Want your online course to sell like hotcakes? Generating buzz on social media is key. In this guide, we'll share 9 clever ways to promote your online course on social media.
Imagine this scenario: You spent months creating an online course that you know your audience will love. But when you launch it, all you got were crickets — just radio silence.
That would be devastating on your part, for sure. But instead of giving up and throwing your online course out of the window, you should figure out why no one enrolled in your course.
While you are confident that your course will help people get amazing results, will that be enough reason to convince them to enroll? And who are these people in the first place?
In this post, we will share with you nine actionable ways to use social media to promote your online course.
1. Run Facebook Advertisements
One of the best ways to promote your online course is through Facebook ads. And this is not just because you can get a lot of eyeballs on your course.
When running Facebook Ads, you can set your audience parameters such as age group, gender, location, and interest. This ensures that you are only targeting Facebook users who will be interested in taking your course.
Say, you are an interior decorator, and you have an online course about basic interior decorating. Who do you think would be more inclined to enroll in your course: Those who are interested in fashion or those who are interested in home decor?
Definitely, you should target your ads to people who are interested in home decor. Doing so can help you secure a high return on investment for every penny you spend on Facebook ads.
Running an ad on Facebook also comes with other benefits such as Insights, where you can analyze and measure the success of your ad campaign.
There is also the Lookalike Audience; wherein Facebook will help you look for users who are similar to your existing audience. By “existing audience,” we mean your website visitors or email newsletter subscriber.
2. Engage in Facebook Groups
Here is what you need to understand about promoting your online course (or online marketing in general). It is not about posting “Enroll Now!” all the time, especially if you are new to the field.
Even if you convince them that a $1,000 online course could help them rake in $1,000,000 profit, they will not buy it if they do not know who you are. Before you can encourage people to enroll in your online course, you need to establish your expertise first. And the best way to do that is by joining Facebook Groups.
Join groups that are relevant to your course. For example, you are a fitness coach. You can join weight loss groups on Facebook.
But of course, you should not join Facebook groups just to promote your online course. In fact, doing so can get you kicked out and banned from the group.
Instead, post helpful and valuable content. Answer questions to the best of your knowledge. And if you come to the point wherein members are starting to interact with you privately, that is the time that you can offer them your online course for more information.
3. Share Tips Related to Your Course Topic
As mentioned earlier, join Facebook groups where you can showcase your knowledge and expertise. And the best way to do that is by sharing quick and actionable tips.
So, if you are a fitness coach, then you can share some workout tips for weight loss. You can even create eye-catching images so you can get your audience’s attention. Videos can also work when you are sharing workout steps.
You can even create a series of images that answer frequently asked questions on the group. That way, you can convince then that you know your thing like the back of your hand. This can eventually lead to driving more enrollees to your online course.
4. Offer a Free Lesson
Offering a free lesson is a great way to convince your target audience to enroll in your online course. Your lesson can be the first part of your online course.
Using our fitness coach example earlier, your free course can be about the different types of weight-loss strategies that people can do.
Offering a free lesson can help you:
Establish your qualification as a fitness coach
Provide value to your target audience
Give them a glimpse of what your online course would look like
Convince them to enroll
To maximize the number of audiences that you can reach, you can even invite another fitness coach.
But aside from maximizing audience reach, having another coach in your free lesson means that your attendees can get more insights and valuable information. As the adage goes, “Two heads are better than one.”
You can definitely promote your online course at the end of your lesson. Just remember to explain what is included in your course, the platform you will use, and your payment methods and schemes. You will never know which of your potential students would weigh these as important deciding factors.
You can also opt to offer discounts to those who attended your free lesson. That way, you are making your online course more enticing.
5. Share Free Content
Much like offering a free lesson, one way to promote your online course is by giving away free content. It can be a lengthy blog post, a free ebook, an infographic, or a template.
What’s cool about offering free content is that you can utilize it to make your online course rank on search engines like Google and Bing. Not to mention that it is another great way to showcase your expertise.
Who would believe that you are a fitness coach if you are not producing any fitness content, right?
You can also take advantage of your free content to capture your audience’s name and email address. From there, you can use their contact information to promote your online course.
However, you can only reap these benefits if you can produce valuable content. And by valuable, we mean content that resonates with your readers, who can be your potential students.
6. Host a Facebook or Instagram Live
Much like offering a free lesson, you can also host a Facebook Live or Instagram Live to promote your online course.
Some ideas for a social media live is Q and A session, a free webinar, or an interview series with the industry leaders.
A Facebook or Instagram Live allows you to give your audience a glimpse of what your course will be. Not to mention that you can engage with them wherever they are, as long as they are connected to the Internet.
What’s cool about Facebook Live is that it will be saved as a video post on your timeline once it is done. That way, people can come back and rewatch it.
Again, this is a great way to establish that you are an expert in your niche. Not to mention that it is a great opportunity for you to provide value to your audience and promote your online course.
In fact, it is easier to convince people who watched and commented on your Facebook Live to enroll in your course. That’s because they already showed interest in what you have to say.
7. Hold a Free Webinar
Just like with offering free content, a free webinar is a great way to capture your audience’s name and email addresses. That way, you can nurture them through your newsletters before coaxing them to enroll in your online course.
Just remember to have a webinar topic that is relevant to your course and resonates with your audience. And do not forget to hold a 10 - 15 minutes of Q and A session to get your viewers involved in the webinar.
From there, you can promote your online course and can even offer a discount to your attendees.
8. Give an Exclusive Discount
As mentioned earlier, offering exclusive discounts is a great way to encourage people to enroll in your online course.
You can run Facebook ads that offer a discount on your online course or make it available to your email subscribers only. You can also offer a different set of discount to those who joined your Facebook Live or webinar.
Just be careful not to show varying discounts to the same person as this could lead to confusion. Thus, you should segment your email newsletter and Facebook ads accordingly.
However, offering discount might not be enough. If you want to boost your number of enrollees, try creating a sense of urgency by offering your discount in a limited time. That way, it will not have a negative impact on your business.
When done right, you can see a surge in the number of enrollees as well as an improvement in revenue.
9. Share Student Testimonials
If this is not the first time that you launched your course, then you have a handful of student testimonials with you. That’s because they provide social proof, which you can leverage to boost your number of enrollees.
You can add your student testimonials on your sales page and on social media. As Jessica Davis of Godot Media pointed out, “When a testimonial is shared on social media, it helps to arouse curiosity from potential students and direct them to your website.”
When a potential student lands on your website, and he saw a student testimonial, it serves as proof of the value that your online course can provide to people. Aside from that, you can also make a video testimonial, as it is especially powerful.
But if it is your first time to launch an online course, and you are yet to collect testimonials, what you can do is run a beta test to a limited number of people. Ask who among your Facebook friends would be interested in getting limited access to your course in exchange for a testimonial.
Are You Ready to Promote Your Online Course on Social Media?
You have exerted time and effort (and even spend some money) on creating your online course. So, you have to make sure that you will not receive crickets once you launch. This is where social media promotion could come in handy.
So, which of these mentioned tips would you like to try? Let us know in the comments.
Kevin Urrutia is the founder of voymedia, a Facebook Ads Agency based in New York. He helps businesses maximize the benefits of Facebook Advertising, leading to a dramatic improvement in sales while pushing down costs. Voy Media thoroughly studies each client and comes up with tailor-fit solutions to bring about the best results.