Learning Social Media Marketing
Samir Balwani is one of the co-contributors in the Project Jump Start ‘09 – DD’s Mini-Stimulus Plan, and he’s generally just an all-around nice guy, who also happens to have some good marketing experiences that we can all learn from. So when he emailed me to see if I would be interested in giving feedback on his new, soon to be live, social media training course*, I didn’t hesitate to say yes (mainly because I’m curious to see what my friends are doing).
Samir describes the course as:
Social media lessons to empower your marketing, guaranteed!
Left the Box Membership is a premier program to teach you how to best utilize social media. Learn how to engage with your consumers, build customer loyalty, and create buzz around your brand. Social media is the future of marketing, are you ready for it?
Ok, fair enough, one of the very best ways you can create buzz for your site is to intelligently engage in social media marketing. And to be honest, so many people do social media marketing completely wrong that a good, solid education in this method of marketing is definitely needed. I had no doubt that Samir had the qualifications to teach such a course. What I wanted to find out was whether or not he could pull it off in such a way that it would accomplish two things:
- Is the material presented in such a way that everyone can understand it?
- Is the material comprehensive enough to really cover everything someone needs to know to effectively manage a social media marketing campaign?
For me, those two things make all the difference between a good course and a bad one. It must be easy to understand, and it must be comprehensive enough to be useful. Does Samir’s course pass both those tests?
Let’s start with the first test; is it easy to understand? Samir passed this test with flying colors. The lessons are well laid out, in easily-digestible sections, with each one flowing to the next logically. In addition, the writing style is clear and concise, and there are plenty of supporting resources included to supplement the content presented. If for some reason, however, you are left confused about something, the private members forum is always there to clear things up. Just ask for help, and you’ll get the answers you need.
Great, but what about the total scope of the course? Is it comprehensive enough to cover everything we need to know to effectively start and manage a social media campaign? I’m going to have to make some educated guesses on this one. You see, I can’t answer it fully. Why? Because the course is an 8-week course, and I haven’t gone through the 8 weeks yet. However, I do have enough information to make some well educated guesses.
- If all of the lessons are as comprehensive as the first, then it should be enough to accomplish the goal. I say “enough” because I don’t think the course will cover every single aspect that could possibly be covered based on what I’ve seen. So, no, it may not have every fact available on the subject. However, if it did, it would probably be too overwhelming anyway. From what I can tell, it looks as though it will have enough information to keep everyone on the right track, allowing them to make wise decisions, without overwhelming them and confusing them along the way.
- If the supplemental resources, templates and tools of each lesson are as useful as the ones I’ve already seen, then they will go a long way in rounding out this course’s full complement of information.
So is something like this worth doing, and is it worth paying for? I’d say that depends upon how you value your time. If you’ve got lots more time than you have money, then you can probably figure everything out for yourself by trawling through lots of blog posts and forums, and weeding out the good information from the bad for yourself. That’s how many of us learned what we know over the years (and it can take years doing it that way). Of course, we didn’t have access to courses such as this either, way back when we began. Membership sites and classes are a "relatively" new phenomenon, but they can be very useful if they are done well. I think Samir has created one that has the right information, for an important topic, at a good price point, so I’d say this one is worth paying for. And of course, he offers a 30-day money-back guarantee, so even if you disagree, you aren’t left feeling as though you’d made a mistake.
By the way, I have to commend Samir on creating such a well-designed course. I’ve often considered creating a few of these myself to supplement my eBuzz Coach service, but I just honestly haven’t found the time to do it. I know it would be a huge undertaking and would require a massive amount of my time, so it’s been put aside many times. Since I haven’t created a social media marketing course of my own, then I’m glad to be able to tell all of you about Samir’s instead. Without taking the entire course first, I can’t guarantee all the lessons will be exactly what you need, but luckily Samir guarantees it, so that’s what really counts.
I also see that he has a form on the site that you can fill out to sign up for the waiting list. By doing so, you’ll be among the first to know when they go live and get a discount too. I don’t know what the discount is, but as far as I’m concerned, any discount is a good discount! LOL.
The membership page gives specifics on the course, so I won’t repeat them here. But basically, if you’re looking to understand how you can best use social media, Samir’s membership program could take you from zero to marketing hero in 8 short weeks.
*(Full disclosure: I was granted the opportunity to test the service for free. In addition, I signed up for the affiliate program, so yes, links to the site are affiliate links. Any comments I make about the service include both positive and negative elements, as do all of my reviews about products or services).
Tags: eBuzz Coach, Samir Balwani, social media, Social media lessons, Social Media Marketing, social media marketing course, social media training course
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An ebusiness coach, web developer, Internet Marketer, SEO, and all around web geek who makes her living from home doing all of the above.
Thanks so much for the review Donna! I’m glad you liked the site, and I hope you continue to find it useful.
I’m sure I will continue to find it useful, and if I don’t, then you’ll be the first to hear about it!