For every online LMS course creator out there, the most challenging part of business is to find the people who will be interested in taking the course. Reaching to the right audience is quite difficult. Sure the online educator may have a personal network but the success of the course depends mostly on how many new sign ups took place. In other words, you need complete strangers to discover your course and form an interest in it. And social media is one of the biggest sources to find your target audience. In this blog, you will learn about the benefits of social media, the available social media platforms, and tips to use them in your favor.
Benefits of social media for your online LMS courses
Improved online collaboration
It’s impossible for all your students to collaborate effectively because of the geographical dispersion. Social media can play a vital role in this matter, connecting all your students on the same platform and letting them communicate without any disruption.
24/7 support
You might be pretty serious about your students and want to offer 24/7 support for them. You can do that quite easily using groups on social media platforms. One other advantage using social media groups is that you don’t need to be available for support all the time. Students can discuss and solve the problems themselves.
Keeping students up to date
People spend a considerable amount of time on social media. So if you post updates regarding your online LMS course here, your students will get notified faster than any other medium. You can post your event reminders, new course announcements, or changes to any of your policies to keep your students and prospects well-informed.
Increased motivation and engagement
With social media, students get to interact with peers and solve issues together. Online support, advice, and feedback – all work in tandem to increase motivation and engagement among your students. As a result, they are more likely to participate in your courses actively.
6 social media platforms for your eLearning initiative
Being the largest social media network in the world, Facebook should be the first and foremost platform that you must be active on. You can use Facebook to your advantage in either or both of the two ways – page creation and group creation. Creating a course page can give your students opportunities to connect with your course better. And a group enables them to interact among themselves as well as with you.
LinkedIn is a good source of career-focused learners. So if you are offering career-focused online LMS courses, you should have a strong presence on LinkedIn. Encourage your learners to publish their opinion about your course, and to share any comments or feedback they receive from their network. You can also encourage them to create and share short videos on the course content, as that will help them overcome their presentation setbacks.
After Google, people search for a certain something on YouTube. So it’s very obvious that you need to be on YouTube too. And most importantly, YouTube serves as a supplement to your online LMS website. How? Your website already contains lecture videos. But those videos are paid ones. But if you want people to have a sneak peek at your course, you can create a short video and upload them on your YouTube channel. This way, you can connect with your prospective students better and have a higher chance of selling.
Twitter is an excellent platform for networking with your students and prospects. Tweet more often and encourage your audience to follow and comment on your tweets. This way, you can be connected with them and do exactly as you’d do with the other platforms. Though you can’t create groups or pages here, that won’t prevent you from using it to its full potential.
Unlike other platforms, Pinterest is all about visuals. Users can create a board around a theme and pin ideas or images relevant to that theme. How can you use it to your own interest? Let’s say you have a course on graphic design in which one module talks about visual hierarchy. And you create a board showing examples of websites that use good hierarchy in design. Now if your learners create any design board, they can use your pins as inspiration.
Many think that Instagram is an odd choice for online educators. But the truth is, you can use it in your favor too. If you are teaching arts and crafts, you can share students’ progress via Instagram. Your students can post course-related images too. All-in-all, you can connect with your prospects and current students via images and that is not a bad idea at all.
Social media marketing tips for online LMS courses
Choose your platform wisely
Deciding to be on every platform listed above will be the biggest mistake for you as an online educator. You don’t need to do this for two reasons – 1, you can’t be an expert in everything and 2, your target audience doesn’t use each of the platforms. So skip the troubles and focus on one or two platforms that your prospects are most active on.
Research your audience
Choosing the right platform demands to know who you are trying to reach and where they are most active. Because if you are trying to attract uninterested people, it will be a huge loss of time and effort. Finding the right audience can be easy if you can search for terms that you think they would search. You can also find your competitors and see what people are discussing on their pages. This way you can form a solid idea on what your audience is looking for and how you can deliver to them.
Think about the types of content
Different platforms need different content types. For example, Facebook is ideal for long-form posts while Twitter is for short posts. LinkedIn is for professional networking and Pinterest/Instagram is all visual. You need to understand all these content types and know which content can perform best for your courses. Master the content to get the ultimate results.
Interact with your users
Your students and group members may discuss with one another on a specific problem but it feels good to them when they see that you are replying to their concerns. This proves to them that you care for their concerns and are always trying to help them out. So take time to go through all the comments, like them, reply to them, and monitor for any negative comment or hate speech.
Paid promotions
Be prepared to put some ad money behind your posts to reach a new audience. Social media advertisements are easier and often less priced. Use social media advertising tools to refine your audience to a specific level. Paid promotions on social media platforms deliver the best results against your ad expenditure.
Wrapping Up
There is a deep connection between online LMS courses and social media platforms. An online educator can be in front of the right audience and connect with them better via these platforms. The prospects can also gain insight on which course to choose and how they will get benefited by it. So being very careful while choosing the preferred social media platforms is imperative for all the online educators in the market.