Online Course Tips and Tricks with Rob from Thinkific

KEY TAKEAWAYS COVERED IN THE PODCASTA lot of brands are educating their prospects to share their authority and knowledge prior to asking them to purchase or sign-up for something. Online courses help you offer more content than you can via any other medium. You can use videos, audio, quizzes and more.Anyone in any industry can create and use an online course! Hula hoopers make online courses. Those who are experts in Excel use online courses. They truly are for anyone!Your social media strategy will differ depending on the platform you use. Instagram might be a bit more laid back versus Facebook, and even more laid back than LinkedIn, which is a bit more formal.Content is incredibly important, but it doesn’t work if no one sees it. That’s where social media comes in.To easily curate your content, create a content plan that’s easy to follow.Decide what type of post you’ll make on each day. This makes it easy to create content, generate ideas and curate simply.When you’re taking a blog and repurposing it, use Easel to make all of your images. It allows you to duplicate it into any social media dimension easily.THE ONE THING YOU NEED TO REMEMBER ABOVE ALL ELSE…It’s never about us, it’s about the people we’re serving! Focus on the customer above all else, no matter what it is you’re doing. Whether it’s creating a course, marketing your business or posting on social media, put your customer and their needs first!HIGHLIGHTS YOU SIMPLY CAN'T MISSWhat industries can benefit from online courses? – 08:00How online courses are disrupting education – 11:54Rob’s background in digital marketing and social media – 16:37Social media is a big part of any marketing strategy – 21:18It’s all about the customer, always – 27:40How to generate social media ideas – 36:08Using and repurposing existing content – 40:08LINKS TO RESOURCES MENTIONED IN TODAY'S EPISODEThinkificEpisode 25: Why and How to Repurpose Your Content to Maximize Its Potentialeasel.ly.comTranscript below Hello, and welcome to episode 33 of the Social Media Marketing Made Simple Podcast, and I'm your host, Teresa Heath-Wareing. I hope you have had a great day, whatever you're doing. And if you are looking for a podcast that helps you understand social media marketing and how to use it for your business, as well as other tips and tools and tricks and strategies around running a business, than you are in the right place.Now, this week we are doing another interview, which is really cool. And I am really pleased to introduce to you the lovely Rob from Thinkific. Rob and I met in San Diego back in March when we were attending Social Media Marketing World, and I managed to get some time with him and the Thinkific team and have a breakfast, which was really, really lovely. And I decided back then it would be great to get them on the podcast and great for them to, not only talk about the online platform that they have, which is Thinkific, where you can basically build a course online for free. They have a free version of their platform, but also one of the things that they do really well is they do really nice social media. I love the way that they are able to be very personable, considering they are a platform.And sometimes that can be quite hard to do, but they do a really good job with their social media. So I wanted to get Rob on for two reasons. One, because I love their platform and it's a great platform for you to look at if you want to do an online course. And two, because I love how they do their social media. So Rob is part of the Thinkific marketing team, and in July 2016, he joined Thinkific in the support and onboarding team. And then he moved into marketing. And [inaudible 00:02:07] managers Thinkific social media and community channels. We had a great chat about all things social media, about managing social media for a platform company, and being a social media manager for our business.We also talked about why online courses have been so popular and are increasing in popularity, and some of the amazing case studies that they've got. It's a really cool episode if you are looking to start an online course or if you are managing social media and you just want to find out what some of the ideas they have, and how they manage their social media platform. And he's a lovely guy and it's a great conversation. So I'm really excited to bring this one to you. So without further ado, please welcome Rob.Rob, welcome to the podcast. I am so excited to have you here.I am super excited, super honoured be on your podcast. Thank you so much.No problem. So as I said in the intro, Rob and I met in San Diego this year. Gosh, that feels like such a long time ago. Feels like last year, definitely this year. And I've seen you guys previously, I'd been following you guys. I know what you do, and then I got to meet you and have breakfast with you. And it was fab. So when we started the podcast, I knew that I wanted to bring on key people and also people who knew particular things in different industries. So you guys are a great fit for that, but my audience doesn't know, if they've not heard of Thinkific before. Could you just briefly tell us what you guys do and what the platform's about?Sure, yeah, yeah. Absolutely. So Thinkific is a online course platform. So it's a software as a service, and it helps entrepreneurs, brands, creators really use online courses to sell it as a profit, for a fee or to use it to train their customers for retention or for lead generation. So really, it helps all types of businesses and entrepreneurs leverage technology to get their knowledge out there, get their content out there, in an easy way. So that's really what really Thinkific is.It's something that is not new as such, but it's still growing. I feel like, from my point of view, and I think possibly over in the states and Canada, it might have grown a bit quicker than we have over here in the UK, but I think online courses is a real area of growth and something that I've looked at, loads of people I know look at, and I think one of the reasons they're doing it is because it's this additional revenue stream or revenue stream, kind of this dream of making money while you sleep. Sounds so easy, I believe it's really not that easy. And why do you think that people are really kind of coming into this online teaching type side?So there's a lot of ways ... I think there's a lot of reasons why people are coming to online courses now. You know, a lot of people are, even as lead magnets, people are using online courses, They used to share PDFs or video series, or that kind of thing, but people don't really like to be sold. So I think a lot of brands and a lot of entrepreneurs are now educating their prospects, I guess you want to call it, educating their prospects to share their authority, share their knowledge in that space before asking them to sign up to something or purchase something. So it's a way to really get your name out there, get your knowledge out there, to show off your authority and knowledge in particular topics, and to attract those potential prospects into your world.And that's really interesting actually because I guess I had never thought naively of a course as a lead magnet. Now, one of my lead magnets is a five email mini course. So I literally just emailed the content out and it's just text within an email. But I'd never really thought about actually using a course of some sort or a mini course as a lead magnet itself. That's such a good idea, isn't it? And maybe just using a small course, building up to the sale of a big course, could be one of the ways to then convert them into a sale maybe.Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, that's a great way to do it as well as just an email course, but an online course actually helps you with other aspects. You can use quizzes, you can kind of see which students are completing which lessons and consuming that content, so you can do a little more sort of digging into that topic and giving more value. You can use videos, audios, presentation slides, you can do that all within sort of your platform, so you can kind of see all of the different things that your students and your prospects are doing in there. So yeah, it comes off as a little bit different than just a straight content push.And actually, one thing you've just said there that is so good is the fact that people don't want to learn just by one way, do they any more? We are so used to this crazy multimedia world we're in of videos and audio and images and gifs, and whatever it might be, that actually we want to learn more that style than necessarily ... If I have to read anything, if I'm totally honest, I'm a nightmare. I don't want to read anything. If someone could show me a video, I would much rather watch that video. So yeah, I think that's a fantastic way, a much more interactive way in order to get that content across. Isn't it?That's the truth. What industries can benefit from online courses? Do you guys see that online courses ... because so many people are really excited about online courses, because of the fact that there's this revenue stream, and some people ... I've had amy on the show, I mean she has built her entire career, and a very successful career, in selling online courses. So it's not just as a side hustle...