15 Best Marketing And Social Media Courses Online To Elevate Your Skills

There’s practically zero chance of a person becoming successful without acquiring any form of education. Ignore the stories of the numerous college dropouts who went on to become successful entrepreneurs, these guys actually acquired more education from home than they could’ve ever gotten from college.

If you intend to make money with social media, you must invest some of your time and money on social media courses online. Aside from improving your skill set, Massive Open Online Learning Certifications (MOOC) will help differentiate you from the numerous clueless marketers we see brandishing empty CVs online.

The demand for marketers who are social media savvy is on a steady upward curve. This is why I’ve done this little research specifically for you. In the next few paragraphs, I’ll be showing you a list that contains some of the best marketing and social media courses online.

1. Inbound Marketing Training Program and Certification by Hubspot

If you would like to improve your social media and digital marketing skill and earn a certification for it, then you should consider attending Inbound Marketing Certification Program. The course is being organised by Hubspot, an authority in the digital marketing niche.

There are lots of free materials, e-classes and assignments that have been designed for you to enable you to gain all the knowledge possible. When you’ve completed the course, you can then register for Hubspot’s certification examination to get certified by Hubspot if you hit the pass mark.

2. Search and Social Media Marketing for International Business

This is yet another social media course that is being organised for anyone who is interested in getting a professional certification on social media marketing and search engine optimisation (SEO). The course is being delivered from the University of Salford in Manchester, England.

Key topics such as Twitter, SEO, Facebook, Google+, Copywriting online, Blogging etc. will be treated in detail to ensure you become skilled by the completion of the course.

3. What Is Social?

This is a social media course sponsored by Coursera specifically targeted at marketing professionals and business owners who are searching for ways to improve their social media skills and digital marketing strategy. At ‘What is Social?’ business entrepreneurs are given an in-depth teaching and practical application of proven digital marketing methodologies.

The course is being offered by Northwestern University, who by the way is a reputable university in the US of A.

4. Social Media Quickstarter

Like the name of the course goes, this course is one that has been created for aspiring social media professionals to help them kick-start their career. It offers beginner classes for Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Snapchat, Instagram, Google+ etc. The course is aimed at alienating all complications in becoming a social media expert.

With this course, you’ll learn how you can apply social media to improve your business growth as your social media marketing skills are brushed up.

5. E-Mail Marketing Course with CloudBluePrint

Email marketing is still a thriving branch of digital marketing and this course by Glen Allsopp has been designed to improve your email marketing skill. The course teaches you how to successfully build and manage an email list and monetize that list through effective email marketing.

You also learn how to grow your blog audience by learning the right strategy that will drive traffic to your blog. There’s so much more to learn from Glen’s email marketing class.

6. Social Media Monitoring

Eric Schwartzman has created a free online social media course that teaches you how you can smartly monitor your audience insights for your website/blog. If you do not have an audience for your blog yet, Schwartzman takes his time to teach you how you can attract the right audience to your blog. This is not a course for just one particular skill level; professionals and beginners have a lot to benefit from Schwartzman’s class.

7. E-Mail Marketing Course Diploma

This course promises to educate you and provide you with a diploma in Social media marketing, within 24 hours of signing up. The course is free and requires nothing but your time and an internet enabled computer, however, the skill you’ll acquire is well worth it.

In this course, affiliate marketing and the use of social media tools such as Twitter analytics, Google Analytics, Buffer etc. will be carefully illustrated. This is a course is packed and will surely help sharpen your skills.

8. Social Media Ethics

If you want to stand out of the crowd and understand the ethics of social media, then you should consider taking the social media course being offered by Coursera. The course is free and has been created to target beginners who are new to social media marketing.

There’s been a lot of avoidable lawsuits arising from wrong social media usage and these could’ve been avoided if the culprits had had a clear understanding of social media ethics. A free course that could help your business avoid unwarranted lawsuits? I take it any day.

9. Advanced Social Media Marketing for Picking up Clients

Brian Yang has created an interesting and educative course aimed at helping you gain more clients in the shortest possible time. The course is tagged “picking up clients with social media in 48 hours or less.” The course is not for beginners but for social media savvy business owners who are already trying to implement one digital marketing strategy or the other.

The basic requirements for this course are your time, a computer and a Facebook, Reddit, or YouTube account.

10. Email Marketing for E-Commerce

There are so much business opportunities inherent in effective email marketing. The fact remains that a lot of digital marketers are still struggling to implement a successful email marketing strategy. Email marketing for E-commerce is a free course by Mailchimp aimed at helping you sharpen your email marketing skill.

During the course, there would be detailed teaching on the following: Email marketing optimisation, Email marketing automation and email marketing personalization.

11. QuickSprout University

Neil Patel is one of the most successful digital marketing strategist and blogger in the world, so it’s only natural for people to listen when he talks. Patel has created QuickSprout university aimed at helping you become a highly trained digital marketer in a few impactful hours.

Neil Patel takes away the complication in email marketing, social media marketing, paid advertising, SEO content creation and teaches you the tactics involved in creating a successful digital marketing strategy.

12. How to Create Contagious Content and the Basics of Viral Marketing

This is the first course on my list that is being delivered by a university professor. Prof. Jonah Berger, who is best-selling author and professor at the University of Pennsylvania, has put together a rich online marketing course to help every digital marketer learn how to implement a watertight digital marketing strategy and create content that would engender nothing but success.

13. Google Digital Marketing Course

This course is the basis for every digital marketer looking to learn how to effectively use Google tools in digital marketing. The course will teach you about how to successfully implement a successful PPC (pay per click) campaign, keyword usage and landing page optimisation.

The course isn’t just for greenhorn marketers, though. Digital marketers with intermediate skill level can also take advantage of the updated resources to improve their skill. There is also an online marketing challenge from Google which you could undertake if you register for this course.

14. Pay Per Click (PPC) University

For digital marketers who want to learn the basics of PPC, I suggest you take out time and attend PPC University. Of course it’s a MOOC, not a physical tertiary institution, however, you get to learn a lot more than just how to create successful PPC campaigns. You also learn the ins and outs if SEO as well as social media advertising.

Although the course is free, there are lots of e-books, webinars, video tutorials and white papers to help you improve your digital marketing skill.

15. Digital Storytelling and Social Media Course DS106

Since 2010, DS106 has been giving online participants the opportunity for digital storytelling, since Professor Jim Groom began the platform. It metamorphosed into a social media course in 2012 and has been one of the best online courses for social media ever since.

The MOOC has been aired on numerous TV stations and radio stations in America. The course is a lively one that gives participants the opportunity to ask questions and learn from other participants in the process. You get the opportunity to learn about digital storytelling, social media networking and much more.

The majority of the courses on this list do not require more than 48 hours of your time to complete, and they are mostly free too. The journey of becoming a skilled social media strategist begins with that proactive step of taking an online social media course, all that’s required of you is your time, your will and an internet enabled computer. I urge you to take advantage of these resources.

If you’re looking to get the best out of social media, get in touch with us to access our pool of professional talents!