How to become a socials guru
The power of social media is undeniable. The impact it can have in maintaining and developing business and only continues to grow, with around 80% of people saying they follow brands on social media, and 60% saying they often discover new products through Instagram. However, making sure you capitalise on the value that social media can add to your business isn’t as straightforward as it seems.
For many of our clients at ICON, creating eye-popping custom merch goes hand-in-hand with a strong social media game, as social channels can be the perfect place to showcase your newly-printed goods. Get it right, and it’s a virtuous circle for your marketing strategy, with great original content for your channels, and a growing audience to share your merch with.
As time goes on, however, social media marketing has grown more and more sophisticated, and staying competitive is growing harder. If you feel like your social skills are more rudimentary than advanced, it might be worth taking the time to get some training. Here we have put together 10 places where you can swot up for free.
Google Analytics
The immense data-harnessing power of Google has been funneled into their Analytics tools, and thankfully they are eager to help you learn how to use them. Understanding how, when and why your web traffic is fed by your social media platforms, and how to leverage this, is invaluable to growing your web presence.
Digital Business Academy
The Digital Business Academy was founded by Tech Nation, who work to foster the growth of tech clusters in the UK. As part of this work the Academy partners with leading educational institutions to offer free online courses to equip entrepreneurs with the skills they need to grow robust businesses. Luckily you don’t have to work in tech to access these resources, as they have made them available to all.
Skill Share
Skill Share is an online learning community that facilitates video learning as offered by a range of experts and educators. There are a number of fantastic, in-depth social media courses available on Skill Share, and you could definitely complete one before their two month free trial period is up. You might even find yourself convinced of the value if paying for more!
Future Learn
Run in partnership with the Open University, Future Learn presents online courses in collaboration with institutions like the British Library and the BBC. Their social media course is taught by the MD of Accenture, who has been in the business for over 20 years.
Twitter Flight School
Often the best place to learn about a specific social media platform is from that platform itself, and Twitter’s Flight School is a great example of that. Their advice is more specifically targeted at how to make the best of twitter advertising, but all of the insights they share are applicable to any kind of tweet. Twitter also publish a great blog offering a constant stream of tips and revealing new analysis of ways to leverage the platform.
Youtube
A fantastic free learning tool for almost any skill is Youtube, which is home to more hours of social media marketing advice content than you could watch in ten lifetimes. While not everything on the platform is the most advanced, with a little digging it’s easy to unearth content made by passionate, knowledgeable people who you can really learn from.
Alison
Alison is a social enterprise dedicated to promoting equal access to education and skills training, and has grown to become one of the world’s largest free learning platforms. By using Alison and supporting the work that they do, you are also helping support their outreach work with prisoners and veterans.
Facebook Blueprint
The business-facing arm of Facebook is their Blueprint platform, and it offers a wide array of learning opportunities. Short courses and more in-depth certification cover everything from Facebook Ads to the best place to source rights-free imagery. Because facebook also own iInstagram, the Blueprint platform covers lessons on how to maximise your grid too.
Coursera
Similar to Future Learn, coursera is an academically-focused platform that makes courses from top university lecturers available to members of the public. Although some courses require a fee to enroll in, there are some great programmes on there offered by world-class lecturers at no cost at all.
Quick Sprout
Through their ‘University’ website consultants Quick Sprout offer an intensive course in digital marketing, which they claim will provide you with more knowledge and understanding than most of their high profile clients have. Born out of an exasperation with the lack of knowledge their customers struggled with, this resource is a labour of love.
Want to create custom merch for your business? ICON Printing offer fast turnaround printing on a range of garments, counting a number of clients in the coffee trade, as well as clients ranging from such as WeWork to Boiler Room and the Tate. Get a quote in 2 minutes online.