The Social Media Marketing course has been extremely popular over the past 18 months to 2 years. It has been delivered both as an open/public course and as an in-house (often tailored) course in both Wales and England. As can be seen below the course covers the main applications of social media. Throughout the day a central principal is to get individuals to consider which are the most relevant Social Media Marketing tools and how they can be applied to organisations. The day consists of introductions to social media apps, group discussions and some hands-on activity with apps like Twitter, Facebook and blogs.
One issue with Social Media Marketing
At the moment one of the key learning outcomes of the Social Media Marketing course is an knowledge of these new tools and an understanding of how they can be used within an organisation. People often leave the workshops enthused and positive, though they then become deflated when they realise that their ideas will probably hit certain barriers in the workplace:
- Management buy-in
- Quite often the people who should attend these courses - management- don't and staff are not able to get across to them the importance of using Social Media
- Time
- Sometimes people find it difficult to manage their time. Social Media is often about setting aside times in the day and days in the week to get work done.
- People
- A key to Social Media Marketing is identifying the right people for the job. Who is the right person to Tweet, add information to Facebook and to blog? How do you teach people to see opportunities around them? Ultimately, it's about building the right team for the entire Social Media operation.
- ROI
- People are often asked to justify the ROI spend of Social Media in order to get more money, people and resources thrown at it.
Potential for working with Call of the Wild Call of the Wild are recognised as leading deliverers of team building, team development, management training and leadership training courses and have delivered solutions to companies, large and small, the length and breadth of the UK. I believe there is huge potential in developing a social media marketing solution that brings together the skills of both companies.
Thoughts
- MTM can provide the following core modules but can tailor them and add others which my be more relevant to the audience. Undoubtedly, these elements will change for each client.
- The course, with added value elements from Call of the Wild, could be delivered over two days.
- We would need to speak to the client and spec the days carefully for each client
- People like eConsultancy and CIM charge around £495 per day for their programmes per person.
- I would like people to go away with knowledge of the tools and how to apply them, coupled with the confidence and knowledge of how to develop/lead a high-class social media team.
- Venue - the course could be offered at the farm (though we would need to consider wi-fi), at a company's offices or some other location.
- Marketing - the course offering would sit under both Call of the Wild's website and Marketing Tom Media. In the case of the latter it would be given a different name to differentiate t from the current offering.
Google – Our first session will kick off by taking a look at some of the factors that influence a Web site’s position on Google. It provides the foundation for the rest of the day and shows how a company can adopt these principles across all their Web 2.0 applications: from blogs and YouTube to Flickr and Twitter.
Twitter - without a doubt the #1 Social Media app of 2008 was Twitter. Everyone from Barack Obama to Stephen Fry are using it. But how can an application that only allows you to post update of 140 characters be such a powerful tool for organisations? In this session we will explore how companies are using Twitter to communicate with customers & others within their industry and how your organisation & staff can harness its full potential.
Business Blogging – Blogging has undoubtedly been the driving force behind social media adoption. It allows individuals, businesses and even colleges, the ability to talk about their organisations, link to similar organisations and invite comments from their community. It is also a force to be reckoned with when it comes to gaining top position on Google! We will explore: Why would an organisation blog? What would they blog about? How do they create fresh, relevant content?
You Tube – Over the past year YouTube, along with Facebook, has been the runaway success of the Internet. Once the preserve of youngsters looking for kicks, it is now becoming mainstream and all sorts of businesses and organisations are using it for business and social means. So, how are companies using the media? How could it be used by your organisation to inform, create buzz and even generate sales?
Flickr – Whereas YouTube and Facebook have been making a lot of noise on the Web scene, Flickr has quietly been making huge inroads into the way people archive and share their photos. We will look at why your organisation should consider Flickr, how they can use it effectively and how they can create groups and get their staff to add pictures and leave their thoughts.
Facebook – Profiles, friends, groups, networks, social ads, pages, polls... What does it all mean and how can you leverage the power of Facebook to improve your marketing efforts? How are organisations like Price Waterhouse and Dell using Facebook and what are the implications of using Facebook for your organisation?
RSS and Social Bookmarking – RSS is a great tool for organising, tracking and finding out about different types of information. From a publisher perspective it is a powerful tool for syndicating your content across the web. This module will delve into this subject to discover how your business/organisation can use it effectively. We shall also take a look at the social bookmarking and social news applications, such as Del.icio.us, Stumbleupon, Reddit and Digg – which can all be found on every BBC news article. How can companies use these effectively to market themselves online? How can they be linked to some of the other media?
LinkedIn - this application has become a crucial element for today's networking manager. This session looks at how individuals and companies can leverage the power of this app to promote their brand, products, services, events and themselves.
Web 2.0 Applications! – Web 2.0 has been one of the big buzz words of the last 12 months. At its heart is the idea that businesses and individuals can share information and collaborate. This session will take a look at some of the companies and applications that should be on the radar of any business, organisation or college.
Forums and groups - an increasingly useful and popular part of social media is the use of forums, reviews, ratings and user groups. This section will look at