With the relative newness of TikTok as well as its infiltration into daily life, it only felt right to include a TikTok-specific course in this list.
More than half of the world’s population uses social media today for just about every aspect of life. This makes it a staple in any digital marketing strategy, but with multiple rapidly evolving platforms, it’s a bit of a beast to harness for business growth.
This course is brought to you by Living to Roam, an e-learning destination for businesses and marketers of all levels.
Facebook Blueprint is a free learning hub with a series of step-by-step tutorials on marketing and advertising effectively through Facebook and Instagram. The tutorials are short and modular, which Facebook will mix and match depending on your learning goal.
1. Local social media marketing course (LOCALiQ)
True to its name, this course covers how to use social media for local marketing, but make no mistake—it also contains a wealth of information fit for anyone looking to grow any size business. The course covers:
This course comes from Sprout Social, a social media management software provider known for its intuitive, easy-to-use web and mobile platform.
This course provides you with an actionable outline for how to get started and then walks you through the essentials of a successful influencer marketing strategy:
Sure, social media can get you in front of billions of people, but that’s not what you’re looking for (or if it is, it’s time to rethink your strategy). This course by LOCALiQ teaches you how to use social media to get the right kind of reach—as in, not for likes and follows but for sustained business growth.
- The essence and nuances of each of the top platforms in 2021.
- How to optimize your profiles and posts for local SEO.
(Did you know that Facebook is one of the top three business directories?) - How to create content that differentiates your brand and attracts customers.
- What (and what not) to post on each platform, and at what frequency.
- Over 131 post ideas and examples.
2. Social media marketing strategy course (SkillShare)
So to successfully market and advertise on TikTok, the approach is slightly different. And Scott Clary, founder of ROI Overload and host of the Success Story Podcast, addresses that in his course.
This course comes to you from Facebook, the world’s largest social media channel with the widest age range of users than any other platform.
Have any recommendations? Let me know in the comments below!
Social media optimization isn’t solely about looking at your data and making tweaks. Since social media is a vast world where people can express opinions and emotions, there is a lot more to the picture. This is where social listening is important, and why I’ve included this course on my list.
Let’s get started.
I do realize that someday this list will be outdated, but not anytime soon given the evergreen tips and information in these courses.
3. Social listening course (Sprout Social)
Title: Local Social Media Marketing Lab
Format: Written with visuals
Length: 38 minutes
Cost: Free
Social media marketers and managers of mid-size or larger organizations looking to streamline and scale their social media marketing efforts.
Confession: This is not actually a course—BUT it’s a well-pritten guide by the Ragan Communications Social Media Council.
4. Facebook advertising & social selling courses (Facebook)
While Facebook Blueprint is great, it is, of course, focused only on Facebook and Instagram ads and very tactical. So what about the more strategic aspects of social media advertising? You can find that in our very own PPC University.
What’s unique about TikTok is that it’s sort of a super social platform. It doesn’t just connect users; the ways users interact with one another is what fuels the platform itself.
It then goes on to give nuanced tips on how to actually demonstrate diversity, equity, and inclusion in your social media content.
Title: Facebook Blueprint: Start Your Advertising Journey
Format: Text with visuals
Length: 1-2 hours
Cost: Free
Under “Select a topic to get started,” choose “Start your advertising journey.”
5. Social media influencer marketing mini-course (Later)
This course is brought to you by Later, a leading visual marketing platform for Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest.
The other problem, as you’ll soon learn, is that finding a free social media marketing course that is actually worth your time is harder than it should be.
Go to the social media strategy course >>
If you have trouble with this link, open in an incognito/private browsing window.
Title: Social Media Marketing: How to Create an Impactful Strategy for Any Business
(If you have trouble with this link, open it in an incognito window.)
Format: Video
Length: 2 hours
Cost: Free *with free seven-day trial of SkillShare*
- Setting your goal and planning your campaign.
- Finding the best influencer for your goal and audience.
- Reaching out to the influencer.
- Creating the campaign brief.
- Tracking the ROI of your campaign.
Creating social media campaigns that are sensitive to diversity and inclusion sounds like it should be a slam-dunk for a pro communicator. Choose images with a mix of racial and gender identities, avoid using racial and ethnic stereotypes, and you’re good to go—right?
6. TikTok marketing course (Udemy)
This course is good for:
Title: Social Listening: Your Launchpad to Success on Social media
Format: Written
Length: 33 minutes
Cost: Free
The instructor of this course is Living to Roam’s founder Maggie Stara, a social media and digital marketing consultant with a background in organizational psychology. She uses her big-picture mindset to teach you how to develop a holistic social media marketing strategy based on your long-term business objectives, and to break it down into measurable, achievable steps.
Between the Social Ads 101 course and Facebook Ads course, you’ll learn how to master the art and science of social media advertising.
7. Inclusive social media marketing (Ragan)
Title: Influencer Marketing 101: From Zero to Hero
Format: Video & text
Length: 20 min
Cost: Free
Course name: PPC University
Format: Written with visuals
Length: 1-2 hours
Cost: Free
Title: Best Practices for Inclusive Social Media
Format: Written with screenshots (pdf)
Length: 17 minutes
Cost: Free
Not so fast. There are subtleties in how you craft social posts that showcase your organization’s commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion (DE&I)—and not just pay it lip service.
So there you have it—a list of free social media marketing courses that are worth your time. Hopefully, you also find them to be relevant, interesting, actionable, and overall, a good online learning experience.
There is a short video for each of the five steps above, each one with additional free resources, tools, and templates.
8. Social media advertising course (WordStream)
Social media influencers may be more accessible than major celebrities, but that doesn’t mean that landing an influencer collaboration is a walk in the park. In fact, some of us don’t even know how to get to the park. Or maybe even what park we’re going to…
While there are many free courses out there on diversity and inclusion, I liked how this guide was focused on social media. The introduction to this guide gives a solid taste of what to expect:
This course is brought to you by LOCALiQ, a digital marketing agency known for its proprietary technology and deep local roots in over 260 communities across the US.
Get started today with these free social media marketing courses
Title: How To Use TikTok for Business (Beginner to Advanced)
Format: Video
Length: 1h 45 min
Cost: Free
- Local Social Media Marketing Lab (LOCALiQ)
- How to Create an Impactful Social Media Strategy for Any Busines (Living to Roam)
- Social listening: Your Launchpad to Success on Social Media (Sprout Social)
- Start Your Online Advertising Journey (Facebook)
- Influencer Marketing 101: From Zero to Hero (Later)
- How To Use TikTok for Business (Udemy)
- Best Practices for Inclusive Social Media (Ragan)
- PPC University: Social advertising 101 (WordStream)
While it doesn’t get into strategic approaches, its the best place to find the most current information. Plus, you need to learn how to walk before you start looking at dance moves. Amiright?
