WE'RE still technically under the Recovery Movement Control Order but most businesses are already operating in full swing.
However, with consumer sentiment being low, it's not easy getting customers to buy things or to pay for services.
In this tough business environment, it's important to do social media marketing.
It's one of the most effective ways to get your message across to your target audience. Almost everyone is on social media, whether it's Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn or a combination of these and others.
So familiarity with social media is high. But knowing how to use social media to share pictures and videos with friends is very different from using social media platforms for marketing purposes.
Fortunately, there are a lot of online learning programmes to educate yourself about social media marketing. You don't have to go to some school or institute to learn such things. Just go online.
There are plenty of blogs and YouTube videos that teach you about social media marketing. However, the problem with free content is that the quality can sometimes be suspect. You may have to go through a lot of low-quality content to get to the good ones. It makes much more sense to just pay for quality content. Online courses can vary in pricing, from very cheap to rather expensive.
One of the most affordable platforms to have emerged recently is something called Domestika (www.domestika.org), a platform for creative professionals from around the world to share their knowledge.
They have a lot of courses on photography and graphic design but also quite a few on social media.
SAVVY ON SOCIAL MEDIA
Some examples of social media courses that you may be interested in are:
* Google Ads and Facebook Ads from Scratch (a course by Arantxa & Guille, a pair of digital marketing consultants from Spain);
* Development of a Digital Media Plan (a course by Foncho Ramírez-Corzo, a consultant from Peru); and
* Brand Strategy on Instagram (a course by Julieta Tello, a business coach from the UK).
Each of the courses on Domestika is usually priced between US$10 and US$12, which is very affordable even when converted into ringgit. They also have course bundles which cost less per course.
Another really good platform for learning social media marketing is LinkedIn, which has a "Learning" channel with lots of courses to choose from.
Examples of social media-related courses are Introduction to Social Media Strategy, Social Media Marketing for Small Business and Introduction to Facebook Ads.
The pricing model for LinkedIn Learning is different from Domestika's. Course are charged on a monthly basis. It costs US$30 per month if you pay monthly and US$20 per month if you pay annually.
This might seem like a lot if you convert the fees into ringgit but if you think about the broad expanse of knowledge and expertise that will be made available to you if you're a subscriber, it's actually a bargain. And if you're already a LinkedIn member, you can try it free for a month.
There are also premium courses out there that cost a lot more but these are highly specialised and offer interactivity that the cheaper courses don't.
Take, for example, Facebook Marketing School (https://fbmarketingschool.com), a course by Khalid Hamadeh, an ex-employee of Facebook.
Khalid is uniquely qualified to teach about Facebook marketing as he has been involved with Facebook Ads since he got out of university in 2014, where he worked on Coca-Cola's agency team for the Middle East and North Africa region.
In 2015, he began work as the primary Facebook ads buyer for Procter & Gamble Canada, which was the single largest Facebook ads buyer in Canada.
This job required him to work closely with Facebook, and eventually the company offered him a job in 2016. At Facebook HQ, he worked with some of the biggest brands like Netflix, eBay, Amazon, Uber and Microsoft.
Khalid left in 2019 to start his own businesses, including a consultancy to help other start-ups scale their Facebook marketing efforts.
Eventually this led him to creating his own course which he sells for US$497 for lifetime access. (He offers a 30-day money back guarantee in case you're not satisfied with the course).
That may sound like a lot of money to spend on an online course but you don't just get a static course. He releases new lessons based on product updates, new insights and developments, as well as student feedback.
Every two weeks, he runs a Live Q&A Sessions with enrolled students of the course, who can ask him anything, whether it's related to the course content, a specific marketing scenario they're in, or new product updates and trends.
He also maintains a private Facebook Group where he and his students engage with each other.
"My strategies are based on an understanding of the underlying algorithms, which I teach students at the beginning of the course," he said in an e-mail reply to one of my questions.
"My strategies have been tested in randomised controlled experiments — so there's statistical confidence backing up any claim or recommendation I make in the course."
Oon Yeoh is a consultant with experiences in print, online and mobile media. Reach him at oonyeoh@gmail.com.