Social media marketing

(Also a course module of the E-Marketing Professional certificate, Services SETA Accredited, No. 2612, NQF6)

This intensive workshop examines how best to use the engagement power of social marketing phenomena, and how these can be integrated with traditional online communication approaches. It examines online markets, clarifies the issues, and shows you how to jumpstart your use of the web as a vehicle for building profitable relationships with the online consumer.

You will leave this course not only with a great understanding of how new web media can be used individually or in combination, but also with a practical ability to create your own innovative social media marketing tactics. What is more you will be equipped with an arsenal of best practices, inspiring and enlightening examples, and guidelines for staying in tune with developments in the future.

You will learn:
• Key concepts and technologies in non-technical terms
• Creative constraints and innovative opportunities
• Conversation marketing: the web as a communications medium
• Advertising and PR in a social media world
• Best web 2.0 tactics for branding and response
• Key rules for engaging the new consumer
• Using blogs, RSS, podcasting in PR and marketing
• How to leverage social media for great search engine rankings
• Creative ways to use online video as a marketing channel
• Key trends in mobile marketing
• Integrating mobile with offline/online campaigns
• Marketing with Facebook, Twitter and other social networks
• How to exploit Facebook branded pages, groups, and widgets
• Production and tracking processes, and the metrics available for analysing success
• Using the Social Marketing Lens to magnify and focus your online presence

We can help you develop a digital strategy for your business that will captivate your customers, grow your markets, and leave your competitors in your dust.

Why Social Media Marketing?

There are dramatic changes happening in South Africa for marketers, for ad agencies and for traditional media. Every professional engaged with branding or promotion, whether as a buyer of services, a provider of services, or a supplier of media, has to get on top of the disruptions and opportunities that the web is sweeping in.

What people online say about your brand carries louder and further than anything you can say in traditional media. Marketers have to be part of the conversation. That can mean major changes in the way you manage or communicate your brand. You need to be able to:

• Choose and integrate the most appropriate customer engagement tactics
• Know how to set up and execute social marketing tactics
• Innovate in social media for dramatic, cost-effective brand building
• Learn the ground rules for building relationships with the new consumer

This course will get your social media skills up to speed and focused, so you can accomplish all this and more.

Course Leader

The social media marketing course is led by Godfrey Parkin, a digital strategist, e-marketer, author, USB-ED faculty member and international internet business veteran, who has advised some of the world's largest corporations.

Date: 01 August 2011
Venue: Winchester Mansions, Sea Point, Cape Town
Cost: R2600 (incl VAT, lunch, refreshments, course material & certificate)