.
That’s what you should do, too.
But of course; you’ll also deliver what the audience expects.
The big question is: how do you develop this community?
Just be there. Get on social media and share pieces of your work. Educate people through your posts. Follow influencers from the industry and get active in the comment section. People will start following you, sooner or later.
2 – Share Videos Explaining What’s in the Course
Many people are overwhelmed by the idea of taking online classes. They believe it’s the same thing as going back to school again. They don’t want to see boring, complex instructions. They don’t want challenging assignments that would prompt them to hire a “type my essay” service. Your course won’t be like that, but how would they know?
Film an introductory video and make it available for non-subscribers. In fact, you can share the first class on YouTube, so more people will learn from you. Don’t forget to share snippets of the video on Facebook and Instagram stories!
3 – Share Moments from Behind the Scene
Did you make any silly mistakes while filming? It’s okay to share them; they add some humor to your promotional campaign. You can also post photos that show you filming.
4 – Get Your Own Hashtag
Every promotional campaign needs its very own Instagram hashtag. It makes the posts easy to find. Plus, your followers will also use that hashtag if you engage them well enough. With that, they will spread awareness for your upcoming course.
5 – Maintain and Promote a Blog
People will take your online classes because they are after educational content. Whether it’s a class that teaches actual stuff or guides people through exercise or artistic practices, it still has an educational vibe.
The blog will set you up as an authority in the niche. It will show that you have the needed knowledge and experience to teach other people. You’ll develop a community around that blog, and the subscribers will be your first leads.
What do social media have to do with this? The content from your blog is perfect sharing material!
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6 – Share the Most Interesting Parts of the Class as Instagram Videos
If you already have some video content that’s ready for editing, take a small part of it and share it as a video post on Instagram. You can engage your followers with jokes, controversial statements, or myths that the course would bust.
These brief moments will make the entire course look fun. So feel free to share them!
7 – Engage Influencers
When you get into the community of Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter, you’ll make connections with influential people from your niche. If you’re teaching a nutrition course, for example, you can connect with users who promote healthy dieting and exercise. They will get their own referral links, which will give them a percentage of the money that people spend to subscribe to your course.
With such an incentive, influencers will be happy to promote your content. Of course, the content has to be absolutely amazing! Otherwise, no one will risk ruining their reputation by sending followers over to something that doesn’t work.
8 – Share Something that Your Students Accomplished
If this is not a brand new course, you can share the results that some of your previous students achieved. For example, you can share something of a student’s project. This may be a page of a research paper, a link to the online project they started after learning from the course, a photo of achieved results, or anything else that’s relevant to the content.
This adds the element of social proof to your marketing campaign.
9 – Schedule Q&A Sessions on Instagram Live
Before someone finally decides to take your course, they will have questions.
- How much time will it take?
- Are there added fees for course materials?
- Is homework involved?
- Are the classes scheduled at a particular time?
- Can they learn at their own pace?
All these questions give you an opportunity for a live session on social media. Instagram is the perfect platform for that, but Facebook is an option, too.
Recommended: 3 Ways to get more followers on Instagram on a budget.
10 – Invest in Paid Ads
Paid advertising on Facebook and Instagram lets you reach a much larger audience with your content. These networks are great at targeting the right users. They will show your ads to people who are interested in the type of course you’re trying to promote.
Although this type of advertising costs money, it’s highly effective when done properly.
Promotion Is a Major Factor for Success
Do you know how many online classes hang there without anyone taking them? Many.
It’s not because they are bad. It’s because the course providers didn’t bother to promote them well.
If your course content is great, only half of the work is done. Promotion is the other half. You have to reach out to the right target audience and make them interested in your classes.
Be as active as possible on social media platforms! You have to communicate with your audience to explain how they will benefit by investing time (and possibly money) in your course.
When you promote without being too promotional, you’ll succeed in the goal to make the content popular. How will you do that? Just be there for your audience and educate them through social media. That’s how they get interested for more education through the course itself.
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